My Foundations of Education

1. Politics of Education

1.1. The intellectual purpose of schooling are to teach basic cognitive skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics; to transmit specific knowledge; and to help students acquire higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation, and synthesis.

1.2. "Schooling-like education in general-never liberates without at the same time limiting. It never empowers without at the same time constraining. It never frees without at the same time socializing. The question is not whether one or the other is occurring in isolation but what the balance is, and to what end, and in light of what alternatives." Lawrence A. Cremin

1.3. Progressives believe the schools should be part of the steady progress to make things better.

1.4. Schools place too much emphasis on discipline and authority, thus limiting their role in helping students develop as individuals.

1.5. A balance should be maintained between acceptable performance standards and ensuring that all students can meet them.

1.6. The social purposed of schooling are to help solve social problems; to work as one of many institutions, such as the family and the church to ensure social cohesion; and to socialize children into the various roles, behaviors, and values of society. This process, referred to by sociologists as socialization, is a key ingredient to the stable of any society.

2. Schools as Organizations

2.1. Majority Stakeholders

2.1.1. Alabama State Senators

2.1.1.1. Richard Shelby

2.1.1.2. Jefferson Sessions

2.1.2. Alabama House of Representatives

2.1.2.1. Martha Roby

2.1.2.2. Mo Brooks

2.1.2.3. Bradley Byme

2.1.2.4. Terri Sewell

2.1.2.5. Robert Aderholt

2.1.2.6. Gary Palmer

2.1.2.7. Michael Rogers

2.1.3. Alabama State Superintendent

2.1.3.1. Tommy Bice

2.1.3.2. Phillip Cleveland (interim)

2.1.4. Alabama Representatives on State School Board

2.1.4.1. Governor Robert Bentley: President

2.1.4.2. Phillip Cleveland: Interim Secretary and Executive Officer

2.1.4.3. Jeffery Newman: Vice principle

2.1.4.4. Yvette Richardson: President Pro Tem

2.1.4.5. Matthew Brown: district 1

2.1.4.6. Betty Peters: district 2

2.1.4.7. Stephanie Bell: district 3

2.1.4.8. Ella bell: district 5

2.1.4.9. Cynthia McCarty: district 6

2.1.4.10. Mary Hunter: district 8

2.1.5. Local Superintendent for Madison County

2.1.5.1. Matt Massey

2.1.6. Local School Board for Madison County

2.1.6.1. Dan Nash: district 1

2.1.6.2. Angie Bates: district 2

2.1.6.3. Mary Louise Stowe: district 3

2.1.6.4. David Vess: district 4

2.1.6.5. Jeff Anderson: district 5

2.2. Comparison of another Country's educational system

2.2.1. Africa universities suffer from overcrowding and staff being lured away to Western countries by higher pay and better conditions.

2.2.2. In Africa, the enrollment percent for boys is significantly higher than girls.

2.2.3. Africa has 42 million children and almost half are not receiving any type of education.

3. Curriculum and Pedagogy

3.1. Historical Curriculum

3.1.1. This teaching was student centered and all the curriculum related to the students interests.

3.1.2. The teacher was the facilitator.

3.1.3. John Dewey's writings influenced a strong relationship between the student and the curriculum.

3.1.4. The curriculum related to the students' experiences which then made it more enjoyable to learn

3.2. Sociological Curriculum theory

3.2.1. The social meliorist curriculum radicalized into theory that the schools should change society, or at least help solve its fundamental problems.

3.2.2. This theory still influences the curriculum today.

3.2.3. This theory teaches the students to focus on bringing about social improvement and change.

3.2.4. This theory believes that this type of education is to bring about general political and economical changes and be an advocate to solve the problems.

4. Equality of Opportunity

4.1. Educational facts on women

4.1.1. Women are often rated as being better students than men. However, women in the past were less likely to attain the same level of education.

