1. Curriculum & Pedagogy
1.1. Social Meliorist Curriculum
1.1.1. Philosophically social reconstructionist developed in the 1930's both out of the writings of Dewey, who was concerned with the role of schools in reforming society, as well as a response to the growing dominance of the social efficiency curriculum.
1.1.1.1. Two of the most influential social meliorists: Teachers College (Columbia University) professors, George Counts and Harold Rugg.
1.1.2. The curriculum never challenged the dominance of the social efficiency model, it has continued to influence curriculum theory in the United States and elsewhere.
1.1.2.1. The social efficiency curriculum resulted in the organization of the curriculum into distinct tracks.
1.2. Two dominant traditions of teaching.
1.2.1. Mimetic
1.2.1.1. Easiest to describe. It is the closest one to what most people believe education is all about. It is more harmonious with all that is thought of as "scientific" and "rigorous" within education than its competitor.
1.2.1.1.1. Knowledge of a "mimetic" variety, whose transmission entails mimetic procedures, is by definition identifiable in advance of its transmission. This basically means it's knowledge presented to a learner, rather than discovered by him or her.
1.2.1.2. It has five steps, the fourth which divides into two alternate routes, "a" or "b", dependent on the presence or absence of student error.
1.2.1.2.1. Step One: Test. Some form of inquiry, either formal or informal, is initiated to discover whether the student(s) in question already knows the material or can perform the skill in question.
1.2.2. Transformative
1.2.2.1. The adjective "transformative" describes what this tradition deems successful teaching to be capable of accomplishing: a transformation of one kind or another in the person being taught---a qualitative change often of dramatic proportion, a metamorphosis, so to speak.
1.2.2.1.1. Within the transformative tradition, the superiority of the teacher's knowledge, whether substantive or methodological, is not nearly so clear-cut.
1.2.2.2. The Three Modes
1.2.2.2.1. 1. Personal modeling. Of the many attributes associated with transformative teaching, the most crucial ones seem to concern the teacher as a person. For it is essential to success within that tradition that teachers who are trying to bring about transformative changes personify the very qualities they seek to engender in their students.
2. Equality of Opportunity
2.1. How class, race, and gender impact educational outcomes.
2.1.1. Class
2.1.1.1. Students in different social classes have different kinds of educational experiences .
2.1.1.1.1. Education is very expensive. The number of books in a family's home is related to the academic achievement of its children. Peer groups have a significant influence on students' attitudes toward learning.
2.1.2. Race
2.1.2.1. It is extremely hard to separate race from class. In a society segregated as that in the United States, it is not surprising that minority students receive fewer and inferior educational opportunities than white students. Minorities do not receive the same educational opportunities as whites, and their rewards for educational attainment are significantly less.
2.1.3. Gender
2.1.3.1. Historically, an individual's gender was directly related to his or her educational attainment.
2.1.3.1.1. Females are less likely to drop out of school than males, and are more likely to have a higher level or reading proficiency than males.
2.2. What were the two responses from the Coleman Study from 1982?
2.2.1. Round Two
2.2.1.1. Jencks (1985) used Coleman's findings to compute the estimated yearly average achievement gain by public and Catholic school students. The differences that exist between public and Catholic schools are statistically significant, but in terms of significant differences in learning, the results are negligible.
2.2.1.1.1. Private schools seem to have certain organizational characteristics that are related to student outcomes, but are these relationships as significant as some researchers claim? Baker and Riordan argued that Catholic schools in the 1990s have become more elite, belying the argument that they are modern common schools (Byrk, Lee, & Holland, 1993; Greely, 1982).
2.2.2. Round Three
2.2.2.1. Borman and Dowling's findings partially confirm both Coleman's original data from 1966 and his 1982 study.
2.2.2.1.1. Where an individual goes to school is often related to her race and socioeconomic background, but the racial and socioeconomic composition of a school has a greater effect on student achievement than an individual's race and class.
3. Educational Reform
3.1. School-Business Partnership
3.1.1. School-business partnerships provide scholarships for poor students to attend college and programs where businesses "adopt" a school. They also pledge management assistance and training opportunities.
3.1.2. School-business partnerships have little convincing evidence that they have significantly improved schools or that, as a means of reform, school-business partnerships will address the fundamental problems facing U.S. education.
3.2. Teacher Education
3.2.1. Carnegie and Holmes Report
3.2.1.1. They agree that overall problems in education cannot be solved without corresponding changes in teacher education.
