1. Philosophy of Education
1.1. Generic Notions
1.1.1. Children are active, organic beings, growing and changing, and thus require a course of study that will reflect their particular stages of development.
1.2. Key Researchers
1.2.1. George Sanders Pierce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910), and John Dewey (1859-1952).
1.3. Goal of Educaation
1.3.1. The importance of the school is a place where ideas can be implemented, challenged, and restructured, with the goal of providing students with the knowledge of how to improve the social order. School should provide children with experience.
1.4. Role of Teacher
1.4.1. Teachers no longer take on the role of the authoritarian but assumes the position of the facilitator. The teacher encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study.
1.5. Method of Instruction
1.5.1. Carefully orchestrated classroom with children going about learning in nontraditional yet natural ways.
1.6. Curriculum
1.6.1. The curriculum generally follows Dewey's notion of a core curriculum, or an integrated curriculum.
2. Equality of Oppurtunity
2.1. Educational achievement and attainment of females.
2.1.1. Women are now attending post-secondary institutions than man, although it is true that many of the post secondary institutions that women attend are less academically and socially prestigious than those post secondary institutions attended by men.
2.1.2. According to the achievement gaps, females achieve at higher levels in reading at ages 9, 13, and 17; females achieve at slightly higher levels in mathematics at age 9 and at lower levels at age 13 and 17; and females achieve at lower levels in science at ages 9, 13, and 17.
2.1.3. Recent studies show data from the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia indicate that girls have caught up to boys in almost all measures of academic achievement while liberals argue that the increase demonstrates the success of educational reform and the conservatives argue that the decline in male achievement is due to the result of "feminizing" the classroom.
2.1.4. Today, women are less likely to drop out of school and are more likely to have a higher reading and writing level than males.
2.2. Response to the Coleman Study
2.2.1. In round two of the Coleman study, subsequent studies compared public and private schools with the results of private schools a "doing it better" particularly for low income students.
2.2.2. Catholic schools seem to advantage low income minority students, especially in urban areas however, they are also becoming more elite and like suburban public schools.
3. Politics of Education
3.1. Liberal
3.1.1. The liberal view became dominant during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and took on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes insisting that the role of the government is to ensure the fair treatment of all citizens.
3.1.2. Believes that society must attempt through policies and programs to equalize the playing field so that students from disadvantaged backgrounds have a better chance. They support the quality of equality which is quality for all students with equality of opportunity. They also support programs that are based on effective school research or "what works".
3.1.3. The liberal perspective sees the role of education as balancing the needs of society and the individual in a manner that is consistent with a democratic and meritocratic society. They stress the role of teaching children to respect cultural diversity so that they understand and fit into a diverse society.
3.2. Progressivism
3.2.1. Progressive visions tend to view the schools as central to solving social problems, as a vehicle for upward mobility, as essential to the development of individual potential, and as an integral part of a democratic society.
3.2.2. Progressives believe that the schools should be a part of the steady progress to make things better.
3.2.3. The progressive visions encompasses the liberal views and traditional can also cover some of the liberal views. In this case progressivism is entangled with the liberal views.
4. Schools as Organizations
4.1. Major Stakeholders in the State of Alabama and Jackson County
4.1.1. Alabama House of Representatives include Bradly Byrne, Martha Roby, Mike Rogers, Robert Aderholt, Mo Brooks, Gary Palmer, and Terri A. Sewell. The Alabama State Senators include Richard C. Shelby (R) and Jeff Sessions (R).
4.1.2. The Interim State of Alabama Superintendent is Dr. Philip Cleveland. Alabama State Board of Representatives include: Governor Robert J. Bently (president), Philip C. Cleveland (Interim Secretary and Executive Officer), Jerry Newman (vice president), Yvette Richardson (President Pro tem), Matthew S. Brown (District 01), Betty Peters (District 02), Stephanie Bell (District 03), Ella B. Bell (District 05), Cynthia Sanders McCarty (District 06), Mary Scott Hunter (District 08).
