1. History of U.S. Education
1.1. The Age of Reform: The Rise of the Common School
1.1.1. The reform movement attempted to address such diverse societal problems as slavery, mental illness, intemperance, and pacifism, many reformers generally believed that the road to secular paradise was through education.
1.1.2. Struggle for free educaation was led by Horace Mann.
1.1.2.1. Mann abandoned a succesful career as a lawyer to lobby for a state board of education, and when the Massachusetts legislature created one in 1837, Horace Mann became its first secretary, an office he occupied for 11 years.
1.1.2.2. His annual reports served as models for public school reforms throughout the nation, and, partly due to Mann's efforts, the first state normal school, or teacher training school, was established in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1839.
1.1.2.3. Mann's arguments for the establishment of the common school, or free publicily funded elementary schools, REFLECTS BOTH THE CONCERN FOR STABILITY AND ORDER AND THE CONCERN FOR SOCIAL MOBILITY-both of which were to be addressed through free public education.
1.1.2.4. Many historians, specifically liberals and conservatives, view Mann as one of America's greatest educational reformers, radicals take issue with his arguments, pointing to the common school as a pernicious device for the teaching skills such as hygiene, punctuality, and rudimentary skills that would create docile, willing workers.
1.1.2.4.1. Mann shows the community how much power they give the school system. The school is in control of harboring these kids and educating them curricular as well as the hidden curriculum (prepraring them for what is socially acceptable in the world as well as good work ethic).
1.1.2.5. Mann's belief that schools can change the social order and that education can foster social mobility are beliefs responsible for the faith and support many people give to U.S. public schools.
1.1.2.6. Horace Mann is also referred to as the Father of American Education.
1.1.3. "Balance Wheel"
1.1.3.1. "Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men - the balance- wheel of the social machinery." -Horace Mann.
2. Sociological Perspectives
2.1. Forces outside school walls shaped the ability of educators to implement "detracking reform"
2.1.1. Specifically look at "local elites"- those with a combination of economic, political, and cultural capital that is highly valued within their particular school or community.
2.1.2. The capital of local elites allows them to engage in political practices that can circumvent detracking reform.
2.1.3. Elite parents have internalized dominant, but ofter unspoken, beliefs about race and intelligence, they may resist "desegregation" within racially mixed schools-here difined as detracking- because they do not want their children in classes with Black and Latino students.
2.2. Efforts to unpack the knapsack of elite privilege will expose the tight relationship between the "objective" criteria of the schools and the cultural forces of the elites.
2.2.1. Believe their children will not be well served in detracked classes
2.2.2. The real stakes we argue are generally not academics at all but rather status and power
2.3. Detracking the process of moving schools toward a less rigid system of assigning students to classes and academic programs is a hotly contested educational reform
2.3.1. Detracting is a great thing for our education program. It focuses more on the needs of the students and doesn't worry about the things outside the classroom. It puts aside the labeling and the egos of the outside forces and addresses the needs in education.
3. Philosophy of Education
3.1. Generic Notions
3.1.1. Plato's method of doing philosophy was to engage another individual in a dialogue and, through the dialogue , question that individual's point of view.
3.1.1.1. Idealism- the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial.
3.1.2. Plato suggested thos who functione on a more concrete level should assume roles necessary for maintaining the city-state, such as craftsmen, warriors and farmers Those who functioned on a more abstract level should rule.
3.1.3. Evil comes from ignorance, and if only the rulers are educated, evil will be obliterated. Unfortunately modern history has yet to validate this view
3.2. key researchers
3.2.1. St. Augustine- added religion to classicall idealisme
3.2.2. Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, and George Wilhelm Friedrich- added their particular visions to Platonic idealism
3.3. goal of education
3.3.1. Search for truth through ideas rather than through the examination of the false shadowy world of matter.
3.3.2. Encourage student to search for truth as individuals.
3.4. role of teacher
3.4.1. Analyze and discuss ideas with students to help students reach new levels of awareness so that ultimatley they can be transformed.
3.4.2. Plays an active role in discussion, posing questions, selecting materials, and establishing an environment, all of which ensure the teacher's desired outcome.
3.5. method of instruction
3.5.1. Through questioning,students are encouraged to discuss, analyze, synthesize, and apply what they have read to contemporary society.
3.5.2. Also encouraged to work in groups or individually on research projects, both oral and written.
3.6. curriculum
3.6.1. Great Books Curriculum (read, anaylyze, apply)
3.6.2. Great importance on the study of classics
3.6.3. Back to basics approach to education
4. Curriculum and Pedagogy
4.1. The idea of common culture is in no sense the idea of a simply consenting, and certaintly not of a merely-conforming society.
4.2. Curriculum (It Involves) a common determination of meanings by all the people, acting sometimes as individuals, sometimes as groups, in a process which has no particular end, and which can never be supposed at any time to have finally relaized itself, to have become complete.
4.3. In this common process, the only absolute will be the keeping of the channels and institutions of communication clear so that all may contribute, and be helped to contribute.
4.4. A worthwhile, effective national curriculum would also require the creation of much new social and intellectual connective tissue.
