1. History of U.S. Education
1.1. Educational Reform: Standards Era (1980's-2012)
1.1.1. In 1983, the famous report, "A Nation at Risk", made its famous debut and showed that the U.S. education system had high rates of illiteracy, declining SAT scores, and failing levels when compared internationally.
1.1.2. In result of the report the 1980's and 90's were filled with significant attention towards the improvement of curriculum, tightening of standards, and a move towards the setting of academic goals and way to evaluate them.
1.1.3. A number of reforms were established during this time period such as President Clinton's goals 2000, President Bush's No Child Left Behind, and most currently President Obama's Race to the top. Although all seem to have a goal of improvement, with only 30 years past its hard to measure the success of the different reforms in this era.
1.2. Historical Interpretation of the Conservatives
1.2.1. The 1980's brought about a national sweep of conservative criticism across the educational field.
1.2.2. In 1983, the literary work, "The Troubled Crusade", argued that the effort of using education to solve social problems failed and that in return actually weakened the education system as a whole.
1.2.3. Although many had varying thoughts, the conservative perpective as a whole seemed to have the underlying belief when viewing the history of education that the evolution of education has resulted in the dilution of academic excellence.
2. Sociological Perspectives
2.1. Theoretical Perspectives of school and society
2.1.1. The functional theory views society as a machine where one piece works with another to make society work.
2.1.2. The conflict theory views the school system as a battlefield. Students struggle against teachers, teachers against administrators, and so on.
2.1.3. The Interactional theory takes both the functional and conflict theories and simply goes to a deeper level with them. It views relationships between school and society up close.
2.2. Effects of Schooling on Individuals
2.2.1. The first effect is knowledge. It is widely accepted that knowledge does comes from schooling, however, things such as social class can have major effects of how much knowledge is gained.
2.2.2. The second effect is Employment. All can agree that a college degree can lead to greater employment chances. The part that many argue is the fact of rather or not social class barriers will be surpassed in the first place to obtain a degree.
2.2.3. The third effect of schooling for an individual is Mobility. Schooling has a way of allowing economic and social mobility.
3. Schools as Organizations
3.1. Cullman County
3.1.1. State Senators: Alabama's state senators are Richard Shelby (R) and Jeff Sessions (R).
3.1.2. House of Representatives: The representative for District 4 is Robert Aderholt (R).
3.1.3. State Superintendent: Dr. Phillip Cleveland is currently serving as Interim State Superintendent of Education.
3.1.4. Representative for State School Board: Dr. Cynthia Sanders McCarty is the representative for district 6 for the state of Alabama school board.
3.1.5. Cullman County Superintendent: Dr. Shane Barnette is Cullman County's Superintendent.
3.1.6. Local School Board: The local representative for the schools of Parkside and Fairview is Chris Carter.
3.2. U.S. Education vs. other countries throughout the world.
3.2.1. U.S. education is different than most of the rest of the world. Most countries do not have as complex educational systems as America's. Most have a national ministry of education or another system that is very exclusive, whatever is said at the top is what goes.
3.2.2. The U.S. is typically very inclusive and democratic.
3.2.3. For Instance, Japan's educational system is very competitive and education is recognized from a character building prospective rather than a instructional reform viewpoint.
3.2.4. Sadly, many times American's are on the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to achievement level.
4. Curricculum and Pedagogy
4.1. Historical Curriculum
4.1.1. The Developmentalist Curriculum is a theory that stresses the needs of students rather than the needs of society.
4.1.2. Scholars such as Dewey and Piaget emphasized the process of teaching more so than it's content. Teaching is student centered.
4.1.3. The Developmental Curriculum Model has not been very influential in America but has played roles in the private/independent sector of education. This theory became known in the early 1900's.
4.2. Sociological Curriculum
4.2.1. The Functionalist Theory of Curriculum was important in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It fought the modernization movement in which was causing social and moral breakdowns in society.
4.2.2. This theory stresses the importance of preparing students for modern society
4.2.3. Functionalist believe that teachers should only teach curriculum but morals and values as well.
4.3. One might ask how could a teacher use these two methods to teach when they contradict one another? One is for preparing students for society and one is only focusing on the individual student. My belief is if we cater to the individual they will in return learn how to accommodate into society.