4.1.3. Jackson County Alabama Superintendent is Dr. Bart Reeves and the Jackson County school board consists of Mr. John Lyda (president), Mr. Cecil Gant (vice president), Mr. Kenneth Storey, Mr. Chad Gorham, and Mr. Charles West.
4.2. France and the Educational System
4.2.1. The educational system in France is quite centralized compared to the U.S. and Great Britain. In France the central government controls the educational system which is highly stratefied.
4.2.2. French students are taught to frame ideas almost as an end unto itself, even as a matter of aesthetics. This sense of using language aesthetically is closely related to the importance placed on intellectual attainment within the French system.
4.2.3. In France there have been few reform efforts, especially at the structural level, due to the socialist government proposing to reduce State grants to private Catholic schools in 1984. In the past decade, the French educational system has become a little more democratic with students enrolling in some form of higher education and completing some form of post-secondary occupational education.
5. Curriculum and Pedagogy
5.1. One historical curriculum theory that you would advocate.
5.1.1. The social efficiency curriculum approach developed in the early 20th century as a putatively democratic response to the development of mass public secondary education.
5.1.2. It was rooted with the belief that different groups of students with different sets of needs and aspirations, should receive different types of schooling.
5.1.3. Emerged from the progressive visions of John Dewey about the need for individualized and flexible curriculum.
5.2. One Sociological curriculum theory that you would advocate.
5.2.1. The modern functionalist theory, developed in the United States through the works of Talcott Parsons and Robert Dreeben.
5.2.2. This theory stressed the role of the schools in preparing students for the increasingly complex roles required in a modern society.
5.2.3. Functionalists theories believe that schools teach students the values that are essential to a modern society. The schools teach to respect each other, to respect differences, and to base their opinions on knowledge rather than tradition.
6. History of U.S. Education
6.1. Progressive Education Movement
6.1.1. The movement in which John Dewey became associated with and is part of a broader program of social and political reform.
6.1.2. One strand of Progressive education was the child-centered reform. This reform, by G. Stanley Hall, suggested that schools should tailor their curriculums to the stages of child development and suggested that schools individualize instruction and attend to the needs and interests of the children they educate.
6.1.3. The opposite progressive reform was the social engineering reform. This reform was proposed by Edward L. Thorndike and believed that schools could change human beings in a positive way. He also believed that schools should be a meaningful experience for students and that schools should prepare students to earn a living.
6.2. Historical Interpretation
6.2.1. Thomas Jefferson believed that the best safegaurd for democracy was a literate population and proposed a bill which would provide free education to all children.
6.2.2. Jefferson believed that if people possessed enough education that they could make informed decisions. Jefferson's bill also provided for a limited meritocracy within the educational structure.
6.2.3. Jefferson was ahead of his time because the majority of the state legislators agreed that the state should not be involved in educating its inhabitants and that in any event, Jefferson's proposal required funds far beyond those possessed by the state of Virginia at that time.
7. Sociological Perspectives
7.1. Relationship between School and Society
7.1.1. Functional theories views society as a kind of machine where one part articulates with another to produce energy to make society work. Emile Durkheim believed that education was of critical importance in creating the moral unity necessary for social cohesion. His values set the tone for how present-day functionalists approach the study of education. Educational reform is supposed to create structures, programs, and curricula to encourage social unity.
7.1.2. Conflict theorist Karl Max believed that the only way to a more just and productive society is the modification of capitalism and the introduction of socialism. Max Weber was convinced that power relations between dominant and subordinate groups structured society and made the distinction between specialist and the cultivated man. Willard Waller believed that schools would erupt into anarchy because students were forced to go to school. Randall Collins believed that diplomas were not an actual achievement. Bourdieu and Passeron related knowledge and experiences to art, music, and "social capital". Lareau believed that child bearing and schooling contributed to the reproduction of social and educational inequalities. Basil Bernstein analyzed that family and education contributed to social and educational inequalities.
