1. Educational Inequality
1.1. Functionalists
1.1.1. Role of schools is to provide fair and meritocratic selection process for sorting out the best and brightest students, regardless of background.
1.1.2. Individual talent and hard work are most important.
1.1.3. Expect schooling process will produce unequal results, but results ought to be based on individual differences between students, not group differences.
1.2. Equality of Educational Opportunity
1.2.1. school differences are not the most significant explanatory variable.
1.2.2. Differences among groups of students had a greater impact on educational performance.
1.3. Within-school differences
1.3.1. possible that differences in the school such as ability grouping and curriculum tracking may explain these differences.
2. Cirriculum & Pedogogy
2.1. Developmentalist curriculum
2.1.1. Focuses on the needs and interests of the student.
2.1.2. Came from ideas of Piaget and Dewey.
2.1.3. Progressive approach; Student centered.
2.1.4. Teacher serves as a facilitator of student growth.
2.2. Modern functionalist
2.2.1. Developed through Talcott Parsons and Robert Dreeben.
2.2.2. Role of schooling is to prepare students for modern society.
2.2.3. Curriculum must change to meet new requirements of the modern world (technology).
2.2.4. Teaches general cognitive skills, values and norms essential to modern society.
3. Schools as Organizations
3.1. Student Composition
3.1.1. Becoming more diverse
3.2. International Comparisons
3.2.1. Most countries have a National Ministry or Dept of Ed. that is able to exert influence over the entire ed. system. Education in the US is inclusive in its purpose, most other systems are not as inclusive. Educational system is related to the culture from which it originates.
3.3. School Processes and Cultures
3.3.1. The school is a unity of interacting personalites (Waller). Schools are political which makes effecting change difficult.
3.4. Teachers
3.4.1. Responsible for student learning; will become key in educational reform in the future.
3.5. Teaching
3.5.1. Demanding profession; must be skilled in expertise and human relations; requires taking on many roles; many strategies that evolve into a teaching style.
3.6. Unqualified Teacher
3.6.1. Most teachers meet highly qualified standards of NCLB, however a significant number of classrooms are staffed by teachers who are not highly qualified in the particular subject taught.
3.7. Stakeholders in My State/District
3.7.1. Senators Sessions and Shelby; Representative Morrow; State Superintendent Bice; Franklin County superintendent Williams; Local board of education Shewbert
4. Philosophy of Education
4.1. Key researchers
4.1.1. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, George Hegel.
4.2. Generic Notions
4.2.1. Realists hold that matter exists independent of ideas.
4.3. Goal of Education
4.3.1. Help individuals understand and then apply the principles of science to help solve he problems plaguing the modern world.
4.4. Role of Teacher
4.4.1. Must be steeped in the basic academic disciplines; must present ideas in a clear and consistent manner; enable students to learn objective methods of evaluating such works.
4.5. Methods of Instruction
4.5.1. Lecture, Q&A, competency based assessment.
4.6. Curriculum
4.6.1. Science, math, reading and writing, humanities; Cultural literature.
5. Sociological Perspectives
5.1. Determinism
5.1.1. The issue of whether the individual actions are determined by external forces.
5.2. Voluntarism
5.2.1. Whether individuals are capable of freely shaping the world.
5.3. Sociological Perspective
5.3.1. recognizing human capacity for free will; emphasizes power that external forces have on individual choices.
5.4. Conflict Theory
5.4.1. Social order is not based on collective agreement, but on the ability of dominant groups to impose their will on subordinate groups through force, cooptation, and manipulation.
5.5. Socialization
5.5.1. The values, beliefs, and norms of society are i nternalized within children so they come to think and act like other members of society.
5.6. Interdependence
5.6.1. One part articulates with another to create the dynamic energy required to make society work.
5.7. Moral Values
5.7.1. Durkheim believed moral values were the foundation of society.
5.8. Weberian Approach
5.8.1. Analyze school organizations and processes from the point of view of status competition and organizational constraints.
5.9. Cultural Capital
5.9.1. Knowledge and experience related to art, music, and literature.
5.10. Social Capital
5.10.1. Social networks and connections.
6. History of U.S. Education
6.1. Older Deluder Law
6.1.1. 1st - Chastised parents for not attending to their children's ability to read and understand the principles and laws of the country and fined them.
