1. Politics of Education
1.1. Intellectual Purpose
1.1.1. -teaching the basics (reading, writing, math) -to transmit specific knowledge from subjects -help students obtain higher-order thinking skills
1.2. Political Purpose
1.2.1. - to form a sense of patriotism in students -to prepare those who will participate in politics -Help assimilate cultural groups into a political order -to teach children the basic laws of society
1.3. Social Purpose
1.3.1. -Help solve social problems -To work as one of many institutions -socialize/introduce children into the aspects of society
1.4. Economic Purpose
1.4.1. -To prepare children for their future careers -To pick, train, and place people into the division of labor
1.5. Conservative Perspective
1.5.1. -Role Of School: they see the role of school as providing the necessary educational training to ensure that the most talented and hard-working individuals receive the tools necessary to maximize economic and social productivity.
1.5.2. Explanations of Unequal Performance: they argue that students, whether as individuals or groups, succeed or fail based on their own intelligence, hard work, and initiative,and that achievement is based on hard work and sacrifice.
1.5.3. Definition of Educational Problems: -They often refer to a decline of standards in which the liberal and radical demands for equality in the 60's and 70's in schools were the cause. -When liberals and radicals demanded for multicultural education, schools watered down their curriculum. Conservatives define this as the decline of cultural literacy. -Due to the liberals and radicals demands for cultural relativism, schools lost their traditional role of teaching moral standards and values. This is defined as the decline of values or of civilization. - Schools lost their traditional disciplinary function in response to radical and liberal demands for individuality and freedom. This is defined as the decline of authority. - Schools, because they are state controlled and are immune from the laws of a competitive free market, are stifled by bureaucracy and inefficiency.
2. Sociology of Education
2.1. Functional Theories
2.1.1. Emile Durkheim was, perhaps, the earliest sociologist to embrace a functional point of view about the relation of school and society. He believed that education was of critical importance in creating the moral unity necessary for social cohesion and harmony.
2.2. Conflict Theory
2.2.1. The achievement ideology convinces students and teachers that schools promote learning, and sort and select students according to their abilities, not their social status. Karl Marx was the intellectual founder of the conflict school in the sociology of education. Other sociologists include: Randall Collins, Max Weber, and Basil Bernstein.
2.3. Interactional Theories
2.3.1. Interactional theories about the relation of school and society are primarily critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict perspectives. Basil Bernstein has argued that the structural aspects of the educational system and the interactional aspects of the system reflect each other and must be viewed wholistically.
2.4. Effects of Schooling on Individuals
2.4.1. Knowledge and Attitudes: One of the first researchers to show that differences in schools are directly related to differences in student outcomes was Ron Edmonds. A study by Heyns found that 6th and 7th grade students who did school in the summer, as well as visited the library, and read a great deal, gained more knowledge than their classmates who did nothing over the summer. It has been found that the actual amount of time students spend in school is directly related to how much they learn.
2.4.2. Teacher Behavior: Teachers, given that they interact with students on a day-to-day basis, can have a huge impact on the student's learning and behavior. In a study conducted by Rosenthal and Jacobson revealed that teachers' expectations of students were found to directly influence student achievement.
2.4.3. Student Peer Groups and Alienation: Student cultures play a very important part in students' careers in school. There is always the unfortunate labeling of students in high school and even in middle school. Everyone wanted to find groups to belong to. Sometimes when students have problems belonging in school it can result in them becoming violent. Not just towards other students, but also towards teachers.
2.4.4. Inadequate Schools: If a school itself is inadequate whether it be from a lack of teachers, a lack of books, lack of current/up-to-date technology, this can have a negative effect on a student's learning.
2.4.5. Gender: Gender, unfortunately, can also reproduce inequalities because of the fact that gender discrimination still exists. This is not to say that it keeps women/girls down (given they are the ones typically impacted negatively by gender discrimination). In fact, over the past decades, the gender gap in academic achievement has all but disappeared, with female students outperforming males in certain subjects, while also closing the gap in other subjects.
3. Educational Reform
3.1. School-Based Reforms
3.1.1. School-to-Work Programs School-to-work programs were created for students who were college-bound. This program was designed to help those students learn important work skills. Every school -to-work system in each state had to have three core elements to their program that were established with the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994. The three elements are: school-based learning, work-based learning, and connecting activities.
3.1.2. Teacher Quality One of the biggest challenges or problems in the American education system is the finding and retaining of high quality teachers. The biggest issue is the practice out-of-field teaching which is when teachers are expected to teach a subject that is outside of their training or their own education.
3.2. Societal, Community, Economic, and Political Reforms
3.2.1. Full Service and Community Schools This is a program in which schools not only serve the purpose of not only educating children, but also of being a sort of community center for families. This program is designed to target and help at-risk neighborhoods.
3.2.2. Harlem Children's Zone This is a program put together to help prepare African American children that grow up in the tougher neighborhoods. The program is to help children prepare for college. It is also to help parents to prepare for their children and to teach parents how they can help their children.
4. Philosophy of Education
4.1. Existentialism
4.1.1. Generic Notions: Existentialists believe that each person, in this world, is on their own. They believe that people have to work to build themselves up.
