1. Philosophy of Education
1.1. Existentialism: This philosophical theory or approach emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent who determines their own development through personal choice. Existentialism is considered a modern philosophy although it can be traced back to Biblical times (Sadovnik et al. 2013). Some may say that existentialism began in the nineteenth century with an European philosopher by the name of Soren Kierkergaard (1813-1855). More recent philosophers of existentialism are known to be Martin Buber (1878-1965), Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1986), and lastly a contemporary philosopher by the name of Martin Heidegger.
1.1.1. Generic Notions: Existentialism is said to be an individualistic philosophy. Sadovnik et al. (2014) states, “existentialist believe that individuals are placed on this earth along and must make some sense out of the chaos they encounter." While Mr. Sartre didn’t believe in the existence of God, he was a strong believer in the fact that individuals must create their lives, but must do so by first finding themselves. This could be done by individuals determining from right or wrong, the amount of freedom they have, and the amount of responsibility. Needless to say, Mr. Sartre was attempting to find the reasoning behind the world that supported inhumane behavior such as the Holocaust and World War II. Christian philosophers such as “Soren Kierkergaard proposed the idea of “a great leap to faith,” in which individuals might accept the existence of God.” Being a Christian himself, Mr. Kierkergaard was trying to veer away from the scientific, objective approach to existence.
1.1.2. Goal of Education: The goal of existentialism is to focus on the goals of individuals. Existentialist are also under the impression that education should stress individuality. In doing so, it would help to prepare students of rational and non-rational events that might occur throughout life.
1.1.3. Role of the teacher: It is believed that in order for teachers to successfully help students in their education that teachers must first understand their own “lived worlds.” As an existentialist, it is expected of the teachers to take risks, and expose themselves to resistant children. Ms. Greene implied that it was the role of the teacher to make the students become “wide awake.” (Sadovnik et al. 2014, p. 191).
1.1.4. Methods of Instruction: Existentialist believe that each child has a different but unique learning style. It is the responsibility (with the child’s help) to find a “method” that would work best for the child. “The role of the teacher is to help students understand the world around them by asking questions, generating activities, and working well with others (Sadovnik et al. 2014, p. 191).
1.1.5. Curriculum: According to Sadovnick et al. (2014), existentialist believe that it is very beneficial to students when they are exposed to problems, horrors, possibilities, and accomplishments early in life. Existentialist are usually biased against the teaching of humanities, but strongly believe that literature is the key to moving students to a new level of awareness.
2. Works Cited
2.1. SADOVNIK, ALAN R., PETER W. COOKSON, JR., and SUSAN F. SEMEL. EXPLORING EDUCATION: an introduction to the foundations of education. S.l. ROUTLEDGE, 2013. Print.
3. Politics of Education
3.1. What is the purpose of education? This simple question can have thousands of answers. However, there are many different thoughts and beliefs regarding this question! In the mid to late twentieth century, this simple question was no longer a question, but a statement. According to Sadovnik, Cookson, and Semel (2013), the purposes of education are directed at conceptions of what constitutes the "good life" and a "good person" - questions that have been at the center of philosophical inquiry from Plato to Aristotle, Marx, Freud, and Dewey. In modern times, three philosophers by the names of John Dewey, George Counts and Mortimer Adler came to the conclusion that the purpose of education is composed of four different components: intellectual purposes, political purposes, social purposes, and economic purposes.
3.1.1. Intellectual Purposes: This includes basic skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics. Sadovnik et al. (2014) state that such skills will allow students to acquire a higher-level of thinking that will include increased study skills, evaluation, and analysis.
3.1.2. Political Purposes: This includes preparing diverse cultural groups to become a part of a common political order. This concept will also be preparing students and/or children to obey the basic laws in a democratic society.
3.1.3. Social Purposes: The key word is "socialization" since it is the key ingredient to a stable society. This concept will prepare students to understand their roles, the expected behavior, values, and the status they will uphold in society. Social purpose will also teach students moral responsibility.
3.1.4. Economic Purposes: Education will prepare students for specific occupational roles they will acquire in the future. This allows students to build a foundation for themselves along with job preparation.
