1. Ch.2: Politics of Education
1.1. Four Purposes of Education
1.1.1. Role of the School
1.1.1.1. Conservative: Essential to both economic productivity and social stability; give equal opportunity to individuals
1.1.1.2. Liberal: Balancing the needs of society and individual in consistent manner with democratic and meritocratic society
1.1.1.3. Radical: Perpetuate the society; serve those with economic wealth and political power; prepare children for different roles within economic division of labor
1.2. 1. Intellectual Purpose
1.3. 2. Political Purpose
1.4. 3. Social Purpose
1.5. 4. Economical Purpose
2. Ch.3: History of U.S. Education
2.1. Horace Mann Lobbies for a State Board of Education
2.1.1. Democratic-Liberal Interpretation of Education
2.1.2. Optimistic Interpretation, but sees evolution of nation's school as a flawed, conflicting march toward increased opportunities
2.1.3. Do not see equity and excellence as inevitably irreconcilable, but resulting in necessary compromises
2.1.4. Ideals of equality and excellence are just that: IDEALS
2.1.5. Believes that U.S. educational system must continue to move closer to each, without sacrificing one or the other too dramatically
2.2. Reports served as models for public school reforms throughout the nation
2.3. Aided in developing first state normal school (teacher training school) in 1839
2.4. Mann's arguments for establishment of a common school brought forth free public education
2.5. Mann's belief that that schools can change the social order & that education can foster social mobility are beliefs responsible for the faith & support many people give to U.S. public schools
3. Ch.4: Sociological Perspectives
3.1. Functionalism
3.1.1. Conflict Theory
3.1.1.1. Interactionalism
3.1.1.2. Primarily an extension of the functional and conflict perspectives
3.1.1.3. This level of analysis helps in understanding education in the "big picture"
3.1.1.4. Attempt to make the commonplace strange by turning on their heads everyday taken-for-granted behaviors & interactions between students and student, and students and teachers
3.1.2. Based on the ability of dominant groups to impose their will on subordinate groups through force, cooperation, and manipulation
3.1.3. Where school is viewed as social battlefield
3.1.4. Glue of society is economic, political, cultural, and military power
3.1.5. Ideologies created by powerful are designed to enhance their position
3.2. Although taking different forms at different times & places, finds that education is of critical importance
3.3. Consensus: normal state in society
3.4. Conflict: represents breakdown of shared values
3.5. Creates structures, programs, and curricula that are technically advanced, rational, and encourage social unity
3.6. 5 Effects of Schooling on Individuals
3.7. Graduating from college will lead to greater employment opportunities
3.8. Education is related to individuals' sense of well-being and self-esteem
3.9. Curriculum will express and expose students to more cultures they may or may not be familiar with
3.10. Educational Amount, or how long an individual attends school has effects on students, and also on the different careers, or money that they can make in those careers
3.10.1. Actual amount of time students spend in school is directly related to how much they learn
3.11. More education leads to economic and social mobility
4. Ch.5: Philosophy of Education
4.1. Pragmatism
4.1.1. Key Researchers
4.1.1.1. Goal of Education
4.1.1.1.1. Role of the Teacher
4.1.1.1.2. Assumes the peripheral position of facilitator
4.1.1.1.3. Teacher encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study
4.1.1.1.4. Teacher writes curriculum and must have a command of several disciplines in order to create and implement curriculum
4.1.1.2. School would be a place where ideas can be implemented, challenged, and restructured
4.1.1.3. Goal of providing students with the knowledge of how to improve the social order
4.1.1.4. Should function as a preparation for life
4.1.1.5. Should balance the needs of society and community on one hand and the needs of the individual on the other
4.1.1.6. Play a key role in creating a modern form of cohesion by socializing diverse groups into a cohesive democratic community
4.1.2. Francis Bacon: Pioneer in the pragmatic school of philosophy. He sought a way of thinking where people might be persuaded to abandon traditions of the past for a more experiential approach to the world.
4.1.3. John Locke: Followed in the pragmatic tradition, was particularly interested in the ways people came to know things. His emphasis on the world of experience is important for later developments in philosophy of education
4.1.4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Believed individuals in their primitive state were naturally good and society corrupted them. Good life meant "back to nature."
4.1.5. John Dewey: theory of natural selection emphasized the constant interaction between the organism and the environment, thus challenging the Platonic and Aristotelian notions of fixed essences. His philosophy of education was the most important influence on what has been termed progressive education.
