1. Philosophy of Education
1.1. Realism
1.1.1. Aristotle and Plato are the philosophers associated with this idea.
1.1.2. Through Education, individuals learn to reason and thus become able to choose the path of moderation in their lives
1.1.3. Generic Notions
1.1.3.1. materail world or matter is real
1.1.3.2. ideas are important
1.1.4. Goal of Education
1.1.4.1. to help individuals understand and then apply principles of science to help solve the problems of the modern world.
1.1.5. Role of the teacher
1.1.5.1. should have a solid grounding in science , mathematics, and the humanities
1.1.5.2. teachers must present ideas in a clear and consistent manner and demonstrate that there are definitive ways to judge works of art, music, poetry, and literature.
1.1.5.3. teacher should enable students to learn objective methods of evaluating such works
1.1.6. Method of Instruction
1.1.6.1. Lecture
1.1.6.2. Question and Answer
1.1.6.3. competency-based assessments
1.1.7. Curriculum
1.1.7.1. Subject Based curriculum which consist of the basics. Students need to be instructed by the teacher and be assessed by test, discussion, debates, or homework.
1.1.7.1.1. Math
1.1.7.1.2. English and Language
1.1.7.1.3. Science
1.1.7.1.4. History and Geography
2. Schools as Organizations
2.1. Jackson County schools systems district 8 educational stakeholders along with important state and U.S stakeholders.
2.1.1. Senators
2.1.1.1. Richard Shelby
2.1.1.2. Jeff Sessions
2.1.2. State Senator
2.1.2.1. Senator Steve Livingston (R-8)
2.1.3. U.S Represntative
2.1.3.1. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-5)
2.1.4. State Representative
2.1.4.1. Rep. Ritchie Whorton (R-22)
2.1.5. Representative on State School Board District 8
2.1.5.1. Mary Scott Hunter
2.1.6. State Superintendent
2.1.6.1. Tommy Bice
2.1.7. Jackson County Superintendent
2.1.7.1. Kevin Dukes
2.1.8. Jackson County School Board
2.1.8.1. President is John Lyda
2.1.8.2. Kenneth Storey
2.1.8.3. Charles West
2.1.8.4. Cecil Gant
2.1.8.5. Chad Gorham
2.2. Why France's Educational System is different from the U.S Educational System
2.2.1. The central government in France controls the educational system right down to the classroom level
2.2.2. Traditionally , there have been two public school systems. One for ordinary people and one for the elite. There has been an attempt to create one comprehensive system.
2.2.3. For the acadimcally talented, usually from upper class families, there is a system of elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools that are highly selective, highly academic, and socially elite.
2.2.4. The French's Educational system is "excessively verbal." That is, French students are taught to frame ideas almost as an end to itself, even as a matter of aesthetics.
2.2.5. At one level, the objective of the French system is to produce a small number of highly qualified intellectuals. To identify this small group, the government has instituted a set of examinations that effectively sort out the academically talented from the less academically gifted.
2.2.6. Efforts to democratize the system have not succeeded. The French system continues to be centralized, competitive, and stratified.
3. Curriculum and Pedagogy
3.1. Historical Curriculum
3.1.1. The Humanist Curriculum
3.1.1.1. reflects the idealist philosophy that knowledge of the traditional liberal arts is the cornerstone of an educational citizenry.
3.1.1.2. the purpose of education is to present to students the best of what has been thought and written.
3.1.1.3. Traditionally this curriculum focused on the Western Heritage as the basis for inetellectual development, but some argue that the liberal arts need not to focus exclusively on the Western tradition.
3.1.1.4. This curriculum recommended that all secondary students, regardless of whether they intended to go to college should be liberally educated and should study English, foreign languages, mathematics, history, and science.
3.1.1.5. School curriculum needs to put an emphasis on the students cultural heritage.
3.1.1.6. A modeled elementary and secondary curriculum would emphasize the need to a traditional core of subjects and readings that would teach all students a common set of worthwhile knowledge and array of interllectual skills.