3.2. • Role of School: “The school’s role in the broadest sense is directly concerned with the aims, purposes, and functions of education in society," (Sadovnik et al. 2013, p. 27). It is also the role of the school to provide the proper guidance, skills, and education that each students needs in order to be successful. Schools will not only educate students on the basic curriculum that is required to be taught by the state, but they will also each student's life lessons, leadership, and responsibility. • Explanations of Unequal Performance: “Conservatives argue that individuals or groups of students raise and fall on their own intelligence, hard work, and initiative, and that achievement is based on hard work and sacrifice” (Sadovnik et al. 2014, p. 28). Teachers put so much time and effort into their students' learning and classrooms. As a teacher, the goal is to be successful teach all students including students with disabilities, students with different learning styles, and even students with different work ethics. • Definition of Educational Problems: Views between conservatives, liberals, and radicals are as follows: o Conservatives Argument: Conservatives strongly favor returning to he basics of education while holding students and schools accountable. Often the term “decline of standards” is used when referring to the liberals demanded that there be greater equality and educational standards be reduced. Decline of values or of civilization was termed due to the fact that liberals demanded for a multicultural education. In doing so, this caused conservatives to “water down” the curriculum in response to the liberal perspective. Liberals also demanded for cultural relativism which also caused schools to lose the traditional role of teaching moral standards, which conservatives call the decline of authority. Such a decline involved liberals wanting individuality and freedom for the school systems. As a result, teachers and administrators lost the traditional disciplinary function (Sadovnik et al. 2013). o Liberals Argument: Liberals believe that school are often made up of poor children from minorities. Liberal teachers along with administrators believe that schools place too much emphasis on student discipline and this can lead to students developing as individuals. It is also believed that students coming from a low socioeconomic background will not have the same opportunities as the students who come from a higher socioeconomic background. o Radical Argument: The radical perspective is based on poor minorities and women being discriminated against based on individuals being racist, sexist, and homophobic policies. Due to this belief, cultures, histories, and voices of the affected women from the past have been left out of the curriculum. Education should be broad and multicultural education should be a focus. Overall, programs should be based on equality of opportunity for disadvantaged groups (Sadovnik et al. 2013).
4. Educational Inequality
4.1. Two types of cultural deprivation theory.
4.1.1. Oscar Lewis (1966) was a cultural deprivation theorists that came to the conclusion that the poor have a deprived culture. This culture lacks the value system of the middle-class culture. According to this theory, middle-class culture values hard work and initiative, the delay of gratification for future reward, and the important of school as a means of a successful future. Sadly, the culture of poverty doesn't see school as being the means of social mobility.
4.1.2. A cultural deprivation theorists known by Deutsch (1964) concluded that educationally disadvantaged students achieve poorly because they haven't been raised to acquire the skills and dispositions required for academic achievement. It was also concluded that Project Head Start is a preschool intervention program for educationally and economically disadvantaged students. The school system must provide an environment and the proper education to make up for lost time.
4.2. Four school-centered explanations for education inequality.
4.2.1. Effective school research has lead to the conclusion that "school climates" has caused an effect on academic performance. Most of this research has been conducted between schools in the inner cities and lower socioeconomic neighborhoods. This research between different school settings was helpful in demonstrating the conclusion that schools can make a difference in communities. Cicourel and Kitsuse (1963), MacLeod (1995), Ogbu (1978) and Rosenbaum (1976) all concluded during the research on the relationship between inner city schools and low socioeconomic neighborhood schools along with life expectations suggests that schooling can elevate or limit student aspirations about the future. It was also found that aspirations more often than not translate into educational achievement, college choices, and eventual occupational destinations.
4.2.2. Different groups of students in the same schools often perform differently and research suggests that there may be school characteristics affecting these outcomes. From a functionalist point of view, tracking is viewed as an important mechanism. Functionalist believe that students are separated based on ability and to ensure that the "best and brightest" receive the type of education required to prepare them for life. On the other hand, conflict theorists believe that tracking is a mechanism used for separating groups that are often based on ascriptive characteristics which also leads to reproducing inequalities. Albert Shanker (1991) once stated that the United States 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. Because the curriculum isn't challenging enough for these students the examinations don't meet requirements which confirms that these students aren't capable of more a higher level of education. Shanker also made the statement that students cannot learn what they haven't been taught! Hallinan (1994) suggest that school systems not track the students academically due to the fact that it produces inequalities and often produces negative results.
