Foundation of Education

1. Chapter 3: History of Education

1.1. hey

1.2. From its very inception, the school was charged with assuming roles that once were the province of family, church and community

1.3. the school continues to serve as a focal point in larger issues of societal needs

1.4. there is little consensus on the motives for school reform

1.5. Old World and New World Education: The Colonial Era

1.5.1. old world was highly satisfied and the view most Europeans held was that only the sons of the rich required education since they would be the future ruling class

1.5.2. early affluent settlers hired tutors for their sons, and if they could afford it, sent their sons back to England for their university education

1.5.3. nine institutions of higher learning were founded prior to the American Revolution

1.5.4. the religious impetus to formalize education can best be exemplified by the Puritans in New England who passed school laws commonly referred to as "The Old Deluder Laws"

1.5.4.1. 1st law: chastised parents for not attending to their children's "ability to read and understand the principles of religion and capitol laws of this country"

1.5.4.2. 2nd law: (more specific regarding formalizing schooling) Massachusetts School law of 1647 provided that every town that had "50 household" would appoint one person to teach all of the children, regardless of gender, to read and write

1.5.4.3. although these laws were not very popular in New England, they remain a landmark in the history of US education

1.5.5. the theme of utilitarianism as the purpose of education can best be seen through an examination of the ideas of Ben Franklin, who published "Proposals Related to the Education of the Youth in Pennsylvania"

1.5.5.1. Franklin believed that the purpose of education was to provide in systematic form what he had extemporized, haphazardly feeling this way

1.5.5.2. Franklin believed students should pursue a course of study that would allow them mastery of process instead of rote learning, reading, writing, public speaking, and art as means of understanding creative expression would be integral components of the curriculum

1.5.6. utilitarianism curriculum would be practical aspects of math, biology, history, geography, and political studies

1.5.7. Thomas Jefferson believed that the best safeguard for democracy was a literate population

1.5.7.1. He proposed to the Virginia Legislature in 1779 a "Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge" which would provide free education to all children for the first three years of elementary school

1.5.8. students were taught content mastery through memorization and writing skills by copying directly from the printed page

1.5.9. secondary education was not coeducational, it was for the sons of the elite

1.5.10. education in the middle colonies reflected the vast religious and cultural differences in the region

1.5.11. education in the south was largely confined to the upper-class and took place at home on the plantation

1.5.12. both male and female were educated on the aristocratic model

1.5.12.1. classical studies were emphasized for boys

1.5.12.2. dancing and music lessons were emphasized for girls

1.5.13. on the eve of the American Revolutionary War, almost all of the African-American population were slaves

1.5.13.1. few could read or write

1.5.13.2. schools that did exist for African-Americans were usually sponsored by church groups

1.5.14. formal schooling for native Americans were largely confined to missionary activities

1.6. The Age of Reform: The Rise of the Common School

1.6.1. Historians point to the period of 1820-1860 in the US as one in which big changes took place with speed

1.6.2. by 1828, when Andrew Jackson was elected president, all men had obtained the right to vote

1.6.3. although the reform movement attempted to address such diverse societal problems as slavery, mental illness, intemperance, and pacifism, many believed the road to secular paradise was through education

1.6.4. schools that had been established pre-war generation were not functioning effectively

1.6.5. the vast majority of Americans were illiterate

1.6.6. the struggle for free public education was led by Horace Mann

1.6.6.1. he fought for a state board of education and then became its first secretary where he held that position for 11 years

1.6.6.2. partly due to his efforts, the first "state normal school" or teacher training school, was established in Lexington, Mass in 1839

1.6.6.3. Many historians view Mann as one of America's greatest educational reformers

1.7. Urbanization and the Progressive Impetus

1.7.1. beginning of the 19th century was the first industrial revolution and at the end of the century was the second industrial revolution

1.7.2. immigration labor played an essential role in the SIR

1.7.3. at the beginning of the 19th century, the largest number of immigrants came from northwestern parts of Europe and after 1890, immigrants were coming from southern and eastern Europe

1.7.4. by the turn of the century, US cities contained enormous concentrations of both wealth and poverty

1.7.5. 1900 and 1940  was a new reform movement called Progressive Movement

1.7.5.1. progressive reforms insisted on

1.7.6. Progressive reformers insisted on:

1.7.6.1. government regulation of industry and commerce

1.7.6.2. government regulation and conservation of the nation's natural resources

1.7.6.3. government at the national, state, and local levels be responsive to the welfare of its citizens rather than the welfare of corporations

1.7.6.4. reformers once again looked to schools as a mean of preserving and promoting democracy within the new social order

1.7.7. John Dewey was a contemporary of such reformers as a governor of Wisconsin and  developed the "Wisconsin Idea"

1.7.7.1. Wisconsin Idea harnessed the expertise of university professors to the mechanic of state government

1.7.8. 1909, 57.8% of children in schools in 37 of the largest cities in the US were foreign

1.7.8.1. therefore teacher began to teach basic socialization skills

1.7.9. Dewey argued for a restructuring of the schools along the lines of "embryonic communities"

1.7.9.1. advocated the creation of a curriculum that would allow for the child's interest and developmental level while introducing the child to "the point of departure from which the child can trace and follow the process of mankind in history

1.7.10. Dewey believed that the result from eduation was growth

1.7.10.1. he advocated active learning

1.7.10.2. he emphasized the role of experience in education

1.7.10.3. he introduced the idea of teacher as a facilitator of learning

1.7.10.4. believed the school was "a miniature community, an embryonic society" where discipline was a tool that would develop "a spirit of social cooperation and community life"

1.7.11. two distinctively different approaches to progressive education became apparent: the Child-centered pedagogy and the social efficiency pedagogy

1.7.11.1. child-centered: G. Stanley Hall- believed that children, in their development, reflected the stages of development of civilization. therefore, schools should tailor their curriculum to the stages of child development......Child-Centered Reform

1.7.11.2. Social Engineering Reform: Edward Thorndike- placed emphasis on the organisms response to its environment. he believed that human nature could be altered for better or worse depending on the education to which it was subjected

1.8. Education for All: The Emergence of Public High School

1.8.1. before 1875, less than 25,000 students attended high school. between 1880 and 1920, 2,382,542 students attended high school. by 1940, 6.5 million students attended high school

1.8.2. Diane Ravitch points out four themes that were troubling high school educators at the turn of the century

1.8.2.1. 1. tension between classical subjects and modern subjects

1.8.2.2. 2. meeting college entrance requirements

1.8.2.3. 3. Educators that believed that students should apply subjects that would prepare them for life, as opposed to traditional academic subjects

1.8.2.4. 4. whether all students should pursue the same course of study should be determined by the interests and the abilities of the students

1.8.3. to clarify the purpose of high school education, a committee of ten was formed by the National Education Association (NEA), headed by Harvard president, Charles Eliot

1.8.3.1. the purpose of secondary education was to prepare students for "the duties of their life"

1.8.3.2. the committee proposed five model curricula, including: classical and modern languages, English, math, history, and science, in essence the liberal arts curriculum.

