1. Equality of Opportunity
1.1. Class- Students in different social classes have different kinds of educational experiences. There are several factors that can influence these class-based experiences. For instance, education is extremely expensive. The longer a student stays in school, the more likely he or she needs parental financial support.
1.1.1. Gender- Historically, an individual's gender was directly related to his or her educational attainment. Even though women are often rated as being better students than men, in the past they were less likely to attain the same level of education. Today, females are less likely to drop out of school than males, and are more likely to have a higher level of reading proficiency than males. The same is true for writing. The one area that males outperform females in mathematics, the most convincing of which is related to the behavior of classroom teachers who tend to assume that females will not do as well as males in mathematics.
1.1.1.1. Race- Despite the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960's, U.S. society is still highly stratified by race. An individual's race has a direct impact on how much education he or she is likely to achieve.
1.1.1.1.1. Coleman Study: There were two major responses to Coleman's findings. On one hand, other sociologist examined and reexamined Coleman's data. On the other hand, a group of minority scholars, led by Ron Edmonds of Harvard University, set about the task of defining those characteristics of schools that made them effective.
2. Gender- Men and women do not share equally in U.S. society. Men are frequently paid more than women for the same work, and women, in general, have fewer occupational opportunities than men.
2.1. It may seem obvious, but teachers ave a huge impact on student learning and behavior. Jackson (1968) found that teachers have as many as 1,000 interpersonal contacts each day with children in their classrooms.
3. Macroeconomic policies that set wages below poverty levels, that train inner-city hopefuls for jobs that do not exist, that do not extract from the wealthy a fair share of social expenses, and that rarely enforce laws that would substancially decrease the economic discrimination of people of color all support peristent poverty and near poverty among urban populations.
4. Sociology of Education
4.1. Functional sociologist begin with a picture of society that stresses the interdependence of the social system; these researchers often examine how well the parts are integrated with each other. Functionalist view society as kind of a machine, where one part articulates with another to produce the dynamic energy required to make society work.
4.1.1. Dependencies
4.1.2. Milestones
4.2. Schools- as well as parents, churches, and synagogues, and other groups- shape children's perceptions of the world by process and socialization. That is, the values, the beliefs, and norms of society are internalized within children so that they come to think and act like other members of society. In this sense, schools socially and culturally reproduce the existing society through the systematic socialization of its younger members. Through this culturally approved ritual, young children learn something about citizenship and patriotism.
4.2.1. Socialization process can shape children's consciousness profoundly. Schools, for instance, wittingly or unwittingly, promote gender definitions and stereotypes when they segregate learning and extracurricular activities by gender, or when teachers allow boys to dominate class discussion and activities. Not only do schools shape students' perceptions and consciousness but they also act as important, perhaps the most important, sorters and selectors of students. Schools, through such practices are tracking, academically stratify students by curricular placement, which in turn, play a major role in determining who will get ahead in society and who will not.
4.2.2. How do schools select some students for educational mobility? Is it on the basis of merit or is it primarily on the basis of students' ascriptive characteristics characteristics, such as class, race, or gender? Or is it a combination of merit and social position that explains who gets into the educational "fast track'" and who gets "cooled out"? The concept of equal educational opportunity is a key element in the belief system that maintains that the United States is a land of opportunity where hard work is rewarded.
5. Politics of Education
5.1. The intellectual purpose of schooling are to teach basic cognitive sills such as reading, writing, and mathematics; to transit specific knowledge (e.g., in literature, history, the sciences, etc.); and to help students acquire higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation, and synthesis.
5.2. The political purpose of schooling are to 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.
5.3. The social purpose of schooling are to help solve social problems, to work as one of many institutions, such as the family and the church (or synagogue) to ensure social cohesion and to socialize children into various roles, behaviors, and values of the society.
5.4. The economic purpose of schooling are to prepare students for their later occupational roles and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
5.4.1. Primary User Group
6. Most students believe tat graduating from college will lead to greater employment and they are right. In 1986, about 54% of the 8 million college graduates in the United States entered professional and technical jobs. Research has shown that large organizations, such as corporations, require high levels of education for white-collar, managerial, or administrative jobs.
6.1. The belief that occupational and social mobility begin at the schoolhouse door is a critical component of the American ethos. As part of what might be termed civil religion, there is an abiding among most Americans that education is the great equalizer in the "great status race".
7. Politics of Education
7.1. A.} The role of the school is a central focus of each of the perspectives and is at the heart of their differing analysis.
7.1.1. Conservatives argue that the U.S schools have succeeded in providing a quality education for those who are capable and have taken advantage of it, and that, until the 1960's and 1970's, schools were responsible for U.S superiority in economic and technological realms.
7.2. Conservatives argue that individuals or groups of students rise and fall on their own intelligence, hard work, and initiative, and that achievement is based on hard work and sacrifice.
7.2.1. From the 1980's to the 2000's , proponents of each perspective supported specific educations reforms and policy recommendations.