4.2.3. Jonathan Kozol (1991) compared public schools in affluent suburbs with public schools in the poor inner cities. In his research he found that there were differences in funding between affluent and poor districts and he called for equalization in school financing. In the United States, public schools are financed through a combination of revenues from local, state, and federal sources. For example, property taxes are based on the value of the property in local communities. Since the property value is significantly higher in more affluent communities, the school systems will receive a larger amount of money. Sadly, for poor district school that are located in inner cities the funding is lower since property value isn’t as high. This unequal funding has been the subject of considerable legal attack by communities that argue that funding based on local property taxes is discriminatory under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that it denies equality of opportunity.
4.2.4. Carol Gilligan is the most influential feminist scholars working in the area of gender differences. Ms. Gilligan’s work pointed to the differences and their relation to gender socialization and how society rewards men for “male” behavior and negatively affects women for “female” behavior. Her argument stated that women are more caring and connected whereas men are more competitive and intellectual. These differences led to the reproduction of sexist stereotypes that historically justified the domestic roles of women. Feminist often agree that schooling sometimes limits the educational opportunities and life changes of women in a number of ways. Both boys and girls are socialized differently throughout the schooling process. 1. First, curriculum materials portray men’s and women’s roles often in stereotypical and traditional ways. 2. Second, traditional curriculum “silences women” by omitting significant aspects of women’s history and women’s lives from discussion. 3. Third, the traditional curriculum reinforces traditional gender roles and expectations through classroom organization, instructional practices, and classroom interactions. 4. Fourth, the way that schooling often limits the educational opportunities and life chances of women is that the organization of schools reinforces gender doles and gender inequality.
5. Schools as Organizations
5.1. Mr. Willard Waller was a sociologist of education. In his time, he tried to find the meaning and have a thorough understanding of the culture of schools. According to Sadovnik, Cookson, & Semel (2013), Mr. Waller once said, “The school is a unit of interacting personalities. The personalities of all who meet in the schools are bound together in an organic relation. The life of the whole is in all its parts, yet the whole could not exist without any of its parts. The school is a social organism" (p. 230). A study was conducted by the New York City Teachers Center Consortium of the United Federation of Teachers. The goal of this project was to create schools that were “more centered on learner’s needs for active, experiential, cooperative, and culturally-connected learning opportunities supportive of individual talents and learning styles (p. 231). Twelve different schools were included in this project and all had different approaches. However, the outcomes of the study were significantly different from that of which was stated in the objective. It was concluded that there are four types of change that applied to all schools.
5.1.1. 1.) Conflict is a necessary part of change. There must first be a problem, issue, and/or disagreement. The school staff must be involved in the school’s reconstruction in order to manage and resolve conflicts that were identified.
5.1.2. 2.) New behaviors must be learned. Change requires that new relationships be built. In order to have successful relationships, building trust, leadership, different techniques of communications, collaboration, and resolving conflicts is essential.
5.1.3. 3.) Team building must extend to the entire school. Decision making should include an on-going relationship with the school’s staff. It is important to include all faculty members. After all, there isn’t an “I” in “team.”
5.1.4. 4.) Process and content are interrelated. The process in which the team works is important. The project of “change” often depends upon the degree of trust and openness within the team and between the team and school. Positive feedback, and improvement will influence future commitments from the staff and others involved.
6. History of U.S. Education
6.1. Education for Women and African-Americans: This reform in education began in the early nineteenth century. At that time in history, the idea of women attending school was out of the question. Before the nineteenth century, women were expected to play the role of being the helpmate or homemaker to their spouse. In fact, it was considered to be biologically harmful or stressful for a female to attend school and receive an education. Women had very few opportunities to become educated, and if they were it was limited to literacy and numeracy. However, during the mid 1800s, the number of women being educated quickly rose as young girls began to attend elementary school. It was at this point that education became possible for women. It was the beginning of a new era Sadovnik et al. 2013)!
6.1.1. In 1821, a woman by the name of Emma Hart Willard opened the first seminary in Troy, New York known as Troy Female Seminary. Troy Female Seminary provided higher education for women in subjects such as geography, history, mathematics, and science. The school's goal was to provide the same educational opportunities for women that were also available to men. The entry requirements, along with the level of instruction provided, were the same for both women and men (Sadovnik et al. 2013).
6.1.2. • During 1833, an institute by the name of Oberlin Collegiate Institute, Ohio declared it's opening. Its doors were open to all women along with African-Americans. Although education was expanding during this time, it was still limited for African-Americans. However, Southerners were determined not to allow the slave population to learn to read or write. And in the North, African-Americans were forced to learn separately from whites, and that is if the public provided schooling for them at all. In fact, in 1846, an African-American man by the name of Benjamin Roberts filed a law suit against the city of Boston for forcing his daughter to attend a segregated school. Sadly, Mr. Benjamin lost this battle due to the city ruling that it had the right to establish a school separately for whites.