3.1.1.7. The purpose of schooling is to transmit a common body of knowledge in order to reproduce a common cultural heritage.
3.2. Sociological Curriculum
3.2.1. Functionalist Theroy
3.2.1.1. School curriculum represents the codification of the knowledge that students need to become competent members of society.
3.2.1.2. The curriculum transmits to students the cultural heritage required for a cohesive social system.
3.2.1.3. The role of the curriculum is to give students the knowledge, language, and values to ensure social stability, for without a shared common social order is not possible.
3.2.1.4. The modern functionalist theory stressed the role of schools in preparing students for increasingly complex roles required in modern society. This society is democratic, meritocratic, and expert society, and the school curriculum is designed to enable students to function in this type of society.
3.2.1.5. The specific content of the curriculum such as history or literature, is less important than the role of schools in teaching students how to learn.
3.2.1.6. Schools teach general cognitive skills, general values, and the norms essential to a modern society,
4. Equality of Opportunity
4.1. Educational Achievement and Attainment of Individuals with Special Needs.
4.1.1. In the late 1960's parents of children with special needs begin to put pressure on the educational system to better serve their children more appropriately and effectively. in 1975, Congress passed the Education of All Handicapped Children Law (EHA) that would guarantee that children with special needs were properly identified and placed in appropriate classes. The law was reauthorized in 1996 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
4.1.2. the EHA law included six basic principles: (1) the right of access to public education programs; (2) the individualization of services; (3) the principle of "least restrictive environment"; (4) the scope of broadened services to be provided by the schools and a set of procedures for determining them; (5) the general guidelines for identifying disability; (6) the principles of primary state and local responsibilities.
4.1.3. in the late 1980"s, critics of special education pushed the regular education initiative (REI), which called for mainstreaming children with disabilities into regular classes.
4.1.4. Critics of the REI argued that inclusion of the majority of students with special needs was unfair to both "regular" and special students, neither of whom would be served effectively.
4.1.5. Today, the field of special education remains in conflict and Controversies over REI and EHA continue.
4.1.6. What is needed is a flexible system that provides appropriate placements for students with special needs: an inclusion class for those who can function within it and a special class for students whose needs require a separate placement.
4.2. Responses to The Coleman Study (1966): Round One
4.2.1. There were two major responses to Coleman's findings. On one hand, other sociologists examined and reexamined Coleman's data. On the other hand, a group of minority scholars, led by Ron Edmonds of Harvard University, set about the task of defining those characteristics of schools that made them effective.
4.2.2. Edmonds argued strongly that all students could learn and that differences between schools had a significant impact on student learning.
4.2.3. In the sociological community, the debate concerning Coleman's findings produced a number of studies that more or less substantiated what Coleman and his colleagues had found. Despite the nation's best intentions, differences among schools are not powerful predictors of differences in student outcomes.
4.2.4. Where an individual goes to school has little effect on his or her cognitive growth or educational mobility. This seems to be a case where the data and common sense separate.
4.2.5. Can it be true that the characteristics of an academically elite school are relatively insignificant in terms of student outcomes? Clearly, the implications of these findings would leave one to believe that the road to equality of opportunity does not go through the schoolhouse door.
4.2.6. The political nature of these findings was explosive. After all, if the student body composition has such a major effect on student learning, then the policy implication is clearly that poor students should go to school with middle class students in order to equalize their educational opportunities. This assumption was the foundation that justifies busing students between schools and between school districts.
5. Sociological Perspectives
5.1. Theoretical perspectives
5.1.1. Functional
5.1.1.1. Functionalist tend to believe that in a highly integrated. well-functioning society, schools socialize students into the appropriate values and sort and select students according to their abilities.
5.1.1.2. Has a picture of a society that stresses the interdependence of the social system.
5.1.2. Conflict
5.1.2.1. from a conflict point of view, schools are social battlefields.