1.8.3.3. committee recommended that all students should be taught in the same manner

1.8.4. The recommendations made by the committee of ten were reinforced in two ways:

1.8.4.1. Through the NEA's newly established committee on college entrance requirements

1.8.4.2. through the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of Teaching's adoption for the same core courses

1.8.5. Cardinal Principles of Secondary Educationlisted the main goals of secondary education

1.8.5.1. health

1.8.5.2. command of fundamental processes

1.8.5.3. worthy home-membership

1.8.5.4. vocation

1.8.5.5. citizenship

1.8.5.6. worthy use of leisure

1.8.5.7. ethical character

1.8.6. final curriculum reform came during the period preceeding the Second World War was the "Education for life Adjustment" movement presented by Charles Prosser

1.8.6.1. he proposed a curriculum for the nation's high schools, which addressed the practical concerns for everyday life

1.9. Post World War II Equity Era: 1945-1980

1.9.1. Started out with the debate about the goals of education and whether all children should receive the same education remained an important one

1.9.2. next the demand for the expansion of educational opportunity became perhaps the most prominent feature of educational reform

1.9.3. the post World War II years were concerned with expanding opportunities to the post-secondary level and tension between equity and excellence became crucial in the debates of this period

1.10. Cycles of Reform: Progressive and Traditional

1.10.1. the debates over academic issues, began at the turn of the twentieth century, may be defined as the movement between pedagogical progressivism and pedagogical traditionalism. The movement focuses on not only on the process of education but on its goals

1.10.2. traditionalists believed in knowledge-centered education while progressives believed in experiential education

1.10.3. critics argued that the life adjustment education of the period, combined with an increasingly anti-intellectual curriculum, destroyed the traditional academic functions of schooling

1.10.4. by the 1960s, the shift in educational priorities moved again toward the progressive side and occured in two distinct but overlapping ways

1.10.4.1. the civil rights movement

1.10.4.2. in the context of the antiwar movement of the times

1.10.5. the mid 1960s- the mid 1970s was marked by two simultaneous processes:

1.10.5.1. the challenge to traditional schooling

1.10.5.2. the attempt to provide educational opportunity for the disadvantaged

1.11. Equality of Oportunity

1.11.1. GI Bill of Opportunity offers 16 million servicemen and women the opportunity to pursue higher education and represented a building block in the Post-WWII educational expansion

1.11.2. during the latter years of the 19th century, the supreme court successfully blocked civil rights legislation

1.11.3. Plessy vs Ferguson = separate but equal

1.11.4. Civil rights advocates won their major victory on May 17, 1954 in the decision in Brown vs Topeka Board of Education  when the Supreme Court ruled that state-imposed segregation of schools was unconstitutional

1.11.5. The Kentucky Education Reform Act represented one of the landmark legislative reforms to provide equal education

1.11.6. by the late 1960s, many colleges and unoversities had adopted the policy of open enrollment

1.11.7. in1969, all-male ivy league universities began to admit women

1.12. Educational Reaction and Reform and the Standards Era: 1980-2012

1.12.1. "A Nation at Risk"provided a serious indictment of US education and cited high rates of adult illiteracy, declining SAT scores, and low scores on international comparisons of knowledge

1.12.2. As a solution to the problems stated in "A Nation at Risk", the committee offered five recommendations:

1.12.2.1. All students graduating from high school must complete what is called "the new basics"

1.12.2.2. schools at all levels expect higher achievements from their students

1.12.2.3. more time be devoted to teaching the new basics

1.12.2.4. the preparation of teachers be strengthened

1.12.2.5. that citizens require their elected representatives to support and fund these reforms

1.12.3. school choice movement: gives parents the choice of which public school to send their child to

1.13. Democratic-Liberal School

1.13.1. believes that the history of US education involves the progressive evolution, albeit flawed, of a school system committed to providing equality of opportunity for all

1.13.2. believe that the US educational system must continue to move closer to each, without sacrificing one or the other too dramatically

1.14. radical-revisionist school

1.14.1. they argue that the history of US education is the story of expanded success for very different results. they do not deny that the educational system has expanded, rather, they believe that it expanded to meet the needs of the elites in society for the control of the working class and immigrants, and for economic efficiency and productivity

1.14.2. other radical historians suggest that the working class and labor unions activey supported the expansion of public education for their own interests

1.14.3. radical historians agree that the results of the educational expansion rarely meet their putative democratic aspirations

1.15. conservative perspectives

1.15.1. Diane Ravitch provided a passionate critique of the radical-revolutionists prospective and a defense of the democratic-liberal position

1.16. Opposition to Public Education

1.16.1. taxation for public education was viewed as unjust by non-recipients

1.16.2. Roman Catholics formed their own schools because they viewed the common school as dominated by a Protestant ethos

1.16.3. by 1860, public support of elementary education was popular throughout the US

1.16.4. 1862: Morrill Act- authorized the use of public money to establish public land grant universities

1.17. Education for Women and African-Americans

1.17.1. Rousseau, in his tract on education, created a female character who received nontraditional, but rigorous education

1.17.2. generally education for women was viewed as biologically harmful or too stressful

1.17.3. few females achieved an education other than the basic principles of literacy and numeracy

1.17.4. by 1820, movement for education for women was making large strides

1.17.5. 1821: Emma Hart Willard opened the Troy Female Seminary where the curriculum included math, science, history, and geography