5. Equality of Opportunity
5.1. Hispanic Americans
5.1.1. 17.6 percent of Hispanic-Americans students are likely to drop out of school (among 16-24 year old)
5.1.2. Among 17 years old, 70 percent of Hispanic-American students are reading at the intermediate level.
5.1.3. After reviewing the graphs present to us in the book, I was surprised to conclude that Hispanic-Americans score behind Whites and before African American in collected data. (345-354)
5.1.4. 62.7 percent of Hispanic-Americans graduated from high school and 13.9 percent received a bachelor's degree. In this data the Hispanic-American's come behind the whites and African Americans.
5.2. The Coleman Study
5.2.1. How it started: Coleman received an extremely large grand to study the relationship between the organizational characteristics of schools and student achievement.
5.2.2. What was the reason for the grant?
5.2.2.1. to demonstrate that African American students and white student had fundamentally different experiences in school.
5.2.3. Policy makers hoped that the study would provide the rationale for federally funding those schools that were primarily attended by minority students.
5.2.4. Findings: The orginizational differences between schools were not imprtant in determing student outcomes when compare to student-body compostions between schools.
5.2.4.1. Students who attened predominatly middle class were more likely to do better on tests of achievemnt than students who attended school where middle-class students were not a majority. (Econominc Status)
5.2.5. This study caused a controversy.
6. Educational Reform
6.1. A Nation at Risk, this is where governments leaders, educational reformers, teacher organizations, administrations, and various other interest groups attempted to improve the quality of U.S. schools.
6.1.1. Department of education played a significant role in keeping the pressure on states ad localities to improve educational outcomes.
6.1.2. raising achievement standards for students and implementing accountability measures for evalluating teachers had some positive effects
6.1.3. Many believed that educational reform had to do more than provide changes in evaluation procedures
6.2. NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND (NCLB)
6.2.1. Annual testing is required
6.2.2. States and districts are required to report school-by-school data on student performance.
6.2.3. States must set adequate yearly progress(AYP) goals for each school.
6.2.4. If they DO NOT meet AYP two years they are labeled, "In need of Improvement."
6.2.5. Schools must have highly qualified teachers in the subject areas they teach.
7. Politics of Education
7.1. Conservative
7.1.1. Looks at social evolution as a process that enables the strongest individuals and/or groups to survive, and looks at human and social evolution as adaptation to changes in the environment.
7.1.2. Individuals and groups must compete in the social environments to survive, and human progress is dependent on individual initiative and drive.
7.1.3. The belief that the free market or market economy of capitalism is both the most economically productive economic system in this system that is most respectful of human needs (for competition and freedom).
7.1.4. Argues that free market capitalism allows for the maximization of economic growth and individual liberty with competition and ensuring potential abuses can be minimized.
7.1.5. Social problems places primary emphasis on the individual and suggest that individuals have the capacity to earn or not earn their place within a market economy, and that solutions to problems should also be addressed within the individual level.
7.1.6. Ronald Reagan represented the political ascendancy of this viewpoint. Conservatives lauded his policies and credited him with restoring US economic growth.
7.2. Traditional
7.2.1. Visions tend to view the school as necessary to the transmissions of the traditional values of US society.
7.2.2. Such examples are: hard work, family unity, individual initiative, etc.
7.2.3. Traditionalists believe that the schools should pass on the best of what was and what is.
7.2.4. Visions encompass the right liberal to the conservative spectrum (refer to flow chart on pg. 27)
7.2.5. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/President_Reagan_speaking_in_Minneapolis_1982.jpg
7.2.6. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/06/ronald-reagan-conservative-statesman
8. Schools as Organizations
8.1. Marshall Conty District 06
8.1.1. State Senator: Richard Shelby & Jefferson Sessions
8.1.2. House of Reps: Martha Roby, Mo Brooks, Terri Sewell, Bradley Byrne, Robert Aderholt, Gary Palmer, Michael D. Rogers.
8.1.3. State Superintendent: Dr. Tommy Bice
8.1.4. Reps on State School Boarad: 1. Governor Robert J. Bentley (President), 2. Thomas R. Bice (ED. D., Sec & Executor office), 3. Jeffery Newman ( Vice President, District 07), 4. Yvette Richardson (Ed.D., President Pro Team, District 04),5. Matthew S. Brown (J.D., District 01),6. Betty Peters (District 02), 7. Stephanie Bell (District 03), 8. Ella B. Bell(District 05), 9.Cynthia Sanders McCarty(Ph.D., District 06), 10. Mary Scott Hunter (District 08)
8.1.5. Local Superintendent: Cindy Wigley
8.1.6. Local School Board: Marshall County
8.2. Tokyo Japan
8.2.1. Prime Minister: Shinzo Abe
8.2.2. Minister of Education: Hirosh Hase
8.2.3. House of Reps. (Lower House): Speaker: Tadamori Oshima, Vice-Speaker: Tatsuo Kawabata, Prime Minister: Shinzō Abe, Opposition Leader: Katsuya Okada,
8.2.4. Upper House ( House of Concillors): President: Masaaki Yamazaki, Vice President: Vice President: Azuma Koshiishi