1. Politics of Education
1.1. Conservative
1.1.1. 1. Ronald Reagan's policies in credited him with restoring economic growth, both liberals and radicals were very critical.
1.1.2. 2. A conservative viewpoint is the belief that the free market or market economy of capitalism is both the most economically productive economic system and the system that is most respective of human needs
1.1.3. 3. Believes that oneself is the only individual capable of solving his or her own problems
1.2. Progressivism
1.2.1. 1. 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 the democratic society.
1.2.2. 2. Believe that the school should be part of a steady progress to make things better.
1.2.3. 3. Teaches problem solving, inquiry, cooperation, and self discipline.
2. History of Education
2.1. Education for All
2.1.1. 1. Prior to 1875, fewer than 25,000 students were enrolled in public high schools.
2.1.2. 2. The committee of ten issued a report in 1893 supporting the academic purpose of secondary education and dismissing curricula differentiation.
2.1.3. 3. The committee recommended that the modern academic subjects be rewarded the same statures as traditional ones.
2.2. Diane Ravitch's Four Themes about 1800-1900 Public Education
2.2.1. 1. Tension between classical subjects such as Latin and Greek and modern subjects such as science, English literature and foreign languages.
2.2.2. 2. Problem of meeting college entrance requirements since different colleges required different courses of study.
2.2.3. 3. Educators who believed that students should study subjects that would prepare them for life as opposed to traditional academic studies.
2.2.4. 4. All students should pursue the same course of study or whether the course of study should be determined by the interests and abilities of the students.
3. Sociology of Education
3.1. Education and Social Inequality
3.1.1. 1. Social class differences are not only reflected in differences of income, but in other social characteristics such as education, family, occupation, place of residence, political behavior, and religious belief.
3.1.2. 2. Class influences the way people think by shaping the way in which they think. Class position creates selective perception which in turn creates a world view which explains inequalities.
3.1.3. 3. People are not just stratified by class, they are also stratified by race, ethnicity, age, and gender.
3.2. Three Effects of Schooling on Individuals
3.2.1. 1. Knowledge and Attitudes
3.2.2. 2. Employment
3.2.3. 3. Education and Mobility
4. Educational Philosophy
4.1. Generic Notions
4.1.1. John Dewey
4.1.1.1. His ideas were influenced by the theory of evolution and by the eighteenth-century optimistic belief in progress.
4.1.1.2. His progressive methodology rested on the notion that children were active, organic beings, growing and changing, and thus required a course of study that would reflect their particular stages of development.
4.2. Key Researchers
4.2.1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
4.2.1.1. Believed that individuals in their primative state were naturally good and that society corrupted them.
4.2.2. Theodore Brameld.
4.2.2.1. Viewed schools as vehicles for improving and changing society.
4.3. Goal of Education
4.3.1. Dewey's vision is the role of the school is to integrate children, not just any type of society, but a democratic one.
4.3.2. Primary goal of education was growth
4.4. Role of the Teacher
4.4.1. The teacher is no longer an authoritarian figure from which all knowledge flows.
4.4.2. The teacher encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study.
4.5. Curriculum
4.5.1. Idealists place great importance on the study of classics.
4.5.2. A good example of an idealists' curriculum would be the Great Books curriculum at St. John's University in Annapolis, Maryland.
4.6. Method of Instruction
4.6.1. Dewey proposed children learned both individually and in groups.
4.6.2. Abandoned formal instruction.
5. Schools as Organizations
5.1. Governance
5.1.1. House of Represenatives
5.1.1.1. Terri Collins
5.1.1.2. Ed Henry
5.1.1.3. Mike Ball
5.1.2. Senators
5.1.2.1. Richard Shelby
5.1.2.2. Jefferson Sessions
5.1.3. State Superintendent
5.1.3.1. Thomas R. Bice (Retired)
5.1.4. State School Board Representative
5.1.4.1. Mary Scott Hunter (District 8)
5.1.5. Local Superintendent
5.1.5.1. Hugh Taylor (Dekalb)
5.1.6. Local Schoolboard
5.1.6.1. Matt Sharp
5.1.6.2. Terry Wooten
5.1.6.3. Randy Peppers
5.1.6.4. Jeff Williams
5.1.6.5. Mark Richards
5.2. Comparison to Great Britain
5.2.1. Education is considered to be the responsibility of the parents.
5.2.2. All schools are private.
5.2.3. No schooling for poor children.
5.2.4. All schools are operated under religious organizations.
6. Curriculum & Pedagogy
6.1. Historical Curriculum Theory
6.1.1. 1. The Humanist Curriculum reflects the idealist philosophy that knowledge of the traditional liberal arts is the cornerstone of an educated citizenry and that the purpose of education is to present two students the best of what has been written and thought.