6.1.3. • In 1865, months after the Civil War had ended, Abraham Lincoln declared that over four million slaves be set free. It was at this time that African-Americans were also given the right to U.S. citizenship. During 1868, Freedman's Bureau helped to establish colleges for African-Americans. The first established colleges were Howard University, Washington D.C, and Hampton Institute located in Virginia. While equality and school segregation was a major issue, it was still an improvement for the United States. Education was now being provided for both whites and African-Americans! It was the turn of the century (Sadovnik et al. 2013)!
6.2. Personally, I think it is very important to be educated properly. Being a female myself, I desire to achieve a higher education to help better my future. During the nineteenth century, the educational reform to educate women was a historical landmark in U.S. education history. If it wasn't for these women taking a stand, where would women be today? Would we still be the "helpmate" or the "homemaker?" Today women play a very big role in our American society! Because of women being able to accomplish their dreams of a higher education, we now have female doctors, lawyers, teachers, and women fighting for a better education for future generations! So, I applaud the women that took a chance, made a difference, and stood up for women's educational rights!
7. Sociological Perspectives
7.1. Five effects that have the greatest impact on students:
7.1.1. Effects of Schooling on Individuals: As teachers, it is our responsibility that we meet students' needs. Most Americans believe that schools have a significant impact on learning and on social and economic mobility. I personally believe that a few of the most important aspects of being a successful teacher are content knowledge, having a positive attitude towards students, conducting ones self as a professional, preventing student alienation, and preventing discrimination or inequality!
7.1.2. Knowledge and Attitude: Schools have a major impact on student’s development in education. Research has shown that students who fall into the higher social class category have a higher achievement level. However, a student’s social class background will not be the leading key to that child’s success. A student’s success is based over several years in the school system which will lead to greater knowledge and social participation! It was quoted in Exploring Education that “the actual amount of time students spend in school is directly related to how much they learn.” (Sadovnik et al. 2013, p. 121).
7.1.3. Teacher Behavior: As a teacher, it is important to conduct ones self in a proper manner at all times because there will always be many little sets of eyes watching! Students will look up to teachers as leaders, models, and nurturers. It is our job as teachers to set the standards and help to build the students’ self-esteem by reassuring students they are smart and can accomplish anything if they set their minds to it. Research has shown that students will feel better about themselves when teachers praise students often. Lastly, it is important as a teacher to make education for the students fun and exciting and all inclusive. Doing so will help to improve the student’s quality of work.
7.1.4. Student Peer Grounds and Alienation: It has been proven there are four types of students whether it be elementary school, high school or college students. As a successful teacher, it is our responsibility to identify which classification each student would be categorized as, and to help prevent these students from falling into the wrong category! Instead, we as teachers should help these students gain the tools needed to be successful, have confidence in themselves, achieve goals, and make sure they feel accomplished once they graduate!
7.1.4.1. Careerists- These students usually come from a middle to upper class background. These students have achieved many honors throughout their education. However, these students have lost confidence in themselves at some point during their education experience. o Intellectuals- These students usually come from a highly-educated family. Both the student and the family members will show an interest in humanities, politics, and will earn many academic achievement awards. o Strivers- These students will call into the working-class background category. Typically, these students come from ethnic or racial minorities. They are known for working hard, but sadly, they are also known to have a very low grade point average and won’t have very much self-motivation. o Unconnected: These are the students that come from various types of backgrounds. These are the students that usually participate in extracurricular activities. However, these are the students that aren’t satisfied in their schooling.
7.1.5. Gender: It has been proven that female students typically start ahead of boys in cognitively and socially. However, it has also been proven that once females enter into their high school years, their self-esteem begins to lower while boy’s self-esteem will increase. At what point, did our society allow girls to begin to show signs of not being capable to live up to their full potential? As a teacher, it is our responsibility to reassure the female students they are capable of living up to their full potential and they too can be successful (Sadovnik et al. 2013).