1.17.6. 1833: Oberlin Collegiate Institute opened its doors for women as well as African Americans

1.17.7. In the north, education for African-Americans was usually inferior quality and separate from the mainstream public school

1.17.8. Benjamin Roberts filed a lawsuit in Boston over the requirement that his daughter attend a segregated school...he lost

1.17.9. African-American schools were usually administered by their churches and funded by abolitionists

1.17.10. 13th amendment freed all slaves and 14th amendment granted all ex-slaves full citizenship

1.17.11. in 1868 the Freedman's Bureau helped establish historically black colleges, though the equality and school segregation continued to be a significant issue throughout the remainder of the 19th and 20th centuries

2. Chapter 2: Politics of Education

2.1. Standards movement to testing movement

2.1.1. George W Bush Passes No child left behind (NCLB) in 2002 making standardized test sores the primary measure of school quality

2.1.2. With the NLB, it did not require any curriculum each state got to decide that aspect of education

2.1.3. Clinton administration gave the states federal money to write their own academic standards, but most were ague when it ae to any curriculum content

2.1.4. According to many, the education reform went wrong when the report "A Nation at Risk" (ANAR) was released in 1983.

2.1.5. There was a decline in SAT sores fro 1963-1980 for which the commission said was the erosion of content of the curriculum

2.1.6. The commission urged a study they referred to as "The Five New Basics":  4 years of English, 3 years of math, sciences, and social studies, and 1/2 year of computer science . also anyone college bound to do 2 years of foreign language (they believed that foreign language should begin in elementary school).

2.1.7. The commission even listed what should be accomplished for each student in each subject

2.1.8. ANAR proposed that four year colleges and universities raise their admissions requirements and to upgrade the quality of textbooks and other teaching material.

2.2. What counts as educational policy

2.2.1. Education policies

2.2.1.1. The 1954 Brown Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the Bilingual Act in 1968, Title IX in 1972, and the Education for All Handicapped children in 1975 opened doors for academic experiences for previously under-served K-12 students

2.2.1.2. In 1917, the Smith-Hughes Act was passed, it was the first federal policy aimed at working-class populations, and it provided funds to prepare students in industrialized areas for working-class jobs through vocational programs

2.2.2. Barriers to High Quality Public Education in Cities

2.2.2.1. Education policy has not addressed neighborhood poverty that surrounds and invades urban schools and it has not addressed the unemployment and jobless families who will have a lack of resources

2.2.2.2. individual and neighborhood poverty build walls around schools and classrooms that education policy does not penetrate or scale

2.2.3. Federal Policy

2.2.3.1. in 1005, the minimum wage was $5.15, so even if someone worked full-time, year round, the salary would not raise people out of poverty

2.2.3.2. Those who opposed the raising of minimum wage thought that if it were raised that people would in turn, fire employees or hire less to accommodate to having to pay more, but a study was done on the minimum wage increase in 1990-1991 and 1996-1997 and it failed to find any systematic, significant job loss associated to the raising of minimum wage.

2.2.3.3. Even with policies in place, there are not enough jobs for poor families who need them; low income families of color are concentrated in low resourced urban neighborhoods

2.2.3.4. However if minimum wage was increased, it would lower poverty by important margins, comparable worth laws would enforce existing regulation that outlaws discrimination in hiring

2.2.3.5. One analysis said that paying women the same as men would reduce poverty up to 40% because a large percentage of poor people are women.

2.2.4. Metropolitan Policy and Practice

2.2.4.1. Metro areas are shaped by regional markets- for jobs, housing, investment, and production and they account for over 80% of national output and drive the economic performance of the nation as a whole.

2.2.4.2. Metropolitan areas are characterized by these problems: most entry-level jobs for which adults with low to moderate educational levels are qualified are located in the suburbs, state-allowed local zoning on the basis of income prevents affordable housing in most suburbs where entry level jobs are located, and failure to enforce antiracial discrimination confines most blacks and Latinos to housing sites in central and segregated suburbs, and even though federal and state taxes are paid by everyone throughout the metro regions, most tax-supported development takes place in affluent suburbs rather than in low-income areas

2.2.5. Poverty

2.2.5.1. 84 % of Hispanic workers, 80% of black workers, and 64.3% of white workers made wages at or under the 200 percent of the official poverty line in 2001.

2.2.6. Effects of poverty on Urban students

2.2.6.1. research shows that when parents obtain better financial resources or better living conditions, the educational achievement of the child improves significantly

2.2.6.2. 16% of American children lived below the official federal poverty line and almost half of those children lived in extreme poverty

2.2.6.3. it was only in the 1990s that empirical studies focused on how and why poverty affects cognitive development and school achievement

2.2.6.4. Duncan and Brooks-Gunn teased out some of he variables within the effects of income in their 1997 volume "Consequences of Growing Up Poor"

2.2.6.4.1. income matters for the cognitive development of preschoolers "because it is associated with the provision of a richer learning environment".

2.2.6.4.2. "a variety of income measures - income (relative to needs)...income loss, the ratio of debts to assets, and unstable work - are associated with family economic pressure"

2.2.6.4.3. "family income is usually a stronger predictor of ability and achievement outcomes than are measures of parental schooling or family structure"

2.2.6.5. It is important to keep in mind that the findings from Duncan and Brooks-Gunn do not suggest that poor students are of low-intelligence, rather, the studies point to the power of the economy - and of the economic hardship - to place extremely high hurdles to full development in front of children who are poor

2.2.6.6. in 2002, Valarie Lee and David Burkham published the results of a large-sample assessment of the effects of poverty on cognitive development using data from the United States Department of Education's early childhood longitudinal kindergarten cohort

2.2.6.6.1. Lee and Burkham explored differences in young children's achievement scores in literacy and mathematics by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES) as they began kindergarten

2.2.6.7. Lee and Burkham's assessment concluded:

2.2.6.7.1. prior to kindergarten, the average cognitive scores of children in the highest SES group are 60% above those in the lowest SES group

2.2.6.7.2. cognitive skill are much less closely related to race/ethnicity after accounting for SES

2.2.6.7.3. the impact of family structure on cognitive skills is much less than either race or SES