4.1.2. Recent data from US, UK, and Australia indicate that not only have girls caught up to boys in almost all measures of academic achievement, policy makers are discovering "boy problems."

4.1.3. Overall, women tend to score lower on the SAT than males.

4.2. Response to Coleman Study

4.2.1. I think it was a good idea but I am not sure if it was realistic or not.

5. Educational Inequality

5.1. Unequal Achievement

5.1.1. Some believe that lower class neighborhoods are the cause for not having the right equipment needed to better a students education.

5.1.2. Research suggests that Coleman found what was known as within-school differences.

5.1.3. Research shows that the reasons students from the lower class did not perform as well as the others was that it had more to do with their community than their culture.

5.2. One school-centered

5.2.1. School that can either decrease or increase the dream of its students.

6. Educational Reform

6.1. School-buisness partnerships had a goal to raise test scores of graduates, and increase the amount of scholarships for the lower income student.

6.2. school partnerships hope to decrease the problems that the United States education department is facing.

6.3. By having such a relationship there comes much expectation from that; which can be a positive and a negative.

6.4. A combination of community and school and societal status reforms are necessary to reduce the achievement gap.

6.5. School reform has to be based on a number of supports or partnerships.

7. History of U.S. Education

7.1. The history of education in the United States, as we have illustrated, has been one of conflict, struggle, and disagreement.

7.2. The spread of mass education can best be seen as an outcome of class conflict, not class domination.

7.3. Educational change has historically played the role not of a complement to economic reform, but as a substitute for it.

7.4. We conclude that the structure and scope of the modern U.S. educational system cannot be explained without reference to both the demands of working people-for literacy, for the possibility of greater occupational mobility, for financial security, for personal growth, for social respect-and to the imperative of the capitalists class to construct and institution which would both enhance the labor power of working people and help to reproduce the conditions for is exploitation.

7.5. What is important to consider how Dewey proposed to meet these challenges through education and how his ideas were interpreted by progressive disciples in such a way as to alter the course of schooling in this country.

7.6. "The clash of cultures in the classroom is essentially a class war, a socio-economic and racial warfare being wages on the battleground of the schools..This is an eleven balance, particularly since, like most battles, it comes under the guise of righteousness." Kenneth Clark

8. Sociological Perspectives

8.1. Theoretical pictures of society are created by human being and are interrupted by them. Thus, knowledge of the social world cannot be totally separated from one's personal and social situation.

8.2. Theory, as inadequate as it is, it is one's best conceptual guide to understanding the relation between school and society because it gives one the intellectual scaffolding from which to hang empirical findings.

8.3. Critique's observe that functional and conflict theories are very abstract, and emphasize structure and process at a very general level of analysis.

8.4. Research has indicated that the more education individuals receive, the more likely they are to read newspapers, books, and take part in public affairs in their community.

8.5. From research, it seems clear that schools act as gatekeepers in determining who will get employed in high-status occupations, but schools do not provide significant job skills for the graduates.

8.6. Private and public school students may receive the same amount of education, but a private school diploma may act as a "mobility escalator" because it represents a more prestigious educational route.

9. Philosophy of Education

9.1. Phenomenologists focus on the phenomena of consciousness, perception, and meaning, as they arise in a particular individual's experience.

9.2. Existential phenomenologists go further; they emphasize the notion of possibility, since the individual changes in a constant star of becoming. They see education as an activity liberating the individual from a chaotic, absurd world.

9.3. Neo-Marxists favor a dialectical approach to instruction, which the question-and-answer method designed to move the student to new levels of awareness and ultimately change.

9.4. Teachers should understand their own "lived worlds" as well as that of their students in order to help their students achieve the best lived worlds" they can.

9.5. The view of curriculum shared by many theorists leads them to support more multicultural and feminist curricula, which emphasize those social groups who are not in power.

9.6. Key researchers: Ozmon & Craver, John Dewey, Maxine Greene, Marx & Engels