4.2. Encourages people to find processes that work in order to achieve their desired ends
4.3. More interested in contemporary issues and in discovering solutions to problems in present-day terms
4.4. Action-Oriented, experientially grounded
5. Ch. 6: Schools as Organizations
5.1. Elements of Change
5.1.1. Major Stakeholders in My District
5.1.2. Representative Mack Butler Etowah County-District 30
5.1.3. Representative Phillip Williams Etowah County-District 10
5.1.4. Alabama Superintendent Michael Sentance
5.1.5. President of Alabama State Board of Education Governor Robert Bentley
5.1.6. Superintendent for Etowah County Dr. Alan Cosby
5.1.7. Etowah County School Board
5.1.7.1. Mr. Tim Womack
5.1.7.2. Mrs. Scarlett Farley
5.1.7.3. Mr. Todd Hindsman
5.1.7.4. Mr. Ernie Payne
5.1.7.5. Mr. Doug Sherrod
5.2. Conflict: allowing previously hidden problems to surface
5.3. New Behaviors: must include building communication and trust, enabling leadership, initiative to emerge, and learning techniques of communication
5.4. Team Building: shared decision making must constantly work out and give on-going attention to relationships
5.5. Process and Content: depends upon the degree of trust and openness built up within the team and between the team and the school
5.6. Elements of change require time, effort, intelligence, & good will
6. Ch. 7: Curriculum and Pedagogy
6.1. Developmentalist Curriculum
6.2. relates to the needs and interests of the student rather than the needs of society
6.3. Student-centered; relating the curriculum to the needs and interests of each child at particular developmental stages
6.4. Makes education come alive in a meaningful manner by relating schooling to real life of students
6.5. Mimetic Tradition
6.5.1. Central place to the transmission of factual and procedural knowledge from one person to another, through an essentially imitative process
6.6. Transformative Tradition
6.6.1. Deems successful teaching to be capable of accomplishing a transformation of one kind or another in the person being taught
7. Ch. 8: Equality of Opportunity
7.1. Impact on Educational Outcomes
7.1.1. Coleman Study Responses
7.1.2. 1) In the examination of effects on achievement, statistical controls on family background are introduced, in order to control on those background characteristics that are most related to achievement. The achievement differences between the private sectors and the public sector are reduced but differences remain.
7.1.3. 2) Formal decomposition of the variance attributable to individual background and the social composition of the schools suggests that going to a high-poverty school or highly segregated African American school has profound effect on student's achievement outcomes, above and beyond the effects of individual poverty or minority issues. Racial/Ethnic and social class composition of a student's school are 1 3/4 times more important than a student's individual race/ethnicity or social class for understanding education outcomes.
7.2. Class: Favor towards wealthier families due to the financial cost of tuition. Teachers tend to favor middle and upper class students as opposed to working or under class students. Direction correlation between parental income and children's performance
7.3. Race: lower levels of proficiency are reflected by the fact that minorities have lower SAT scores than white students. Given the nature of U.S. society, it's extremely difficult to separate race and class. Minorities do not receive the same educational opportunities as whites.
7.4. Gender: Historically, gender was directly related to his or her educational attainment. 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.
8. Ch. 9: Educational Inequality
8.1. Cultural Deprivation Theories
8.1.1. School-Centered Explanations
8.1.2. 1) School Financing: Jonathan Kozol documents vast differences in funding between affluent and poor districts, and called for equalization in school financing in book Savage Inequalities. More affluent communities are able to provide more per-pupil spending than poorer districts, becoming the subject of considerable legal attack by communities that argue funding based on local property taxes is discriminatory under Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Serranov. Priest (1971) ruled the system of unequal school financing between wealthy & poor districts unconstitutional, but didn't declare use of property taxes for school funding illegal.
8.1.3. 2) Effective School Research: Ronald Edmonds, (1979) and other effective school researchers examined schools that produced unusually positive academic results finding characteristics of unusually effective schools that help to explain why their students achieve academically, "effective school literature"
8.1.4. 3) Between School Differences: there are a significant number of differences between the culture and climate of schools in lower socioeconomic and higher socioeconomic communities. Bernstein (1990) suggested that schools in working-class neighborhoods are far more likely to have authoritarian and teacher-directed pedagogic practices, and to have a vocationally or social efficiency curriculum at the secondary level
8.1.5. 4) Within School Differences: Different groups of students in the same schools perform very differently suggests that there may be school characteristics affecting these outcomes. Ability grouping and curriculum grouping is an important organizational component of U.S. schooling. Albert Shanker stated that education in the U.S. assumes that students in the lower tracks are not capable of doing academic work and thus schools do not offer them an academically challenging curriculum.