7.1.3. Interactional theories about the relation of school and society are primarily critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict perspectives. These theories attempt to make the commonplace strange by turning on their heads everyday taken-for-granted behaviors and interactions between students and students, and between students and teachers.
7.2. Three Effects of Schooling on Individuals
7.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes: There are sharp divisions amount researchers about how significant school effects are, when taking into accounts students' social class background. The differences between school in terms of their academic programs and policies do make differences in student learning. It has been found that the actual amount of time students spend in school is directly related to how much they learn.
7.2.2. Employment: Research has shown that large organizations require high levels of education for white-collar, managerial, or administrative jobs. Many other factors besides education affect how much income people earn in their lifetime. Getting a college and professional degree is important for earning more money but does not explain differences in levels of income.
7.2.3. Education and Mobility: Civil religion is a term that means there is abiding faith among most Americans that education is the great equalizer in the great "great status race". In general Americans believe that more education leads to economic and social mobility. For middle class, increased education may be directly linked to upward occupational mobility.
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. Functionalist Explanation of Unequal Achievement
8.1.1. For functionalists, it is imperative to understand the sources of educational inequality so as to ensure the elimination of structural barriers to educational success and to provide all groups a fair chance to compete in the educational market place.
8.1.2. They expect that the schooling process will produce unequal results. It is possible that even with equality of opportunity there could be patterns of unequal results, although most functionalist would agree that this is highly unlikely. They believe that unequal education outcomes are the result of unequal educational opportunities.
8.1.3. Functionalists believe that the roles of schools is to provide a fair and meritocratic selection process for sorting out the best and brightest individuals, regardless of family background. It is the vision of a just society where individual talent and hard work based on universal principals of evaluation are more important than ascriptive characterists based on particularistic methods of evaluation.
8.2. School Centered Explanation (Gender Inequality)
8.2.1. Despite the difference of traditional male and female characteristics, feminists agree that schooling often limits the educational opportunities and life chances of women in a number of ways.
8.2.2. The first way is that curriculum materials portray men's and women's roles often in stereotypical and traditional ways. Second, the traditional curriculum "silences women" by committing significant aspects of women's history and lives from discussion. Third, the hidden curriculum reinforces traditional gender roles and expectations through classroom organization, instructional practices, and classroom interactions. Fourth, the organization of schools reinforces gender roles and gender inequalities.
8.2.3. Research in Great Britain and the U.S. indicates that gender gaps in achievement has diminished greatly. Females have begun to outperform males in certain subjects and has higher high school graduation rates and higher levels of college attendance and graduation. In both countries, policy makers have began to analyze in the reasons why boys have began to lag behind girls.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. School-Business Partnership Reform
9.1.1. During the 1980's several school-business partnerships were formed when business leaders became increasingly concerned that the nation's schools were not producing the kinds of graduates necessary for a revitalization of the U.S. economy. The most notable was the Boston Compact in 1982.
9.1.2. School-business partnerships have attracted considerable media attention, but there is little convincing evidence that they have significantly improved schools or that, as a means of reform, school-business partnerships will address the fundamental problems facing U.S. education.
9.1.3. Despite the considerable publicity that surrounds these partnerships, the fact is that in the 1980's, only 1.5% of corporate giving was to public primary and secondary public schools.
9.2. Mayoral Control and Political Reform
9.2.1. Mayoral control is similar to state takeover and is favored by the neo-liberals. It is argued that urban mayors and business leaders believe that centralizing governance into the mayor's office is more effective and efficient than traditional elected school boards.
9.2.2. Proponents argue that mayoral control eliminates corruption, leads to effective and efficient management and budgets, increases student achievement, and reduces the political battles endemic to elected school boards.
9.2.3. The evidence on mayoral control is mixed. Wong found that mayoral control resulted in modest improvements in student achievement and Henig found that non-mayoral cities had greater improvements. Moscovitch studied 9 cities and found that although there were achievement gains, it was impossible to attribute them casually to mayoral control.