7.2. Theoretical perspectives concerning the relationship between school and society:
7.2.1. • Functionalism Theory: Sociologist have performed multiple different researches based on the functional theories of education vs. society. An early sociologist by the name of Emile Durkheim invented what is known as sociology of education during the nineteenth and twentieth century. During his studies, Mr. Durkheim concluded that “education had taken different forms at different times and places.” He believed that education was critical to society, because it was the key to successfully forming a society as a whole. Because of Durkheim’s influential theory, today schools prepare students by grouping the students according to their abilities and encouraging social unity.
7.2.2. • Conflict Theory: Not all sociologist believe that society is held together by shared values. In fact, Karl Marx was a sociologist that had a belief slightly different. Mr. Marx was the founder of the conflict between school vs. the sociology of education, and was a strong believer that the classification system, labor, and lack of education were the leading cause to a broken society. Bowles and Gintis wrote a book known as Schooling in Capitalist America. Bowles and Gintis wrote the book based on Mr. Marx point of view, and came to the conclusion that unless organization came about from both schools and society, there was little hope of a real school reform. A man by the name of Max Weber, had the same ideas as Mr. Marx, but had a different belief. Mr. Weber didn’t believe that the overall classification system an individual was said to be in could define them. Mr. Weber was a firm believer that an individual was labeled based on what they consumed and to whom they socialize with. Randal Collins, expressed that educational expansion is only expressed by a status of group struggle. He argued that a college diploma was only a symbol of “primarily status,” instead of it being a symbol of actual achievement. He also argued that the diplomas being received didn’t make our society “expert,” but instead it was individuals bettering their education for themselves, their families, and for social structure (Sadovnik et al. 2013).
7.2.3. • Interactionalism Theory: "Exploring Education is simply the relation of school and society as primarily critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict perspectives" (Sadovnik et al. 2013, p. 120). For example, when identifying a special needs student, it is important to identify them properly. It was quoted in Exploring Education that, “whether the student is labeled as gifted or having a learning disability it is important to analyze, because such processes carry with them many implicit assumptions about learning and other children. In a study, Basil Bernstein concluded that interactions with other students along with different speech patterns can reflect the students social class backgrounds. It was also concluded that students with a working-class background are at a disadvantage simply because most schools have students that can fall into the middle-class category (Sadovnik et al. 2013).
8. Curriculum and Pedagogy
8.1. According to Sadovnik, Cookson, & Semel (2013) “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 (p. 282). In 1918, a report known as Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education was published by the National Education Association’s Commission of the Reorganization of Secondary Schools. It states, “Diane Ravich termed pedagogical progressivism and stressed the relationship between schooling and the activities of adults within society (p. 283).” During the early twentieth century, Frederick Taylor had several writings based on the factory systems. Soon, the administrators of school systems began to follow in the same technique as factories to “put emphasis on efficiency, time on task, and a social division of labor curriculum involved both the decision of knowledge into strictly defined areas and its transmission into scientifically define goals and objectives, as well as the division of students into different aspects of the curriculum, based on ability“ (p. 283). However, during the early twentieth century, the simple definition of “ability” was quickly changed based on the student’s performance on standardized tests.
8.1.1. I strongly agree that students with different sets of needs should receive different types of schooling. I believe in this simply due to the fact that not all students learn the same. As a professional educator, it will be my responsibility to identify the types of learners that my classroom consists of, whether it be visual, auditory, and/or kinesthetic/tactical learners. Either way, the curriculum will remain the same for the students, but how it is taught will make a difference! I strongly believe that if I have the mindset helping students to reach their full potential, their “ability” to perform on standardized tests will be very successful!
8.2. In 1986 Philip Jackson wrote the book "The Practice of Teaching." In his book, he provided information on philosophical dimensions of teaching. Mr. Jackson suggested that there have been different views about teaching. He concluded that some teachers see education as an art of craft while others view it as being a scientific enterprise with distinct and testable methods. However, Mr. Jackson distinguished between the two dominant traditions which include mimetic and transformative.
8.2.1. "The mimetic tradition is based on the viewpoint that the purpose of education is to transmit specific knowledge to students" (Sadovnik et al. 2013, p. 296). This is done so the didactic method. The didactic method relies on lecture or presentation for the main source of communication. This tradition believes the process of transferring information should be done between the teacher and student.
8.2.2. "The transformative tradition rests on a different set of assumptions about the teaching and learning process” (Sadovnik et al. 2013, p. 296). This tradition believes that an authoritarian relationship will not be helpful to the students, but instead believe that teaching and learning are inextricably linked together. The transformative tradition model believes that the purpose of education is to change a student in a positive way. This can be done intellectually, through creativity, spiritually, and/or emotionally.