6.1.2. 2nd - provided that every town that had "50 household" would appoint one person to teach all children to read and write. The town was required to pay the teachers wages. Towns that numbered "100 household" had to set up a grammar school. Towns that failed would be fined.
6.2. Meritocracy
6.2.1. The holding of power based on merit or ability.
6.2.2. Originally Jefferson's model of natural aristocracy.
6.3. Utilitarianism
6.3.1. Best seen through ideas of Benjamen Franklin.
6.3.2. Curriculum would be practical aspects of math such as accounting or natural history such as biology.
6.4. Civic Motive
6.4.1. Best illustrated through ideas of Thomas Jefferson.
6.4.2. Believed the best safeguard for democracy was a literate populated.
6.4.3. Proposed a bill that would provide free education to all children for first three years of elementary school.
6.5. Common School
6.5.1. Free publicly funded elementary schools.
6.5.2. Idea of Horace Mann.
6.6. Embryonic Community
6.6.1. Argued by John Dewey for a restructuring of schools in this manner.
6.6.2. The creation of a curriculum that would allow for the child's interests and developmental level while introducing "the point of departure from which the child can trace and follow the progress of mankind in history."
6.7. Child Centered Reform
6.7.1. Idea of G. Stanley Hall.
6.7.2. Believed that children, in their development, reflected the stages of development of civilization and thus schools should tailor their curriculum to the stages of child development.
6.8. Social-engineering reform
6.8.1. proposed by Edward L. Thorndike.
6.8.2. Believed that human nature could be altered depending on their education.
6.8.3. Believed that schools could change human beings in a positive way and that the methods and aims of pedagogy to achieve this would be scientifically determined.
7. Politics of Education
7.1. Progressivism Vision of Education
7.1.1. Views the school as central to solving social problems, a vehicle for upward mobility, essential to the development of individual potential, and an integral part of a democratic society.
7.2. Traditional Vision of Education
7.2.1. Views the school as necessary to the transmission of traditional values of U.S. society such as hard work, family unity, and individual initiative.
7.3. Conservative Perspective
7.3.1. Developed by William Sumner; Looks at social evolution as the process that enables the strongest to survive; Looks at human and social evolution as adaptation to changes in the environment.
7.4. Liberal Perspective
7.4.1. Created by John Dewey; Believes that the free market, is prone to significant abuses, particularly to those groups who are disadvantaged economically and politically.
7.5. Radical Perspective
7.5.1. Believes that democratic socialism is a fairer political-economic system; Based on the writings of Karl Marx; The capitalist system also produces fundamental contradictions that ultimately will lead to its transformation into socialism.
7.6. Neo Liberal Perspective
7.6.1. Stress five areas for education policy: Austerity, The market model, individualism, state intervention, and economic prosperity, race, and class.
8. Equality of Opportunity
8.1. Class
8.1.1. Students of different social classes have different educational experiences due to expenses.
8.2. Race
8.2.1. Race has an affect on how much education the individual will obtain.
8.3. Gender
8.3.1. Females are less likely to drop out of school than males.
8.3.2. Males out perform females in math.
8.4. Special Needs Students
8.4.1. Minority Students have been overrepreseted in special education classes.
8.4.2. Majority of students labeled as handicapped can be better served in general education classes.
9. Educational Reform & School Improvement
9.1. School-Business Partnerships
9.1.1. Boston Compact 1982 (most notable partnership)
9.1.2. school-business partnerships formed to help produce graduates that would revitalize the US economy.
9.2. Privatization
9.2.1. for-profit companies took over the management of failing schools and districts.
9.3. School-to-work Programs
9.3.1. Focused on skills necessary for successful employment and stressed the importance of work-based learning.
9.4. Education Equity Project
9.4.1. Stresses the independent power of schools by eliminating the achievement gap for low-income students.
9.4.2. Works to create an effective school for every child.
9.4.3. Works to ensure every school has a highly effective teacher and principal.
9.4.4. Creates system wide accountability.
9.4.5. Works to empower and encourage parents.
9.4.6. Focuses on what will be the best decision for the students.