2.2.6.7.4. Socioeconomic status is very strongly related to cognitive skills; SES accounts for more of the variation in cognitive scores than any other factor by far

2.2.7. evidence that familial supports raise educational achievement

2.2.7.1. Indirect evidence is found in a longitudinal study in 2003 that found that improving family income reduces the negative social behavior which in turn is likely to lead to better school behavior and performance

2.2.7.2. other research demonstrates that urban low-income parents are also able to practice more effective parenting strategies when some of the stress of poverty is eased by higher income

2.2.7.3. longitudinal studies have found that the achievement and behavior problems of young children can have important implications for their well-being in adolescence and adulthood

2.2.7.4. New Hope for Families and Children was a program that provided earning supplements that brought families above poverty level

2.2.7.5. New Hope improved children's school performance at both the two year mark as well as the five year mark and performed better than the control group on several measurements of academic achievement

2.2.7.6. New Hope program helped lead the way for "mobility programs" the first of which was called "Gautreaux Program" which was in the Chicago area

2.2.7.6.1. After a big lawsuit against Chicago Housing Authority, the court ordered to them to move families that wanted to live in less segregated areas. The success of this program led to more than 50 other mobility programs

2.2.7.7. the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 authorized the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to "assist very low-income families with children who reside in public housing or housing received project based assistance under section 8 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1937 to move out of areas with high concentrations of persons living in poverty to areas with low concentrations of such persons"

2.2.7.7.1. it was reported that children in the section 8-only groups achieved higher test scores than the control, and experienced fewer arrests for violent criminal behaviors

2.2.8. A New Education Policy Paradigm

2.2.8.1. the effects of macroeconomic policies continually trump the effects of education policies

2.2.8.2. to remove economic barriers to school quality and consequence:

2.2.8.2.1. we can legislate a significant higher living wage

2.2.8.2.2. we can create jobs in cities that offer career ladders

2.2.8.2.3. we can prepare low-income residents to fill the jobs that are created

2.2.8.2.4. we can tax wealthy families and corporations to pay for these and other investments

2.2.8.2.5. we should enforce federal anti-discrimination measures to integrate segregated housing and create public transit so low-income urban residents without cars are not denied access to jobs in the suburbs

2.2.8.3. education funding reform would include the companion need for financing neighborhood jobs and decent wages

2.2.8.4. New small schools would be created as an important part of coordinated efforts at neighborhood revitalization for low-income residents

2.2.8.5. vocational offerings in high school would link to living-wage campaigns and employers would support them

2.2.8.6. college graduation would be understood as a continuation of government's financial responsibility for public education

2.2.8.7. lawsuits to racially integrate districts would acknowledge housing segregation as fundamental and target legal challenges accordingly

3. Chapter 9: Educational Inequality

3.1. Cultural Deprivation Theory

3.1.1. this theory was popularized back in the 1960s and suggested that working-class and non white families often lack cultural resources, such as books and other educational stimuli, and therefore arrive at school at a significant disadvantage. Theorists of cultural deprivation assert that the poor have deprived cultures- one that lacks the value system of the middle-class culture. According to these theorists, middle-class culture values hard work and initiative, the delay of gratification for future reward, and importance of schooling as means to future success, alternately the culture of poverty avoids gratification for immediate reward, rejects hard work and initiative as means to success, and does not view schooling as the means to social mobility. Because of this, children who grow up in poverty are educationally disadvantaged because they grew up in a society who does not hold value in education and therefore did not acquire the necessary skills and dispositions required for satisfactory academic achievement.

3.2. School- Centered Explanations for Educational Inequality

3.2.1. School Financing: Jonathan Kozol compared public schools in affluent suburbs with public schools in poor inner cities and documented the vast differences in funding between the two in his book Savage Inequalities. This issue stands because of the current way of public school financing. Public school are financed through a combination of revenues from local, state, and federal sources, but the majority comes from state and local taxes with property taxes being a significant source. Property taxes are based on property value, and the value of property in an affluent area are going to be much higher than property in poorer communities. With that said, property taxes in affluent communities are going to draw in much more revenue than the same taxes elsewhere and therefore giving more funds to those public schools. The Supreme court has made a decision that it will not intervene in this state and local issue, but some states have ruled against their state's system of school financing.

3.2.2. Between-School Differences: Research has pointed to the fact that "school climates" have a direct affect on academic performance and that the differences are significant between schools in higher socioeconomic areas and ones in lower socioeconomic areas. Bernstein did an examination of schools in England and came up with his own theories (currently still considered theories because of the lack of empirical support). Bernstein claims that schools in the working-class are more likely to have authoritarian and teacher-directed pedagogical practices, and have a vocationally or socially efficiency curriculum at the secondary level. Middle-class schools are more likely to have less authoritarian and more student-centered pedagogical practices and to have humanistic liberal arts college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level. Upper-class students are more likely to attend elite private schools that contain both authoritarian pedagogical practices as well as a classical-humanistic college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level.

3.2.3. Within-School Differences: Not only are there difference from school to school there are also differences within a single school. The fact that different groups of students within the same school perform differently suggests that there may be school characteristics affecting these outcomes. At the elementary level, students are divided into reading groups and separate classes based on teacher recommendations, standardized test scores, and sometime ascriptive characteristics such as race, class, or gender. For elementary schools though, students are still, for the most part, taught the same curriculum although it may be taught at a different pace and the expectations of the different groups may vary. In the secondary level of education, students are divided by both ability and curriculum, with different groups of students often receiving considerably different types of education within the same school. From a functionalist perspective, tracking is viewed as an important mechanism by which students are separated based on ability and to ensure the best and brightest receive the type of education required to prepare them for society's most essential positions. From a conflict theorists perspective, it is suggested thar tracking is a mechanism for separating groups. often based on ascriptive characteristics, and that it is an important mechanism in reproducing inequalities. It has also been found that tracking placement is associated with student race and social characteristics, with working-class and non-white students more likely to be placed in lower tracks.