5.1.2.2. conflict sociologists do not see the relation between school and society as un-problematic or strait forward.
5.1.2.3. social order is not based on some collective agreement but the ability of dominant groups to impose their will on subordinate groups through force, cooperation, and manipulation.
5.1.3. interactional
5.1.3.1. International theories about the relation of school and society are primarily critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict perspectives.
5.2. Effects of schooling
5.2.1. Employment
5.2.1.1. Graduating from college will lead to more employment opportunities
5.2.2. Education and mobility
5.2.2.1. Most Americans believe that more education leads to economic and social mobility
5.2.2.2. Individuals rise and fall on their own merit.
5.2.3. Teacher Behavior
5.2.3.1. Teachers have a huge impact on student learning and behavior.
5.2.3.2. Teachers are models for students and set standards for influence for students and influence student self-esteem and sense of efficacy.
5.2.3.3. When teachers demand more out of their students and praise them more the more the students learned and felt better about themselves.
6. Politics of Education
6.1. Conservative
6.1.1. William Graham Sumner looks at social evolution as a process that enables the strongest individuals/and ot groups to survive
6.1.2. individuals and groups must compete in a social enviroment in order to survive.
6.1.3. human progress is dependent on individual initiative and drive.
6.1.4. individuals tend to make decisions on a cost-benefit scale.
6.1.5. The Reagan philosophy. (presented by Ronald Reagan) stressed individual initiative and portrayed the individual as the only one capable of solving his or her own problems.
6.1.6. school provides necessary educational training to ensure the most talented and hard working individuals receive the tools necessary to maximize economic and social productivity.
6.2. Tradtional
6.2.1. schools are necessary to the transmission of the traditional values of U.S society such as hard work, family unity, individual initiative, and so on.
6.2.2. schools should pass on the best of what was and what is
6.2.3. individual initiative
6.2.4. School helps prepare you for life.
6.2.5. recognition of right and wrong
6.2.6. Emphasis on content
7. History of U.S. Education
7.1. Historical interpretation of U.S. Education from a conservative perspective.
7.1.1. William Bennett, Chester Finn Jr. , Diane Ravitch, E.D Hirsch Jr and Allen Bloom were all conservative critics that argued that U.S students knew very little and that U.S schools were mediocre. They thought the so-called progressive education was a failure.
7.1.2. The conservatives also believed that the historical pursuit of social and political objectives resulted in significant harm to the traditional academic goals of schooling.
7.1.3. Diane Ravitch argued that the preoccupation with using education to solve social problems has not solved these problems and has simultaneously led to the erosion of educational excellence.
7.1.4. Bloom blames the universities for "watering down" their curriculum.
7.1.5. Hirsch blames the public schools for valuing skills over content
7.1.6. Bennett was the Secretary of education during the Reagan administration called for a return to traditional Western curriculum.
7.1.7. What all the conservative critics have in common is the vision that the evolution of U.S. Education has resulted in the dilution of academic excellence.
7.2. Educational Reaction and Reform and the Standard Era: 1980s-2012
7.2.1. in 1983, the National Commission of Excellence issued a now famous report, A Nation at Risk.
7.2.2. All students graduating from high school are to complete what was called the "new basics". Four years of English, three years of mathematics, three years science, three years of social studies, and a half a year of computer science.
7.2.2.1. "
7.2.3. schools at all levels expect higher achievement from their students and that four-year colleges and universities raise their admission requirements.
7.2.4. more time should be devoted to teaching the "new basics"
7.2.5. preparation for teachers had to be strengthened and teaching be made more respected and rewarded profession
7.2.6. Citizens require their elected representatives to support and fund these reforms.
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. Explanations of Unequal Educational Achievement from a Functionalist Perspective. .
8.1.1. Functionalist believe the role of schools is to provide a fair and meritocratic selection process for sorting out the best and the brightest individuals, regardless of family background.
