1. Philosophy Of Education
1.1. Generic Notions
1.1.1. Dewey's ideas about education, often referred to as progressive, proposed that educators start with the needs and interests of the child in the classroom, allow the child to participate in planning his or her course of study, employ project method or group learning, and depend heavily on experiential learning.
1.2. Key Researchers
1.2.1. John Dewey (1859-1952), George Counts (1932), George Sanders, and William James.
1.3. Goal of Education
1.3.1. Dewey's vision of schools was rooted in the social order; he did not see ideas as separate from social conditions. He fervently believed that philosophy had a responsibility to society and that ideas required laboratory testing; hence, he stressed the importance of the school as a place where ideas can be implemented, challenged, and restructured, with the goal of providing students with the knowledge of how to improve the social order.
1.4. Role of the Teacher
1.4.1. In a progressive setting, the teacher is no longer the authoritarian figure from which all knowledge flows; rather, the teacher assumes the peripheral position of facilitator. The teacher encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study. The teacher also writes curriculum and must have a command of several disciplines of order to create and implement curriculum.
1.5. Cirricullum
1.5.1. Progressive schools generally follow Dewey's notion of a core curriculum, or an integrated curriculum. A particular subject matter under investigation by students, such as whales, would yield problems to be solved using math, science, history, reading, writing, music, art, wood or metal working, cooking, and sewing- all the academic and vocational disciplines in an integrated, interconnected way.
1.6. Method of Instruction
1.6.1. Dewey proposed that children learn both individually and in groups. He believed that children should start their mode of inquiry by posing questions about what they want to know. Today, we refer to this method of instruction as the problem-seeking or inquiry method.
2. School of Organizations
2.1. Governance
2.1.1. Senators
2.1.1.1. Richard Shelby
2.1.1.2. Jeff Sessions
2.1.2. House of Represenatives
2.1.2.1. Mo Brooks
2.1.3. State of Superintendent
2.1.3.1. Michael Sentance
2.1.4. State School Board Represenatives
2.1.4.1. Ella B. Bell
2.1.5. Local Superintendent
2.1.5.1. Bill W. Hopkins, Jr.
2.1.6. Local School Board
2.1.6.1. Mike Tarpley
2.2. Comparison to One Country
2.2.1. 1) Conflict is a necessary part of change. Efforts to democratize schools do not create conflicts, but they allow (and to be successful, require) previously hidden problems, issues, and disagreements to surface. Staff involvement in school restructuring must be prepared to elicit, manage, and resolve conflicts.
2.2.2. 2) New behaviors must be learned. Because change requires new relationships and behaviors, the change process must include building communication and trust, enabling leadership and initiative to emerge, and learning techniques of communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution.
2.2.3. 3) Team building must extend to the entire school. Shared decision making must consciously work out and give on-going attention to relationships within the rest of the school's staff. Otherwise, issues of exclusiveness and imagined elitism may surface, and perceived "resistance to change" will persist.
2.2.4. 4) Process and content are interrelated. The process a team uses in going about its works is as importance as the content of educational changes it attempts. The substance of a project often depends upon the degree of trust and openness and the visibility of the project will influence future commitments from and the relationships among the staff and others involved.
3. Curriculum and Pedagogy
3.1. Historical Curriculum Theory
3.1.1. 1) Traditionally, this curriculum focused on the Western heritage as the basis for intellectual development, although some who support this type of curriculum argue that the liberal arts need not focus exclusively on the Western tradition. This curriculum model dominated 19th century and early 20th century U.S. education and was codified in the National Education Association's Committee of Ten report issued in 1893, "which recommended that all secondary students, regardless of whether they intended to go to college, should be liberally educated and should study English, foreign languages, mathematics, history, and science."
3.1.2. 2) Critics such as Bennett, Hirsch, and Ravitch and Finn have argued that U.S. students do not know enough about their cultural heritage because of the school curriculum has not emphasized it for all students. They have proposed that schools should return to a traditional liberal arts curriculum for all students and that this curriculum should focus, although not necessarily exclusively, on the Western tradition. Bennett, as Secretary of Education during the Reagan administration, took an activist posture in promoting such curriculum reform. In his proposals for a model elementary and secondary curriculum, he emphasized the need for a traditional core of subjects and readings that would teach all students a common set of worthwhile knowledge and an array of intellectual skills.
3.2. Sociological Curriculum Theory
3.2.1. The social efficiency curriculum was a philosophically pragmatist approach developed in the early twentieth century as a putatively democratic response to the development of mass public secondary education. It was related to the scientific management of the schools.
4. Equality of Opportunity
4.1. Response to Coleman Study
4.1.1. Response One: For example, Jencks used Coleman's findings to compute the estimated yearly average achievement gain by public and Catholic school students. He estimated that the annual increment attributable to Catholic schooling was tiny. To put it simply, the differences that do not exist between public and Catholic schools are statistically significant, but in terms in learning, the results are negligible. The interpretation was echoed by Alexander and Pallas: "What then of Coleman, Hoffer, Kilgore's claim that Catholic schools are educationally superior to public schools? If trivial advantage is what they mean by such a claim, then we suppose we would have to agree. But judged against reasonable benchmarks, there is little basis for this conclusion." Subsequent studies that have compared public and private schools have also found that private schools seem to "do it better," particularity for low-income students.
