1. Politics of Education
1.1. Intellectual Purposes
1.1.1. To provide basic cognitive skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics; to transmit specific knowledge and to help students acquire higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation, and synthesis.
1.2. Political Purposes
1.2.1. To provide inculcate allegiance to the existing political order; to prepare citizens who will participate in this political order; to help assimilate diverse cultural groups into a common political order; and to teach children the basic laws of society.
1.3. Social Purposes
1.3.1. To help solve social problems; to work as one of many institutions, such as the family and the church to ensure social cohesion; and to socialize children into the various roles, behaviors, and values of the society.
1.4. Economic Purposes
1.4.1. To prepare students for their later occupational roles and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
1.5. The Role of the School
1.5.1. The liberal perspective I believe is best suited for the role of the school. As a future special education educator I believe that diversity, disabled, and special needs kids deserve the same opportunity as the ones that doesn't need special needs. The liberal perspective stresses that all students should have an equal opportunity to succeed, socializing, respecting cultural diversity, and allowing the student to develop his or her own personal talents, creativity, and sense of self.
1.6. Explanation of Unequal Educational Performance
1.6.1. The liberal perspective again supersedes the others in that the liberal perspective believes that all students have different life chances and that some are at more of an advantage then others. It also states that society must try and help these students be given an equal opportunity to equalize the playing field.
1.7. Definition of Educational Problems
1.7.1. The liberal perspective argues the best for the educational problems. Every child is capable no matter race, gender, culture, religion, or rich or poor, every child is capable of pursuing a dream. Schools should not place too much emphasize of discipline and authority but rather helping the students become better people and better in the classroom. Diverse cultures should also not be left out or excluded because they too are capable of pursuing that dream they have.
2. Philosophy of Education
2.1. Pragmatism
2.1.1. To gain is to work for. Goals have to be worked toward. Success has to be worked toward. Pragmatism is about working to succeed. The founders of this train of thought was George Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. They all believed that to gain you must be active and work to meet the desired ends. Working to succeed was a great notion because it would create a better society as well enable people to work cooperatively in a democratic society. It would also compose a notion that the students would choose or create their curriculum. Being rooted in social order and growth in education as well as integrating children into a democratic society were some goals of the pragmatism education. The role of the teacher is to assume a peripheral position of facilitator and encourage and help students with questions, suggestions, and implement courses of study. The teacher would follow a method of instruction such as problem-solving or inquiry method. These two types of methods forced the students to work to achieve an answer. Formal instruction was not to be used. Although a core curriculum or an integrated curriculum was followed but was not fixed to specific material. Integration was encouraged for the students to get a broad knowledge of everything that could be learned.
3. Schools as Organizations
3.1. Major Stakeholders
3.1.1. State Senators- Richard Shelby, Jefferson Sessions
3.1.2. House of Representative- Johnny Mack Morrow
3.1.3. State Superintendent- Michael Sentance
3.1.4. Representative on State School Board- Jeffrey Newman
3.1.5. Local Superintendent- Gary Williams
3.1.6. Local School Board- Ralton Baker, Pat Cochran, Shannon Oliver, Mike Shewbart, Terry Welborn
3.2. Elements of Change
3.2.1. Conflict- If the school never had problems then their would be no conflict. But for a school to change conflict is needed because it brings problems, issues, and disagreements out which helps to make improvements.
3.2.2. New Behaviors- The old behavior has to be left behind because you cannot be stuck in the old ways to get change. You have to be willing to change you behavior such as communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution.
3.2.3. Team Building- If everyone is not on board then nothing will change. Everyone in the school must be willing to work together for things to work out.
3.2.4. Process and content- To change you must have a planned process. If you can start small and others can see the improvement then they will more likely stay on board with the process.
4. History of US Education
4.1. The Rise of the Common School
4.1.1. The rise of the common school was led by Horace Mann of Massachusetts. His goal was to create a state board of education and to start providing free public schools for students to acquire an education. I believe this is one of the most important reforms because it was the start of serious public education to where everybody was able to go to school. Although it left women and blacks out it was still the start of something great and has proved to be a great success.
4.2. The Democratic-Liberal School
4.2.1. The democratic-liberal school is described as one that was flawed due to not providing equality of opportunity for everybody. Although the public school did see a tremendous growth over time, there was still not an equal opportunity for the lower class.
5. Sociology of Education
5.1. Functionalism
5.1.1. Functionalism stresses that interdependence must be met to continue the social system in that each part is integrated with other where one articulates with another to produce energy to make society work. Cohesion through each part must be made sure of.
5.2. Conflict Theory
5.2.1. Conflict theory emphasizes struggle to get the reward or to achieve the next step. Everything is considered to be uphill and a battle and the ones that do the best administrating, teaching, or learning get the reward and is based off of abilities and not social status.