3.2.4. Gender and Schooling: The feminist movement dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, but the second wave started in the 1960s. Feminists during this time challenged the view that biology is destiny. Vivian Gornick argued that differences in men and women are cultural, not biological, and that women deserve equality in the public and private spheres of life. Carol Gilligan is a very influential person working in the area of gender differences. She argued against Kohlburg who stated that moral reasoning is on a higher plane than caring orientation. She said that women do reason in a different voice and that the female voice is just as an important component of the human experience and should not be devalued. Gilligan's work pointed to the differences and their relation to gender socialization and how society rewards men for "male-like" behavior and negatively affects women for "female" behavior. Gilligan's work is very controversial but the argument that women are more caring and connected, and men more competitive and intellectual, may reproduce sexist stereotypes that historically justified the domestic roles of women. Feminist all together agree that schooling often limits the educational opportunities and the life chances of a woman in a number of ways. For example, boys and girls are socialized differently through a variety of school processes. One, curriculum materials portrays men's and women's roles often in stereotypical and traditional ways. Two, the traditional curriculum "silences women" by omitting significant aspects of women's history and women's lives from discussion. Three, the hidden curriculum reinforces traditional gender roles and expectations through classroom organization, instructional practices, and classroom interactions. Four, the organization of the school reinforces gender roles and gender inequality, Given the role that schools play in reproducing gender inequalities, feminists argue that school organization, curriculum, and pedagogical practices need to be changed to address more adequately the needs of females.

4. Chapter 10: Educational Reform

4.1. School-Based Reforms

4.1.1. Privatization: Traditional distinction between public and private school became blurred starting in the 1990s when private education companies increasingly became involved in public education in a couple of ways. First, for-profit 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 has been concluded that the success of these types of reforms has been mixed

4.1.2. School-to-Work Programs: The intent of the school-to-work programs was to extend the opportunity of vocational practices to those students who were not college bound. This regarded their needed necessary skills for successful employment and to stress the importance of work-based learning. The School-to-Work Act of 1994 was signed by Bill Clinton to provide schools with seed money to states and local partnerships of business, labor, government, education, and community organizations to develop school-to-work systems. This law allowed each state to determine the best program to work in their state and allowed them to implement it how they chose. This was an effort in creating a system that prepared youth for high-wage, high-skill careers of today and tomorrow's global economy. Although the systems varied from state to state, each system was required to provide each student with the following: relevant education, skills, and valued credentials. In addition every system also had to contain three core elements: school-based learning, work-based learning, and connecting activities. Although all of the right intentions lay in this law, the U.S. system of vocational education remains a "second-class" educational track which often does not equip students with a sound liberal arts foundation and is not adequately connected to career opportunities. Unlike other places in the world, U.S. students who do not wish to attend post-secondary education are not given adequate career paths.

4.2. Reforms

4.2.1. Full service and community schools: The goal of this reform is to not only educate the child but to educate the whole community. These community schools focus on meeting students' and their family's educational, physical, psychological, and social needs in a coordinated and collaborative fashion between school and community services. This is specifically designed to target and improve at-risk neighborhoods and aims to prevent problems and support these areas.

4.2.2. Harlem's Children's Zone: Geoffrey Canada grew up in an all black community and was not ready for his post-secondary education in Maine where he faced social and academic challenges. Canada then strove to make a difference in the lives of those like he once was. Canada wants to leave children where they are, simultaneously changing them and their neighborhoods. With it have been proven that white parents are more likely to spend time educating their child at home than black parents, black children are often behind from the very first year of the schooling process. Canada provides programs for parents in Harlem before the child is even born in attempt to infuse all knowledge that middle-class parents know they should do for their child in a sensitive way. Participants of "Baby College" are recruited from all over Harlem to participate in the program where instructors of color teach them how to have academic conversations with their children, as well as provide them with a healthy home environment and acceptable forms of discipline. This program will even purchase items that parents are in need of but cannot afford for their homes.

5. Chapter 6: Schools as Organizations

5.1. Huntsville, Al Representatives

5.1.1. Alabama state senators: Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby

5.1.2. Alabama State Superintendent: Tommy Brice

5.1.3. Alabama State Board of education president: Gov. Robert Bentley

5.1.4. Huntsville City schools Superintendent: Dr. Casey Wardynski

5.1.5. Huntsville city schools board of education: Elisa Ferrell, Walker McGinnis, Beth Wilder, Michelle Watkins. and Pam Hill

5.2. Elements of Change

5.2.1. Conflict is a necessary part: allow problems to surface in order for them to be resolved

5.2.2. New Behaviors must be learned: When change occurs trust and a basis of communication must be the first two things that are accomplished

5.2.3. Team building must extend to the entire school: must be a shared decision making throughout the staff to eliminate the possibility of exclusiveness and imagined elitism

5.2.4. process and content are interrelated: the process used to carry out changes is just as important as the intended change itself.

6. Chapter 4: Sociology of Education

6.1. "Education and Inequality"

6.1.1. social level: general structures of society

6.1.2. institutional level: includes society's major institutions

6.1.3. interpersonal level: includes processes, symbols, and interactions that occur within institutional settings

6.1.4. intrapsychic level: includes individuals thoughts, beliefs, values, and feelings

6.2. The Uses of Sociology for Teachers

6.2.1. The empirical and conceptual tools of sociology are ideally suited to this task because they guide one toward systematic thinking and realism about what is actually possible

6.2.2. one of the best known techniques for understanding classroom interaction is Ned Flander's Interaction Analysis Scale. It involves the use of observers who watch classroom interactions and note these interactions on a standard scale

6.3. The relation between School and Society

6.3.1. sociologists take and interest in how schools act as agents of cultural and social transmission

6.3.2. socialization: the values, beliefs, and norms of society are internalized in children so that they cone to think and act like other members of society

6.3.3. schools play a major role in determining who will get ahead in society and who will not

6.4. Theoretical Perspectives

6.4.1. theory is an integration of all known principles, laws, and information pertaining to a specific area of study

6.4.2. three major theories about the relation between school and society: functional, conflict, and interactional

6.5. functional theories

6.5.1. 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

6.5.2. Emile Durkheim virtually invented the sociology of education in the late 19th, early 20th centuries.

6.5.2.1. emphasis on values and cohesion set the tone for how current day functionalists approach the study of education

6.5.2.2. functionalists tend to assume that consensus in the normal state in society and that conflict represents a breakdown of shared values

6.5.3. educational reform, then, from a functionalists point of view is supposed to create structures, programs, and curricula that are technically advanced, rational, and encourage social unity

