1. Politics of Education
1.1. Neo-Liberal Perspective
1.1.1. 1.The role of the school is to build an individual with the proper education to succeed in society and who is also knowledgeable in cultural and social needs.
1.1.2. 2. Society must attempt to cast out past prejudices toward social groups to be able to equalize the playing field in education.
1.1.3. 3. The inequalities between suburban and urban and schools with low socioeconomic and high socioeconomic backgrounds is central to the inequality of the results in the classrooms.
1.2. Progressive Vision
1.2.1. 1. Schools are central to solving social problems.
1.2.2. 2. Equal opportunities in education are essential to the development of and individuals potential.
1.2.3. 3. Schools are needed to create individual with the correct mindset to engage in a democratic society.
2. History of US Education
2.1. Standards Era
2.1.1. 1. Like it or not, the current state of school systems show that the most recent reform era, the Standards Movement, has had the most social and economic impact on education to date.
2.1.2. 2. Although all the goals of reforms from the 1980s-2012 have had the same goal of equality and excellence in education, it is hard to determine the success of them all.
2.1.3. 3. The most important facet to emerge from this era is the charter school. Carter schools are publicly funded and offer wider curriculum for students who would benefit from them.
2.2. The Democratic-Liberal School.
2.2.1. 1. The history of U.S. education involves the progressive, sometimes flawed, evolution of a school system that promotes equality and opportunity for all.
2.2.2. 2. Each period of educational reform tried to reach those left out from the period before. To expand to larger segments of the population and reject the conservative idea that school was for the elite of society.
2.2.3. 2.Although it is an opportunistic outlook on education in the U.S. it does have its problems. Such as the ideas of equality and excellence are truly just ideas and we must continue to strive for these ideas without sacrificing one of the other drastically.
3. Sociological Perspectives
3.1. Functional Theories
3.1.1. 1. Society is like a machine, pieces have to work together to make the machine work. So education is important as a foundation for this machine to create a moral backbone necessary for he structure.
3.1.2. 2.Educational reform should create structures, programs, and curricula that are technically advanced, rational, and encourage social unity.
3.1.3. 3. An excellent representation of the functional theory is "A Nation at Risk" that reports that schools were responsible for for the social and economic problems plaguing the early 80's.
3.2. Impacts of Education
3.2.1. 1. Employment- Education is vital to the lively-hood of the American people in that you have to have a minimum of a high school level education to obtain a job with possibility for advancement.
3.2.2. 2. Mobility- Education opens doors of opportunity is an old saying that still rings true. Staying stationary in life leads you no where and education can provide a catalyst for mobility.
3.2.3. 3. Knowledge- A knowledgeable society is not one knowledgeable in just education curriculum but also in a political and social sense. Schooling not only provides content knowledge but also social interaction.
4. Philosophy of Education
5. Schools as Organizations
6. Curriculum and Pedagogy
7. Equality of Opportunity
7.1. African-American Students
7.1.1. 1.Despite Civil Rights legislation of the 1960's, U.S. society is still highly stratified by race. Race has a direct impact on the education one is likely to achieve.
7.1.2. 2. In the 16-24 age group of students, 5.2 percent white students will drop out of school but 9.3 percent of African-American students will. Also, among 17-year-olds, 8p percent of white students will read at the intermediate level. This is very good compared to the 66 percent of African-American students who are at the same level.
7.1.3. 3. The majority of African-American students come from poorer neighborhoods and attend schools with a lower quality of education than white students in better neighborhoods.
7.2. Responses to Coleman Study: Round One
7.2.1. Despite the nation's best intentions, differences among schools are not powerful predictors of differences in student outcomes.
7.2.2. In less convoluted terms, where one goes to school has little effect on his or her cognitive growth or educational mobility.
7.2.3. Because of these finding, poor students were bused to middle-class schools in order to equalize their educational opportunities.
8. Educational Equality
8.1. Sociological Explanation
8.1.1. Functionalist believe that schooling will produce unequal results, but these results should be based on individual differences between students and not on group differences.
8.1.2. Although there is a relationship between family background and educational outcomes, this does not mean that the system fails to provide equality of opportunity.
8.1.3. Unequal educational outcomes are the result of unequal educational opportunities.
8.2. School-Centered Explanation
8.2.1. School financing is directly related to the quality of education a student recieves
8.2.2. The schools are funded by the property tax from the communities they serve. Therefore schools serving a poor community with a low tax will not be as well funded as a school serving in suburbia.
8.2.3. Multiple states/school boards have been taken to court over the funding of schools with individuals insisting the state or federal government help close the funding gap a bit.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. School Based Reform
9.1.1. Recruitment and retention of high quality teachers is among the most important problems in American education.
9.1.2. At the secondary level, about one fifth of the classes in the core academic subject are taught by teachers who do not have a teaching certificate in that subject.
9.1.3. Problems in staffing have more to do with organization issues within schools and less to do with educator shortages. Urban districts are replacing teachers constantly which causes an issue because it takes a few years to become a master teacher.
9.2. Full Service and Community Schools
9.2.1. Another way to attack educational inequity is to examine and plan to educate not only the child, but also the community.
9.2.2. Full service schools focus on meeting students' and their families educational, physical, psychological, and social needs in coordinated and collaborative fashion between school and community services.
9.2.3. In this model, the schools are open later hours and serve as community centers offering a vast array of services.