7.3. Until this point, we have focused on the role of the school and, in particular, its relationship to equality of opportunity and results.
8. History of U.S. Education
8.1. The Post-World War II Equity Era: 1945-1980
8.2. During the post World War II period, the patterns that emerged during the Progressive Era were continued. First, the debate about the goals of education (academic, social, or both) and whether all children should receive the same education remained an important one.
9. Philosophy of Education
10. Generic Notions- Aristotle believed that only through studying the material world was it possible for an individual to clarify or develop ideas.
11. Role of the Teacher- It is the teacher's responsibility to analyze and discuss ideas with students in order for students to move to new levels of awareness so that ultimately they can be transformed. Teachers should deal with abstract notions through the dialectic method but should aim to connect analysis with action as well.
12. Goal of Education- Both Plato and Aristotle believed that important questions concerning such notions as the good life, truth, beauty, and so on could be answered through the study of ideas using the dialectical.
13. Curriculum- Curriculum for realist would consist of the basic: science and math, reading and writing, and the humanities. Realist believe that there is a body of knowledge that is essential for the students to master in order to be part of society.
13.1. Educational Inequality
13.1.1. One theory suggested that the 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.
13.1.1.1. Another criticism of cultural deprivation theory concerned the relative failure of many of the compensatory education programs that were based on its assumptions about why disadvantaged children have lower levels of achievement than lower levels of achievement that more advantaged children.
13.1.2. 1.) A completely individualistic explanation states that these differences are the result of individual differences in intelligence or initiative. 2.) Another student-centered explanation sees these differences as the result of student differences prior to entering school. 3.) School-centered explanations, however, suggest that school processes are central to understanding unequal educational performance. 4.) Although their research questioned the conventional wisdom that between-school differences are the key factor in explaining differences in student performance groups.
14. Schools as Organizations
14.1. State Senators- RIchard Shelby & Jeff Sessions
14.2. House of Representatives- Bradley Byrne, Martha Roby, Mike Rogers, Robert Aderholt, Mo Brooks, Gary Palmer, & Terri Sewell
14.3. State Superintendent of Education- Michael Sentnce
14.4. Representative on State School Board- Jeffrey Newman
14.5. Local Superintendent- Franklin County, Al: Greg Hamilton
14.6. Local Sdhool Board Members- Ralton Baker, Shannon Oliver, Pat Cochran, Mike Shewbart, Terry Welborn
14.7. 1.) Conflict is a necessary part of change. Efforts to democratize schools do not create conflicts, but they allow (an 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.) 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. 3.) Team building must extend tot he 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. 4.) Process and content are interrelated. The process a team uses in going about its work is as important as the content of educational changes its attempts. The substances of a project often depends upon the degree of trust and openness built up within the team and between the team and he school. At the same time, the usefulness and the visibility of the project will influence future communication from and the relationships among the staff and others involved.
15. Curriculum and Pedagogy
15.1. Social Efficiency- 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. Rather than viewing the need for a common academic curriculum for all students, as with the humanist tradition , the social efficiency curriculum was rooted in the belief that different student groups of students, with different sets of needs and aspirations, should receive different types of schooling.
15.1.1. The mimetic tradition is based on the viewpoint that the purpose of education u to transmit specific knowledge to students. Thus, the best method of doing this is through what is termed the didactic method, a method that commonly relies on the lecture or presentation as the main form of communication. At the heart of this tradition is the assumption that the educational process involves the relationship between the knower (the teacher) and the learner (the student), and that education is a process of transferring information from one to the other.
15.1.1.1. The transformative tradition rest on a different set of assumptions about the teaching and learning process. Although learning information makes the student different than he or she was before, this model defines the function of education more broadly and, according to some, more ambiguously. Simply put, proponents of this tradition believe that the purpose of education is to change the student in some meaningful way, including intellectually, creatively, spiritually, and emotionally.
16. Educational Reform
16.1. IIntersectional choice plans include public and private schools. For example, the cities of Milwaukee and Cleveland provide tuition vouchers to students who attend private neighborhood schools. The inclusion of private schools in choice plans stirred a great deal of debate among policy that transfers funds from public sector to the private sector.
16.1.1. Intrasectional school choice policies include only public schools. States, such as Minnesota, permit students to attend school in any public school district in the state, so long as the nonresident school district is willing, has space, and the transfer does not upset racial balance.
16.2. Accountability has taken many forms, often involving state regulation or oversight. It has included state certification of school personnel and of school districts; statewide testing and assessment of pupils; state monitoring of local fiscal, management, and educational practices; local districts reporting to the state; state dissemination of report cards and other district-and-school-specific information to the public; and state intervention in the operation of local districts when problems were identified and solutions were determined to be beyond the local capacity.
16.2.1. Virtually all state accountability system focus on rewards and sanctions. State policy makers increasingly are directing their attention to how to reward schools and districts that perform well and how to sanction those that do not.