6.6. Conflict theories

6.6.1. the glue of society is the economic, political, cultural, and militarypower

6.6.2. conflict sociologists emphasize struggle. from a conflict point of view schools are similar to social battlefields, where students struggle against teachers, teachers against administrators and so on

6.6.3. Karl Marx is the intellectual founder of the conflict school in the sociology of education

6.6.4. according to Bowles and Gintis, there is a direct correspondence between the organization of schools and the organization of society, and until society is fundamentally changed, there is little hope of real school reform

6.6.5. Weber realized that political and military power could be exercised by the state, without direct reference to the wishes in the dominant classes

6.6.6. waller portrayed school as autocracies in a state of "perilous equilibrium"

6.6.7. Randall Collins has maintained that educational expansion is best explained by status group struggle

6.6.8. a growing body of literature suggests that schools pass on to graduates specific social identities that either enhance or hinder their life chances

6.7. Interactional Theories

6.7.1. the processes by which students are labeled gifted or learning disabled are from an interactional point of view

6.8. Knowledge and Attitudes

6.8.1. sociologists of education disagree strongly about the relative importance of schooling in terms of what knowledge and attitudes young people acquire in school

6.8.2. the higher the social class, higher his or her achievement level

6.8.3. it has been found the the actual amount of time students spend in school is directly related to how much they learn

6.9. Employment

6.9.1. perhaps because academic credentials help individuals to obtain higher-status jobs early in their careers, possession of a college degree is significantly related to higher income

6.9.2. among household heads at all levels of education, women earned less than men

6.10. Education and mobility

6.10.1. a private  school diploma may act as a "mobility escalator"

6.10.2. the complex interplay between merit and privilege creates a tournament were the rules are not entirely even-handed and not everyone has the opportunity to set the rule s

6.11. Inside the Schools

6.11.1. curriculum expresses culture

6.11.2. in private schools almost all students are enrolled in an academic curriculum

6.12. Teacher Behavior

6.12.1. teachers wear many different occupational hats and sometimes that can lead to role strain: where such conflicting demands are placed in teachers that they cannot feel totally comfortable in any role

6.12.2. Persell found that when teachers demanded more from their students and praised them more, students learned more and felt better about themselves

6.13. Student Peer Groups and Alienation

6.13.1. Stinchcombe found that students in vocational programs and headed toward low-status jobs most likely to join a rebellious subculture

6.13.2. 4 types of college students:

6.13.2.1. careerists: generally come from middle- and upper- middle class backgrounds, won few academic honors, lost confidence during college, and were not intellectually motivated by this experience

6.13.2.2. intellectuals: usually came from highly educated families, studied in the humanities, were politically involved, and earned many academic honors

6.13.2.3. strivers: very often had  a working-class background, came from ethnic or racial minorities, worked hard, often did not have a high GPA, but graduated with a real sense of accomplishment

6.13.2.4. unconnected: came from all backgrounds, participated in few extracurricular activities, and were least satisfied among all groups with their college experience

6.14. Education and Inequality

6.14.1. US is essentially divided into 5 classes: upper class, upper-middle class, lower-middle class, working class, and lower or underclass

6.14.2. those who are oppressed by the class system may resists and revolt, and those who benefit usually cooperate with and defend the current form of social stratification

6.15. Tracking

6.15.1. "tracking" refers to the placement of students in curricular programs based on students' abilities and inclinations

6.15.2. by and large, working-class students end up in vocational tracks and middle-class students in academic tracks

6.16. "The Contribution of Schooling to the Learning of Norms" by Robert Dreeben

6.16.1. Norms are situationally specific standards for behavior: principles, premises, or expectations indicating how individuals in specifiable circumstances "ought" to act

6.16.2. four norms have have particular relevance to economic and political participation in industrial societies: independence, achievement, universalism, and specificity

6.16.3. resources are available for sanctioning derive initially from two structural characteristics of classrooms: the visibility of pupils and their homogeneity of age

6.16.4. similarity of pupils in age is important for at least three reasons: age represents an index of developmental maturity; it provides the classroom with a built-in standard for comparison; it allows each pupil the experience of finding himself in the same boat with others

6.16.5. there are at least two additional aspects of the classroom operation, however, that bear directly on the norm of independence: rules about cheating and formal testing

6.16.6. the concept of achievement, like independence, has several referents. It usually denotes activity and mastery, making an impact on the environment rather than fatalistically accepting it, and competing against some standard of excellence

6.16.7. achievements standards are not limited in applicability to the classroom nor is their content restricted to cognitive areas

6.16.8. the ability of alternatives to academic performance means that a pupil can experience success in achievement -oriented activities even if he lacks the requisite talents for the doing well in the classroom

6.16.9. the school provides a wider variety of achievement experiences that does the family but at the same tie has few resources for supporting and protecting pupils' self-respect in the face of failure

6.16.10. the norm of specificity refers to the scope of ones person's interest in another; implicit is the notion of relevance

6.16.11. a second facet of universalism is the principle of equity, or fairness

6.16.12. among children in a family, age is critical in determining what is fair and unfair

6.16.13. among young children, age provides variable standard for judging questions of equity, a more fixed standard as kids get older

6.17. "On Understanding the Processes of Schooling" by Ray C. Rist

6.17.1. The concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy has remained just that - a concept

6.17.2. deviance is understood, not as a quality of the person or as created by his actions, but instead as created by a group definition and reactions. It is a social judgement imposed by a social audience

6.17.3. a primary deviant is one who holds to socially accept roles, views himself as a non-deviant, and believes himself to be an insider

6.17.4. a secondary deviant, on the other hand, is one who has reorganized his social-psychological characteristics around the deviant role

6.17.5. characteristics such as sex and race as well as social class are immediately apparent

6.17.6. W. I. Thomas- "if men define the situation as real, they are real in their consequences"

6.17.7. the higher ones social status, the less willingness to diagnose the same behavioral traits as indicative of serious illness to comparison to the diagnosis given to low status person

6.17.8. If someone is labeled as something, it is very likely for that person to become whatever he was socially labeled as

6.17.9. labeling theory provides a conceptual framework by which to understand the processes of transforming attitudes into behavior and the outcomes of having done so