4.1.2. Method of Instruction: They believe it is the job of the teacher to learn the learning style of each student, in order to figure out what teaching methods work best. One method, the I-thou approach, created by Martin Buber, where the teacher and student learn from one another.
4.1.3. Goal Of Education: They believe that education should focus, not on groups of students, but on students as individuals. They see education as a means of freeing students, themselves, from the insanity that is the world.
4.1.4. Role of the Teacher: The teacher should take risks when it comes to what they teach their students. They also want to give their students the chance to be "wide awake", according to Maxine Greene.
4.1.5. Curriculum: Preference on curriculum leans more towards the arts, literature, etc (humanities). Existentialists believe in exposing students to both possibilities and problems.
4.2. Existentialism itself is a fairly modern philosophy. Most believe the birth of this philosophy happened with it's founder, Soren Kierkegaard, back in 19th century Europe.
4.2.1. Key Researchers: -Martin Buber -Karl Jaspen -Jean Paul Sartre -Maxine Greene
5. Schools as Organizations
5.1. Madison County
5.1.1. State Senators: Richard Shelby & Jefferson Sessions
5.1.2. House of Representatives: Phil Williams, Mike Ball, Laura Hall, Howard Sanderford, Jim Patterson, Ritchie Whorton, & Mac McCutcheon
5.1.3. State Superintendent: Michael Sentance
5.1.4. Representative on State School Board: Mary Scott Hunter
5.1.5. Local Superintendent: Matt Massey
5.1.6. Local School Board: Susie Williamson, VeEtta Hagan, Bart Alford, Kenneth Hall, & Dr. Karen Pickles
5.2. Elements of Change
5.2.1. Conflict: A necessary part of change. In order to resolve these buried issues now resurfaced, teachers and school staff must work together.
5.2.2. New Behaviors: Change requires new relationships and behaviors. Communication and trust are key ingredients to change.
5.2.3. Team Building: Open communication among the entire school. Shared decision making plays a big part in team building.
5.2.4. Process and content are interrelated. The process of making progress in an initiative is critical. Trust and openness need to be present. If effort is seen to change the school, then more will become open to the idea.
6. Curriculum and Pedagogy
6.1. Humanist Believe the traditional liberal arts is the foundation of education in society. Followers of this curriculum believe that the purpose of education is to expose students to what has been written in history as well as the thoughts and beliefs that shaped our world.
6.1.1. Dependencies
6.1.2. Milestones
6.2. Two Dominant Traditions of Teaching
6.2.1. Mimetic Based on the belief that the purpose of education is to teach specific knowledge to students. This is done via lectures or presentations.
6.2.2. Transformative Based of the belief that the purpose of education is to help the students to grow in some way, whether intellectually, spiritually, creatively, or emotionally.
7. Equality of Opportunity
7.1. How do class, race, and gender impact educational outcomes? - Class impacts educational outcomes because education costs money. Education costs money particularly once children further their education. This means that children from upper class and middle class families have a better chance at education as opposed to lower class children. - Race, unfortunately, seems to correlate to education and whether or not the student is likely to graduate from high school. It is unfortunately difficult to separate class from race. - Gender, shows that women seem more committed to a secondary education. History also shows that females are less likely to drop out of school. However, it shows that females are stronger at literature while males are stronger in the mathematics field. It is, unfortunately, a fact that women are still discriminated against in some scenarios socially and occupationally.
7.2. The two responses from the Coleman Study of 1982 are: - In pertainment to the "High School Achievement" findings, it was said that through research, there are no significant differences between the quality of education from public vs private schools. If anything, it was found that Catholics schools are an advantage for low-income students. - In response to Coleman's Equality of Educational Opportunity, it was found that the racial and socioeconomic composition of a student's school has a greater effect on their achievement. This is opposed to the possibility that the student's individual status has a greater effect on their achievement.
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. Cultural Deprivation Theories
8.1.1. One form of the theory is that the poor have a deprived culture since they do not have the monetary means of acquiring resources and materials that could enrich their cultural knowledge.
8.1.2. Another form of the theory is that, instead of blaming the victims of poverty for the effects that come with poverty, the blame should be placed on the economic and social processes that generate or cause poverty.
8.2. School-Centered Explanations
8.2.1. School Financing: This section brings light to the fact that affluent schools typically better funds than the schools in the poor districts. Some people believe there is a direct correlation between unequal school financing and unequal achievement. Regardless of arguments around this issue, there is always plentiful evidence that school financing is important.
8.2.2. Curriculum and Pedagogic Practices: It is said that schools in the working-class neighborhoods are more likely to have a more teacher-centered learning. Middle-class schools would have a more student-centered learning environment and the upper-class schools would have the authoritarian pedagogic feel to it. Bowles and Gintis have the view that the type of schooling directly correlates with the social class of the student.
8.2.3. Gender and Schooling: A court case brought to light the question of whether men and women see the world differently. Carol Gilligan, a psychologist at Harvard, talks about women and their reasoning in her book. She also talks of how society tends to reward men for their "male" behavior but it looks down upon women for "female" behavior. Feminists, despite disagreements on several different issues, tend to agree on the fact that schooling often limits the educational opportunities for women in numerous ways.
8.2.4. Curriculum and Ability Grouping: This section essentially talks about, even in the early years of school, children are seemingly grouped based on their level of capability.