8.1.2. The functionalist vision of a just society is one where individual talent and hard work based on universal principles of evaluation are more important than ascriptive characteristics based on particularistic methods of evaluation.
8.1.3. Functionalist expect that the schooling process will produce unequal results, but these results ought to be based on individual differences between students, not on group differences.
8.1.4. Functionalist believe that unequal educational outcomes are the result, in part, of unequal educational opportunities.
8.1.5. For functionalist, 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 marketplace.
8.2. School-Centered Explanations: Within-School Differences: Curriculum and Ability Grouping
8.2.1. Not only are there significant differences in educational achievement between schools but within schools as well. The fact that different groups of students in the same schools perform very differently suggests that there may be school characteristics affecting these outcomes. Ability grouping and curriculum grouping is an important organizational component of U.S. schooling.
8.2.2. In the elementary school level, students are divided into reading groups and separate classes based on teacher recommendations, standardized test scores, and sometimes ascritpive characteristics such as race. class, or gender. For the most part, elementary students receive a similar curriculum in these different groups, but it may also be taught at a different pace, or the teachers in the various groups may have different expectations for the different students.
8.2.3. At the secondary level, students are divided both by ability and curriculum, with different groups of students often receiving considerably different types of education within the same school.
8.2.4. There is considerable debate among educators and researchers about the necessity, effects, and efficacy of tracking. From a functionalist perspective, tracking is viewed as an important mechanism by which students are separated based on ability and to ensure the "best" and "brightest" receive the type of education required to prepare them for society's most essential positions.
8.2.5. For functionalist, the important thing is to ensure that track placement is fair and meritocratic. That is, based on ability and hard work rather than ascripitive variables.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. School Based Reforms : School-To-Work Programs
9.1.1. In the 1990's, school-business partnerships became incorporated into school-to-work programs. Their intent was to extend what had been vocational emphasis to non-college-bound students regarding skills necessary for successful employment and to stress the importance of work -based learning.
9.1.2. On May 4, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the School-To-Work Opportunities Act of 1994. This law provided seed money to states and local partnership of business, labor, government, education, and community organizations to develop school-to-work systems. The law did not create a new program, but allowed states and their partners to bring together efforts at education reform, worker preparation, and economic development to create a system,- a system to prepare youth for the high-wage, high-skill careers of today's and tomorrow's global economy.
9.1.3. Using federal seed money, states and their partnerships were encouraged to design the school-to-work system that made the most sense for them. While these systems were different from state to state, each was supposed to provide every U.S. student with the following: Relevant Education, Skills, and Valued Credentials.
9.1.4. Every state and locally created school-to-work system had to contain three core elements: (1) school-based learning; (2) work-based learning; (3) connecting activities
9.2. School Finance Reform
9.2.1. Following the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Rodriquez v. San Antonio, which declared there is no constitutional right to an equal education, school finance equity and adequacy advocates litigated at the state level. By 1980 more evidence had been accumulated regarding the inequality of education in urban areas and the Educational Law Center filed Abbott v. Burke, on behalf of several urban school districts also due to a violation of the "thorough and efficient" clause.
9.2.2. The court ruled in 1990 that more funding was needed to serve children in the poorer school districts. In order to provide a "thorough and efficient education" in urban districts, funding was equalized between urban and suburban school districts. It was also determined that extra funding was to be distributed to provide additional programs in order to eliminate disadvantages within poorer school districts.
9.2.3. In 1998, the state was required to implement a package of supplemental programs, including preschool, as well as a plan to renovate urban school facilities.
9.2.4. Other supplemental programs included social services, increased security, a technology alternative education, school-to-work, after-school, and summer-school programs.
9.2.5. What made Abbott different from other school finance decisions is that, in addition to equalizing funding, the court recognized that factors outside schools had to be addressed as well.
9.2.6. in 2009, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled as constitutional a new funding formula, SFRA, that eliminated the Abbott remedies and implemented a formula for allocating funding to all districts based on student needs,