6.18. "The Politics of Culture" by Amy Stuart Wells and Irene Serna

6.18.1. Article focused on how forces outside the school walls shaped the ability of educators to implement "detracking reform"

6.18.2. elites: they become a defining motif of everyday life and appear as "common sense" - that is, as the "traditional popular conception of the world"

6.18.3. traditional hierarchical track structures in schools have been validated by the conflation of culture and intelligence

6.18.4. detracking is the processes of moving schools toward a less rigid system of assigning students to classes and academic programs

6.18.5. cultural capital consists of culturally valued tastes and consumption patterns, which are rewarded within the educational system

6.18.6. Bourdieu argues that within a school system, students are frequently rewarded for their taste, and for the cultural knowledge that informs it

6.18.7. Thompson believes that ideology refers to the ways in which meaning serves, in particular circumstances, to establish and sustain relations of power that are systematically asymmetrical.... i.e. it is the service of power

6.18.8. this ideology of "diversity at a distance" is often employed by white parents at strategic moments when the privileged status of their children appears to be threatened

6.18.9. in the study they found that elite parents rationalized their children's entitlement to better educational opportunities based upon the resources that they themselves brought to the system

6.18.10. According to Harrison the elite seek to deny the arbitrary nature of the social order that culture does much to conceal. This process is called "masking"

6.18.11. the arbitrary placement system is more sensitive to cultural capital than to academic "ability"

6.18.12. non-arbitrary standardized tests are problematic on two levels

6.18.12.1. 1) the tests themselves are culturally based in favor of wealthy, white students, and therefore represent a poor measure of "ability" or "intelligence"

6.18.12.2. 2) scores on those exams tend to count more for some students than others

7. Chapter 5: Philosophy of Education

7.1. philosophy as applied to education, allows practitioners to apply systematic approaches to problem solving in schools and illuminates larger issues of complex relationship of schools to the social order

7.2. what is philosophy of education?

7.2.1. firmly rooted in practice, whereas philosophy, as a discipline, stands on its own with no specific end in mind

7.2.2. the activity of doing philosophy aids teachers in understanding two very important notions 1) who they are or intend to bed 2) why they do or purpose to do what they do

7.3. Idealism

7.3.1. the first systematic philosophy in Western thought; generally thought to be the creation of the Greek philosopher Plato

7.3.2. educators who subscribe to Idealism are interested in the search for the truth through ideas

7.3.3. in an idealism classroom, the teacher plays an active role in discussion an posing questions to help ensure that the teacher gets the desired outcome

7.3.4. teachers take an active part in their students' learning and use the dialectic approach

7.3.5. great importance in studying the classics

7.3.6. many idealists support the "back to basics" approach to education

7.4. Realism

7.4.1. follows the same historical traditions as idealism, but philosophers view Aristotle as the main man in realism

7.4.2. only studying it was only through studying the material world that it was possible for someone to develop ideas

7.4.3. "matter exists, independent of ideas"

7.4.4. Plato and Aristotle subscribed  to the importance of ideas, but each philosopher dealt with them very differently

7.4.5. Aristotle's Systematic Theory of Logic

7.4.5.1. began his process with empirical research, then,   he would speculate or use dialectic reasoning which would culminate in a syllogism

7.4.5.2. syllogism is a system of logic that consists of three parts: major premise, minor premise, and a conclusion

7.4.6. Aristotle concluded that reason was an instrument that individuals could employ to achieve the proper balance or moderation in their lives

7.5. Neo-Thomism

7.5.1. is derived from Aquinian, basically aquinas affected a synthesis of Pagen ideas and Christian beliefs employing reason as a means of ascertaining or understanding truth

7.6. Modern Realism

7.6.1. dates from the renaissance, mostly the work of Francis Bacon who developed the inductive scientific method of learning

7.6.2. John Locke continued Bacon's work, stated that the human mind was a blank slate or "tabula rasa"

7.7. contemporary realists

7.7.1. realists in modern times, tend to focus on science and philosophy - in particular, on scientific issues that have philosophical dimensions

7.7.2. Alfred North Whitehead came to the philosophy through the discipline of math and was concerned with the search for "universal patterns"

7.7.3. for contemporary realists, the goal of education is to help individuals understand and then apply the principles of science to help solve the problems plaguing the modern world

7.7.4. teachers should have a solid ground in science, math, and the humanities and present ideas in a clear and consistent manner and demonstrate that there are definitive ways o judge works of  art, literature, music, and poetry

7.7.5. teachers would normally lecture and hold question and answer parts of class

7.7.6. realists would consist of the basics: science, math, reading, writing, and humanities

7.8. Pragmatism

7.8.1. viewed as American philosophy that developed toward the end of the 19th century. come from the Greek word, pragma, meaning "work"

7.8.2. encourages people to find processes that work in order to achieve their desired end

7.8.3. tend to be more interested in contemporary issues and discovering solutions to problems in present-day terms

7.8.4. ask the question, "do the results achieved solve the problem?"

7.9. Dewey's Pragmatism: Generic Notions

7.9.1. Dewey's form of pragmatism - instrumentalism and experimentalism - was founded on the new psychology, behaviorism, and the philosophy of pragmatism

7.9.2. Dewey's ideas on education were often referred to as progressive

7.9.3. the role of the school was to integrate children into not just any type of society, but a democratic one

7.9.4. for Dewey, the primary role of education was growth

7.9.5. the teacher is no longer the authoritarian figure, they help plan, encourage, and implements course of study

7.9.6. children learn both individually and in groups. formal instruction was abandoned

7.9.7. progressive school typically follow Dewey's notion of a core curriculum

7.10. Existentialism and Phenomenology

7.10.1. both are modern philosophy with much in common. Existentialism was created by Soren Keirkegard and they believe that individuals are placed on this Earth alone and must make some sense out of the chaos they encounter. phenomologists focus on the phenomena of consciousness, perception, and meaning, as they arise in a particular individual's experiences.

7.10.2. existentialists believe that education should focus on the needs of individuals, both cognitively and affectively; phenomenologists go further and they emphasize the notion of possibility, since the individual changes in a constant state of becoming

7.10.3. teacher shouldd understand their own "lived worlds" as well as that of their students in order to help their students achieve their best "lived world"

7.10.4. both schools of philosophy would abhor "methods" of instruction as they are currently taught in schools of education. They believe that each student has a different learning style

7.10.5. both would chose curriculum heavily biased toward the humanities.