5. Politics of Education
5.1. The Conservative Perspective
5.1.1. 1. The Conservative Perspective has origins of the Darwinist views of "Survival of the Fittest"
5.1.2. 3. The individual is responsible for his/her success or failure.
5.1.3. 2. The Conservative Perspective believes that the free market in capitalism is the best method. Freedom and competition are always the most important.
5.2. Traditional Vision of Education
5.2.1. 1. The Traditional Vision of Education is known as the vision which sees the transfer of values as the most important necessity.
5.2.2. 2. Traditionalist believe that only the best of what was and the best of what is should be passed on to students.
5.2.3. 3. The Traditional vision includes both the liberal and conservative ideology.
6. Philosophy of Education
6.1. Generic Notions- Philosophy of Education is required of any teacher. A teacher must have the idea of who they want to be and why will they do things the way they will.
6.2. Key Researchers- Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Rousseau, all have contributed to different teaching methods still used today.
6.3. Goals of Education- All teachers must strive to have some sort of goal to drive their students to be successful in the classroom.
6.4. Role of the Teacher- The most important role of a teacher is to present ideas in a clear and consistent manner.
6.5. Method of Instruction- Realist support lecture, question, and answer. I believe this Realist method has proven most effective throughout history.
6.6. Curriculum- The commonly accepted curriculum across the board for scholars is math, reading, writing, and humanities.
7. Equality of Opportunity
7.1. Educational Achievement and Attainment
7.1.1. Educational Inequality is one of the biggest problems facing education in America.
7.1.2. The National Center for Education Statistics puts out its findings every year since 1971. It provides statistics for a variety of issues harming the educational system.
7.1.3. From 1973 until 1986, educational gaps from African- Americans and whites narrowed. However, from 1986 to 1999 it increased.
7.1.4. Federal legislation such as Goals 2000 and No Child Left Behind have been implemented in the past but statistics from the past 20 years have shown that inequality is still taking place in American education
7.1.5. It is shown that 92.1% of whites graduated from high school, while only 84% of African Americans graduate.
7.2. Coleman Study
7.2.1. In 1966, James Coleman was tasked with the job to study did organizational characteristics of schools have impact on student achievement. The findings were argued by many but the majority could agree that, yes, there were impacts.
7.2.2. Organizational characteristics had its place in determining student achievement, but Coleman also found that inequality of opportunity played just as much, if not more, in the role of student achievement.
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. Sociological Explanation
8.1.1. Functionalist understand their will be unequal results, they just don't believe that it should be caused because of educational inequality.
8.1.2. Functionalist believe that schools are to provide a fair and meritocratic selection selection process for finding the best individuals regardless of family background.
8.1.3. The Functionalist viewpoint is that unequal achievement comes from family backgrounds more so than the education system failing.
8.2. School Financing
8.2.1. Jonathon Kozol points out that public schools in rich suburbs compared to poor inner city schools, have less inequality than the poor schools.
8.2.2. Another explanation is that schools with more per student spending budgets often lower educational inequality.
8.2.3. A solution offered, (although easier said than done) is simply funding the right areas of lower income schools. More thoughtful spending is believed to be a great starting point.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. School Business Partnerships
9.1.1. During the 1980's the nation was concerned that not enough graduates were fulfilling societal needs in the workforce.
9.1.2. An example of school business partnerships is when businesses in an area "adopt" a school and provide scholarships for low income students.
9.1.3. People such as Mark Zuckerberg (Founder of Facebook) donated $100 million to the neo- liberal reforms.
9.2. Economic Reform
9.2.1. One form of reform that is anticipated to reform and help the educational system in America is Economic Reform.
9.2.2. Supplemental programs such as social services, increased security, technology alternative education, school- to- work, after school, and summer school programs have been pushed by many reformist.
9.2.3. One formula to help reform is the "Money Follows the Child" approach. This idea suggest that at-risk children in the communities will have access to the budget on a more personal level if spending is more itemized towards the individuals rather than entire school systems.