6.1.2. 2. The conservative curriculum reformers believed that the purpose of schooling was to transmit a common body of knowledge in order to reproduce a common cultural heritage.
6.1.3. 3. The social efficiency element of the Cardinal Principles, which inverted Dewey's notion of the school as a lever of social reform into the school as a mechanism to adjust the individual to society, became the cornerstone of the new progressivism.
6.2. Sociological Curriculum Theory
6.2.1. 1. Sociologists of curriculum have focused on not only what is taught but why it is taught.
6.2.2. 2. Sociologists believed that the school curriculum includes both what is formally included as the subject matter to be learned as well as the informal or hidden curriculum.
6.2.3. 3. The sociology of curriculum concentrates on the function of what is taught in schools and its relationships to the role of schools within society.
7. Equality Of Opportunity
7.1. Educational Achievement & Attainment
7.1.1. 1. According to figure 8.11, the African-American reading skills on entering kindergarten has been normalized to the reading performance of white students.
7.1.2. 2. In figure figure 8.12, the mathematical skills on entering kindergarten shows the black students across all economical backgrounds trail white students, but that they are still normalizing from historical statistics.
7.1.3. 3. 92.1 percent of whites graduated from high school and 33.3 percent received a bachelor's degree while 84 percent of African-Americans graduated from high school, and 19.9 percent got a bachelor's degree.
7.2. Response to the Coleman Study
7.2.1. 1. Where an individual goes to school is often related to her race and social-economic background, but the racial and social composition of a school has a greater affect on a student's achievement than an individual's race and class.
7.2.2. 2. In a recent article Baker and Riordan argue that Catholic schools in the 1990's have become more elite, belying the argument that they are modern schools.
7.2.3. 3. Catholic schools seem to advantage low-income minority students, especially in urban areas, but they are becoming more elite in suburban, public schools.
8. Education Inequality
8.1. Sociological Explanations of Unequal Achievement
8.1.1. 1. Functionalists believe that the role of the schools is to provide a fair selection process for sorting out the best and brightest individuals regardless of their family backgrounds.
8.1.2. 2. A system that could guarantee equitable and fair treatment to all would not necessarily provide equal results as individuals would still play a significant role in creating inequalities.
8.1.3. 3. The attempt to pigeon-hole the explanation into one explanatory system denies the connection between schooling and other societal institutions.
8.2. School Centered Explanation
8.2.1. 1. Suggest that school processes are central in understanding unequal education performances.
8.2.2. 2. The use of foundation state aid programs, which seek to make sure all districts receive a minimum standard of funding, with more state aid going to poorer districts in order to enable poorer districts to meet the minimum level is one way of providing equal equality of education.
8.2.3. 3. A number of theorists, however, argue that there are significant differences between the culture and climate of schools in lower social-economic, and higher social economic communities.
9. Educational Reform and School Improvement
9.1. School-Based Reforms
9.1.1. 1. Congressional support for greater school choice was expressed in a bill that was passed by the House of Representatives in the summer of 1990 which provided direct federal support for open-enrollment experiments.
9.1.2. 2. In 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris ruled that the Cleveland voucher program did not violate the establishment clause for the First Amendment.
9.1.3. 3. The School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 provided seed money to states and local partnerships of business, labor, government, education, and community organizations to develop school-to-work systems.
9.2. Societal, Community, Economic, or Political Reforms
9.2.1. 1. As of 2000, 23 states have enacted statutes authorizing their state education agencies to take control of school districts from local authorities; Alabama is among these states.
9.2.2. 2. Supreme Court decision in Rodriguez 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.
9.2.3. 3. Dryfoos's model of full service schools, Canada's Harlem Children's Zone, and Newark's Broader, Bolder Approach, are three models of community based reforms.