7.11. Neo-Maxism

7.11.1. traces their intellectuals roots and theoretical assumptions back to Karl Marx

7.11.2. argue that the role of education in capitalist society is to reproduce the ideology of the dominant class and its unequal economic outcomes

7.11.3. the general conflict theory of society is central to understanding modern neo-Marxist philosophies of education

7.11.4. education should transform the dominant culture

7.11.5. teachers should engage their students in ac critical examination of the world

7.11.6. they teach a lot like the dialectial approach of teaching

7.11.7. curriculum is no objective or value free but is socially constructed

7.12. Postmodernist and critical thinking

7.12.1. developed because of a dissatisfaction with modernism

7.12.2. traces intellectual heritage to the enlightenment

7.12.3. calls for teachers and students to explore the differences between what may seem like inherently contradictory positions in an effort to achieve understanding, respect and change

7.12.4. teachers are agents of change

7.12.5. issues: 1) often written in languages that is difficult to understand  2) eschew empirical methods to study schools  3) fail to connect theory to practice in a way that practitioners find meaningful and useful

8. Chapter 7: Curriculum and Pedagogy

8.1. Developmentalist Curriculum

8.1.1. this curriculum theory is related to the needs and interests of the student. It allows teachers to be a facilitator and for the curriculum to be flexible in the fact that it can be modified to develop the individual capacities of students. This particular theory stressed the importance of relating schooling to the life experiences of each child in a way that would allow education to come alive for the students in a meaningful way.

8.2. Dominant traditions of teaching

8.2.1. Mimetic Tradition

8.2.1.1. This tradition is closer to what people today view as what education is all about. It gets its name from the Greek word "mimesis" which means mimic or mime, because it gives a central place to the transmission of factual and procedural knowledge from one person to another, through an essentially imitative process. The goal of this tradition is achieved through 5 steps.

8.2.1.1.1. Step 1: test- administer some sort of inquiry to determine the students already known knowledge on the given subject

8.2.1.1.2. Step 2: present- present the target information to the students either with or without visual aid or by modeling or demonstrating a task

8.2.1.1.3. step 3: perform/evaluate- allow the students to perform the activity and or repeat a processed demonstrated in step 2. The teacher would monitor student performance

8.2.1.1.4. Step 4: (A: correct performance): Reward/fix- if the students perform the task accurately, favorable comments on what the students did and then allowing them to do the task a few more time in order to habituate the material until the material is mastered (B: Incorrect performance): Enter remedial loop- if the students perform the task or procedure incorrectly then the teacher would then initiate a remedial procedure designed to correct the error in question,

8.2.1.1.5. Step 5: Advance- once the target information has been fixed, the class and teacher can then move on to the next desired target information

8.2.2. Transformative Tradition

8.2.2.1. This tradition deems successful teaching to be capable of accomplishing: a transformation of one kind or another in a person being taught- a qualitative change often of dramatic proportion, a metamorphosis, so to speak. The changes spoken of include: traits of character and personality or the eradication or remediation of a corresponding set of undesirable traits. The transformation that this tradition aims for are typically conceived of as being deeply integrated and ingrained within the psychological make up of the student. The following list are three modes of operations involved in the transformative tradition

8.2.2.1.1. Personal modeling: Teachers are one of the most important attributes in the tradition. Teachers must personify the very qualities in which then intend to engender into their students. (example: Christ and Socrates)

8.2.2.1.2. "soft" suasion: The "showing and telling" of the mimetic tradition is replaced by a milder form pedagogical authority. The teaching style is more forensic and rhetorical than one of proof and demonstration. This tradition causes the authority of the teacher to be diminished by the introduction of a questioning mode and gives teachers of this tradition a more humbler appearance.

8.2.2.1.3. use of narrative: within this tradition "stories" (parables, myths, and other forms or narrative) play a large role. Because of the goal to better the student in this tradition, stories that portray the "right", "proper", or "just" way of things is huge.

9. Chapter 8: Equality of Opportunity

9.1. Class, Race, and Gender's impact on educational outcomes

9.1.1. Class: students of different social classes have different educational experiences. Education is very expensive and the longer a student stays in school, the more parental financial help they will need. This situation favors wealthy families, and because of this, children from upper- and middle-class families are more likely to be expected to finish schools than the children of families in the underclass families. Middle- and upper-class children are more likely to speak "standard English" and because of this children of these classes tend to be more favored by the teacher than the rest of the children. This phenomenon leads to labeling children based, on the surface, on abilities, but it boils down to social class. Children from working-class and underclass families are more likely to underachieve, drop out, and resist the curriculum than those of middle- and upper-class.

9.1.2. Race: Despite all efforts to erase lines of race in the United States, an individual's race still holds a direct impact on how much education a student will receive. Among whites, only 5.2% of students drop out of school, that is almost doubled with African-Americans and is over tripled with Hispanics. 89% of white wi;; be able to read at the intermediate level by the age of 17, this is compared to 66% of African-Americans and 70% of Hispanics. This is portrayed on the SAT/ACT which has a direct correlation with students accepted to universities and colleges as well as students who receive scholarship. Most of the answers as to why race plays such a huge role in impact on educational outcomes are unknown, but one simple fact on the subject that is known is that minority groups just do not receive the same educational opportunities as whites and their rewards for educational attainment are significantly less.

9.1.3. Gender: There is little difference in the educational outcome between men and women. Men are more likely to drop out, women are more likely to be better at reading and writing, while men are more likely to be better at match, and more women attend post-secondary institutions, but they tend to be less academically and socially prestigious than those attended by men. Men are also more likely to score higher on the SAT, but there is little doubt that society discriminates against women occupationally or socially.

9.2. Two Responses to the Coleman Study in 1982

9.2.1. differences that do exist between public and Catholic school are statistically significant, but in terms of significant differences in learning, the results are negligible.

9.2.2. Where an individual goes to school if often related to race which ties back into socioeconomic background, but the socioeconomic composition of a school has far greater effects on student achievement than an individual's race.