4.1.2. Response Two: Yes, private schools seem to have certain organizational characteristics that are related to student outcomes, but are these relationships as significant as some researchers claim? This debate is not resolved, and one can expect that more research and more controversy will surface. For example, a recent article by Baker and Riordan argued that Catholic schools in the 1990's have become more elite, belying the argument that they are modern common schools.
4.1.3. Overall, Catholic schools seem to advantage low-income minority students, especially in the urban areas. However, they are also becoming more elite and like suburban public schools.
4.2. Educational Achievement and Attainment
4.2.1. Class: Education is extremely expensive. For instance, the longer a student stays in school, the more likely he or she needs parental financial support. From the cultural view, schools represent the values of the middle and upper classes. Also, teachers have been found to think more highly of middle class and upper middle-class children than they do of working-class and underclass children because working-class and underclass children do not speak middle-class English. There is a direct correlation between parental income and children's performance on achievemnet tests, as well as placement in ability groups and curriculum track in high school.
4.2.2. Race: The race is related to educational outcomes is undeniable, although, given the nature of U.S. society, it is extremely difficult to separate race from class. In a society as segregated as that in the U.S., it is not surprising that minority students receive fewer and inferior educational opportunities than white students. Explanations as to why minorities underachieve compared to whites vary. But, at one level, the answer is not terribly complex. Minorities do not receive the same educational opportunities as whites, and their rewards for educational attainment are significantly less.
4.2.3. Gender: Even though women are often rated as being better students then men, in the past they were less likely to attain the same level of education. In the last 20 years, gender differences between men and women, in terms of educational attainment, have been reduced. There are still significant advantages of for men when competing for the most prestigious academic prizes, however. There is little doubt that society discriminates against women occupationally and socially.
5. Educational Inequality
5.1. Sociological Explanations of Unequal Achievement
5.1.1. Cultural Deprivation Theory 1: Cultural deprivation theory, populated in the 1960's, suggests that working-class and nonwhite families often lack the cultural resources, such as books and other educational stimuli, and thus arrive at school at a significant disadvantage. According to the cultural deprivation theorists, such as Deutisch, this deprivation results in educationally disadvantaged students who achieve poorly because they have not been raised to acquire the skills and dispositions required for satisfactory academic achievement.
5.1.2. Cultural Deprivation Theory 2: Based on this etiology, policy makers sought to develop programs aimed not at the schools but rather at the family environment of working-class and nonwhite students. Compensatory education programs such as Project Head Start, a preschool intervention program for ededucationally and economically disadvantaged students, are based on the assumption that because of the cultural and familial deprivation faced by poor students, the schools must provide an enviroment that makes up for lost time. If these students are not prepared for school at home, then it is the role of the preschool to provide the necessary foundation for learning.
5.2. School Centered Explanation
5.2.1. 1) School Financing: Public schools are financed through a combination of revenues from local, state, and federal sources. This unequal funding has been the subject of considerable legal attach by communities that argue that funding based on local property taxes is discriminatory under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that it denies equality of opportunity.
5.2.2. 2) Effective School Research: If student differences are more important than school differences, then teachers cannot be blamed for the lower academic performance of nonwhite and working-class students. If school's effects are not significant, then schools and, more specifically, teachers can do little to make a positive difference.
5.2.3. 3) Between-School Differences: Curriculum and Pedagogic Practices: The effective school research points to how differences in what is often termed school climates affect academic performance. Much of this research looked at differences between schools in inner city, lower socioeconomic neighborhoods in order to demonstrate that schools can make a difference in these communities.
5.2.4. 4) Within-School Differences: Curriculum and Ability Grouping: The fact that different groups in the same schools perform very differently suggests that there may be school characteristic affecting these outcomes.
6. Educational Reform
6.1. School Based Reforms
6.1.1. 1) School-Business Partnerships: During the 1980's, business leaders became increasingly concerned that the nation's schools were not producing the kinds of graduates necessary for a revitalization of the US economy. Several school-business partnerships were formed, the most notable which was the Boston Compact begun in 1982. School-business partnerships have attracted considerable media attention, but there is little convincing evidence that they have significantly improved schools or that, as a mean of reform, school-business partnerships will address the fundamental problems facing US education.
6.1.2. 2) Privatization: From the 1990's, the traditional distinction between public and private education became blurred, with private education companies increasingly becoming involved in public education in a variety of ways. First, for pro-fit companies, took over the management of failing schools and districts. Second, for profit companies, have the majority of contracts for supplemental tutoring under NCLB. It is too early to assess the efficacy of such privatization, but it is clear that corporations see the multi-billion education industry as a lucrative market.
6.2. Societal, Community, Economic, or Political Reforms
6.2.1. 1) Community Reform: Full service schools focus on meeting student's and their families educational, psychical, psychological, and social needs in a coordinated and collaborative fashion between school and community services. Specifically designed to target and improve at risk neighborhoods, full-service schools aim to prevent problems and to support them.