5.3. Interactionalism
5.3.1. Interactionalism creates interaction among each other such as students and students and teachers and students.
5.4. Knowledge and Attitude
5.4.1. Surprisingly there is a sharp contrast between sociologist about whether schools have significant effects on students as far as gaining knowledge and attitude. The more knowledge and attitude a person has also could result in more people likely reading the newspaper, books, and magazines.
5.5. Employment
5.5.1. Education has been helping people prepare and be better suited for jobs over the course of years although it is not proven that education creates a better worker it does help with getting higher pay than your coworkers who do not have an education. Education is important in helping provide for a family.
5.6. Teacher Behavior
5.6.1. The behavior of a teacher has a huge impact on students in that they are a model for students. Teachers not only teach or instruct but they help students learn how to be successful in life.
5.7. Student Peer Groups and Alienation
5.7.1. Students being social and forming peer groups among each other is great however, some groups are for the worse and some get alienated or left out. Peer groups is still important due to creating lifelong relationships and having accountability partners.
5.8. Tracking
5.8.1. The placement of students based on abilities and inclinations is very important because it can help teachers decide who needs the most help and who needs the least help. If a teacher keeps a track of how well the students are doing in class then she can help the ones not doing to well and maybe in pair up students to have peer helpers.
6. Curriculum and Pedagogy
6.1. Curriculum Theory
6.1.1. Developmentalist Curriculum- This curriculum is based off the needs and interests of the student ans not based off of society. This curriculum would not only stress what the students want to learn but also the interest of how the child is taught. The teacher would be considered a facilitator of growth.
6.2. Two Dominant Traditions of Teaching
6.2.1. Mimetic Tradition- Purpose of education is to transmit specific knowledge to students. The teaching strategy would mainly be revolved around the teacher lecturing or presenting the information to the learner. There is also the thought that there should be clear goals set.
6.2.2. Transformative Tradition- Purpose of education is to change the student in some meaningful way. This tradition also would provide multi-dimensional theory of teaching. There would be no authoritarian relationship.
7. Equality of Opportunity
7.1. Class
7.1.1. The level class a student is in can affect the students learning drastically. A student that is from the working class would not have families with high expectations while a family that is wealthier would have high expectations. Teachers may also view and favor students who are in a higher class prohibiting a lower class student from getting the schooling they need. The level of class a student is in may also affect the level of achievement on basic skills test and reading.
7.2. Race
7.2.1. With the statistics that are known and have been studied show that race is a big issue in the opportunity students receive in the classroom. The statistics show that some races may not be getting the education others are getting or are being mistreated by educators.
7.3. Gender
7.3.1. Although historically gender was highly divided and most people believed women did not need to get an education it is now pretty much equaled out across the board. Women are actually doing better than men in some categories. Discrimination of opportunity is still possible in the classroom however not as likely.
7.4. Coleman Study
7.4.1. Response 1- For this response it was found that although schools can differ, such as catholic, private, and public schools, the benchmark scores did not differ as much.
7.4.2. Response 2- This response concluded that going to a school that was high-poverty or highly segregated African American had a drastic effect on the student's achievement scores. This could be responsible for the gaps in student achievement.
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. Cultural Deprivation Theories
8.1.1. Oscar Lewis- He had the idea that what type of culture you came from shows how well one may have success. Middle-class culture would value hard work and success while a lower class would not value hard work and success which would cause the middle class to be more successful.
8.1.2. Deutsch- He stated that the students are just educationally disadvantaged because they have not been raised to obtain the skills needed for academic achievement.
8.2. School Centered Explanations
8.2.1. School Financing- Schools that are able to provide more money per student have students that achieve higher academic skills than school with less money. It also provides unequal opportunity for the less financial school than the more financial school.
8.2.2. Effective School Research- School research is important and if it is effective then it is better for the schools because they can apply it. It also shows that effective school research provided that there are ways to improve unequal educational achievement.
8.2.3. Gender and Schooling- This explanation can explain why schooling often limits educational opportunites and life chances for women. It also provides that curriculum materials are directed toward the role that a man or woman may one day use from historical data.
8.2.4. Between School Differences- Many schools may have different school climates and a more quality climate would help provide a better opportunity for students. Also some school could vary in ways that students are taught.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. School Based Reforms
9.1.1. School-Business Partnerships- During the 1980s business leaders became aware that students were not learning things that would help revitalize the U.S. economy. This then provoked the start of schools that would do in school training to help students learn more about business and how it works.
9.1.2. School-to-Work Programs- This reform was to help prepare students for the workforce. This also provided ways for students to explore different careers and understand the skills required for those work environments.
9.2. Societal, Community, Economic, and Political Reforms
9.2.1. School Finance Reforms- These reforms were to help provide poorer schools with financial help to create a better learning experience for students. Funding was also equalized between schools.
9.2.2. Full Service and Community Schools- The object was not to just educate the child but the community. This was designed to improve at risk neighborhoods to keep from preventing further problems.