9. Equality of Opportunity
9.1. How class, race, and gender impact educational outcomes.
9.1.1. Class- Students in different social classes have different kinds of educational experiences. Education is extremely expensive, therefore, the longer a student stays in school, the more likely he or she needs parental financial support. Families from the upper class and the middle class are also more likely to expect their children to finish school, whereas working-class and underclass families often have lower levels of expectation for their children. Class id directly related to achievement and to the educational attainment the student retains. There is also a direct correlation between parental income and children's performance on achievement test, as well as placement in ability groups and curriculum track in high school. In sum, social class and level of educational attainment are highly connected. This finding represents a challenge to those who believe in equality of opportunity.
9.1.2. Race- An individual's race has a direct impact on how much education he or she is likely to achieve. Among 16-24 year olds, 5.2% of white students drop out of school, 9.3% of African-American students drop out of school, and 17.6% of Hispanic students are likely to drop out of school. Minority students receive fewer and inferior education opportunities than white students. Minorities do not receive the same educational opportunities as whites, and their rewards for education attainment are significantly less.
9.1.3. Gender- Historically, an individual's gender is said to be 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. Over the last 20 years, gender differences between men and women, in terms of educational attainment, have been reduced. Studies have shown that girls have caught up to the boys in almost all measure of academic achievement.
9.2. The two responses to the Coleman Study from 1992
9.2.1. The interpretation was echoed by Alexander and Pallas (1983), "What then of Coleman, Hoffer, Kilgore's claim that Catholic schools are educationally superior to public schools? If trivial advantage is what they mean by such a claim, then we suppose we would have to agree. But judged against reasonable benchmarks, there is little basis for this conclusion."
9.2.2. According to Borman and Dowling (2010), "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 a highly segregated African American school has a profound effect on a student's achievement outcomes, above and beyond the effect of individual poverty or minority status. Specifically, both the racial/ethnic and social class composition of student's school are 1 3/4 times more important than a student's individual race/ethnicity of social class for understanding educational outcomes.
10. Educational Reform
10.1. School-Based Reforms
10.1.1. School-Business Partnerships: During the 1980s, business leaders became concerned that school systems across the nation weren’t producing the kinds of graduates necessary for revitalization of the United States economy. In 1991 it was pledged by the Committee to Support Philadelphia Public schools that assistance and training would be provided to the Philadelphia School District to ensure that plan was put into place to restructure the management of the school system. While there was a considerable publicity that surrounded the partnerships, only 1.5 percent of corporate companies were giving to public and secondary schools during the 1980s. The Walton Foundation has funded charter schools and voucher initiatives. Bill and Melinda Foundation has donated hundreds of million dollars to small schools along with teacher effectiveness. In fact, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has even donated one hundred million dollars to improve the education in Newark, New Jersey. Since the 1980s, the funding has improved significantly not just for Philadelphia schools, but for school systems across the nation.
10.1.2. School-to-Work Programs: On May 4, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994. This act provided money to states and local partnerships of business, labor, government, education, and community organizations to develop school-to-work systems. By creating the school-to-work system, it prepared youth for the high-wage, high-skill careers of today’s and tomorrow’s global economy. While the systems varied from state to state, each was supposed to provide each U.S. student with the following: 1. Relevant education, allowing students to explore different careers and see what skills are required in their working environment. 2. Skills, obtained from structured training and work-based learning experiences, including necessary skills of a particular career as demonstrated in a working environment. 3. Valued credentials, establishing industry-standard benchmarks and developing education and training standards that ensure that proper education is received for each career.
10.2. Educational Reform from the 1980s to 2012:
10.2.1. Between the 1980s and now, there were two different waves of reform. The first wave, marked by the reports of the early and mid-1980s, and the educational initiatives directly responding to them, were concerned primarily with the issues of accountability and achievement. Due to this call for increased academic achievement, school systems across the nation called for an increase in graduation requirements, toughened curriculum, and an increased use of the standardized test scores measuring the students’ achievement. The second reform wave targeted the structure and process of the schools, it gave more control to the local schools, teachers, and was more decentralized to the local school levels. Both reforms had “triple theme of achievement, assessment, and accountability” in common. During the 1990s, both waves began to overlap with top-down and state mandates defining the goals and standards of education, but left it to the local districts to implement them.