6.2.2. 2) Socioeconomic Reform: They suggest that the real problem in US education has been, and continues to be, that it works exceptionally well for children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Despite the efforts of school choice and charter school programs to address these inequalities, particularly those in urban schools, the available evidence does not overwhelmingly support the claims of their advocates for a reduction in educational inequalities.
7. Politics of Education
7.1. Four Purposes of Education
7.1.1. Intellectual- to teach basic cognitive skills; transmit specific knowledge, & to help students acquire higher order thinking skills
7.1.2. Political- inculcate allegiance to the existing political order; prepare citizens who will participate in this political order; help assimilate diverse cultural groups into a common political order, and to teach children the basic laws of the society.
7.1.3. Social (aka Socialization)- help solve social problems; to work as one of many institutions to ensure social cohesion, socialize children into various roles, behaviors, & values of society.
7.1.4. Economic- to prepare students for their later occupational roles & to select, train, & allocate individuals into the division of labor.
7.2. Definition of Educational Problems
7.2.1. Conservative Perspective
7.2.1.1. 1) In their response to liberal and radical demands for greater equality in the 1960s and 1970s, schools systematically lowered academic standards and reduced educational quality. Conservatives often refer to this problem as the decline of standards.
7.2.1.2. 2) In their response to liberal and radical demands for the multicultural education, schools watered down the traditional curriculum and thus weakened to the school's ability to pass on the heritage of American and Western civilizations to children. Conservatives often define this problem as the decline of cultural literacy.
7.2.1.3. 3) In their response to the liberal and radical demands for cultural relativism, schools lost their traditional role of teaching moral standards and values. Conservatives often refer to this problem as the decline of values or of civilization.
7.2.1.4. 4) In their response to the liberal and radical demands for individuality and freedom, schools lost their traditional disciplinary function and often became chaotic. Conservatives often refer to this problem as the decline of authority.
7.2.1.5. 5) Because they are state controlled and are immune from the laws of a competitive free market, schools are stifled by bureaucracy and inefficiency. Liberals have significantly different viewpoints on the major educational problems of our times.
8. History of US Education
8.1. Influential Reform Movement
8.1.1. Equality of Oppurunity- Plessy vs Fergueson, Brown vs Board of Education, Booker T. Washington, Milliken v Bradley, Head Start; Basically, separation of the races for education was unconstitutional after several cases came to court. Segregation soon became to dissolve into integration.
8.2. Historical Interpretation
8.2.1. Diane Ravitch- defending the democratic-liberal tradition. "Education in a liberal society must sustain and balance ideals that exist in tension: equity and excellence."
8.2.2. David Nassaw- arguing for a more radical interpretation. "The public schools emerge in the end compromised by reform and resistance. They do not belong to the corporations and the state, but neither do they belong to their communities."
8.2.3. E.D. Hirsch, Jr.'s Cultural Literacy provide a critique of U.S. students' lack of liberal arts and sciences knowledge and proposes the Core Curriculum movement.
9. Sociological Perspectives
9.1. Relationship between School and Society
9.1.1. Functional Theory- stresses the interdependence of the social system; theses researchers often examine how well the parts are integrated with each other. Functionalists view society as a kind of machine, where one part articulates with another to produce the dynamic energy required to make society work. Durkheim, moral values were the foundation of society.
9.1.2. Conflict Theory- Ideologies or intellectual justifications are created by the powerful are designed to enhance their position by legitimizing inequality and the unequal distribution of material and cultural goods as an inevitable outcome of biology or history. Schools are similar to social battlefields, where students struggle against teachers, teachers against administrators, and so on.
9.1.3. Interactionalism Theory- Attempt to make the commonplace strange by turning on their heads everyday taken-for-granted behaviors and interactions between students and students, and between students and teachers. People are less likely to create theories that are logical and eloquent, but without meaningful content.
9.2. Five Effects of Schooling on Individuals
9.2.1. Employment- getting a college and professional degree is important for earning more money, but education alone does not fully explain differences in levels of income.
9.2.2. Teacher Behavior- Teachers should not be scapegoated for society's problems, but the findings on teacher expectations do indicate that the attitudes of teachers toward their students may have a significant influence on student achievement and perceptions of self. Also, it is important not to overlook the fact that there are many outstanding teachers who are dedicated and inspirational, and who have helped motivate students to do their best.
9.2.3. Student Peer Groups and Alienation- Schools are far more than mere collections of individuals; they develop cultures, traditions, and restraints that profoundly influence those who work and study within them. They socialize and sort and select students and, in doing so reproduce society.
9.2.4. Tracking- In principle, tracking refers to the placement of students in curricular programs based on students' abilities and inclinations. Students in lower tracks experience more alienation and authoritarian teachers than high-track students.
9.2.5. Gender- Schools alone should not be held accountable for gender discrimination. This form of social stratification is rooted in the values and organization of society; schools in some ways only reflect these societal problems. This is not to say that educators intend to reproduce class, ethnic, racial, and gender inequalities, but the consequences of certain school policies and processes may reproduce these inequalities.