3.2.1.2. Teacher education programs must be upgrades in terms of their intellectual rigor and focus.
3.2.1.3. Career ladders that recognize differences in knowledge, skill, and commitment must be created for teachers.
3.3. Takeovers
3.3.1. Takeover is in appropriate cases a necessary expression of a state's constitutional responsibility for public education.
3.3.2. Takeovers can help create a healthy environment in which the local community can address a school district's problems.
3.3.3. Takeovers can provide a good opportunity for state and local decision makers to combine resources and knowledge.
3.4. Full Service and Community Schools
3.4.1. Educate not only the whole child but also whole community.
3.4.2. Dryfoo's mode of full service schools, Canada's Harlem Children's Zone, and Newark's Broader Bolder Approach, are three models of community-based reforms.
3.4.3. There is no evidence that full-service schools affect student achievement.
4. Politics of Education
4.1. Four Purposes of Education
4.1.1. 1. Intellectual
4.1.1.1. The intellectual purposes of schooling are to teach 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.
4.1.2. 2. Political
4.1.2.1. The political purposes 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 the society.
4.1.3. 3. Social
4.1.3.1. The social purposes of schooling are 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.
4.1.4. 4. Economic
4.1.4.1. The economic purposes of schooling are to prepare students for their later occupational roles and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
4.2. Choose and describe a perspective for the following:
4.2.1. 1. Role of the School
4.2.1.1. The liberal perspective, while also stressing the training and socializing function of the school, sees these aims at a little differently. In line with the liberal belief in equality of opportunity, it stresses the school's role in providing the necessary education to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed in society. Whereas liberals also point to the school's role in socializing children into social roles, they stress the pluralistic nature of U.S. society and the school's role in teaching children to respect cultural diversity so that they understand and fit into a diverse society. On the political level, liberals stress the importance of citizenship and participation in a democratic society and the need for an educated citizenry in such a society. Finally, the liberal perspective stresses the individual as well as societal needs and thus sees the school's role as enabling the individual to develop his or her talents, creativity, and sense of self.
4.2.1.2. Liberals believe that schools should ensure the equality of opportunity exists and that inequality of results be minimized. Based on historical record, the liberal perspective indicates that although schools have made significant difference in the lives of countless Americans and have provided upward mobility for many individuals, there remain significant differences in the educational opportunities and achievement levels for rich and poor.
4.2.2. 2. Explanations of Unequal Performance
4.2.2.1. The liberal perspective argues that individual students or groups of students begin school with different life chances and therefore some groups have significantly more advantages that others. Therefore, society must attempt through policies and programs to equalize the playing field so that students from disadvantaged backgrounds have a better chance.
4.2.3. 3. Definition of Educational Problems
4.2.3.1. The liberals perspective argues the following points:
4.2.3.1.1. 1. Schools have too often limited the life chances of poor and minority children and therefore the problem of underachievement by these groups is a critical issue.
4.2.3.1.2. 2. Schools place to much emphasis on discipline and authority, thus limiting their role in helping students develop as individuals.
4.2.3.1.3. 3. The differences in quality and climate between urban and suburban schools and, most specifically, between schools with students of low socioeconomic backgrounds and high socioeconomic backgrounds is a central problem related to inequalities of results.
4.2.3.1.4. 4. The traditional curriculum leave out the diverse cultures of the groups that comprise the pluralistic society.
5. History of U.S. Education
5.1. Choose and describe a reform movement that you think has had the most influence on education.
5.1.1. The Age of Reform: The Rise of the Common School
5.1.1.1. The Industrial Revolution caused changed at unprecedented speed all across the country. Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828, which is significant because by this time all men (except slaves and emotionally disturbed persons) had obtained the right to vote. Political democracy was becoming a reality. In the decades that following 1815, groups of reformers emerged. These men and women lacked higher education and did not hold public office but often articulated their ideas with the fervor of evangelical Christianity. By 1820, it had become evident to those interested in education that the schools that had been established by pre-war generation were not functioning effectively. The vast majority of Americans were, not surprisingly, illiterate. The struggle for free public education was led by Horace Mann of Massachusetts. Abandoning a successful career as a lawyer, Mann lobbied for a state board of education, and when the Massachusetts legislature created on in 1837, Horace Mann became its first secretary, an office he occupied for 11 years. His annual reports served as models for public school reforms throughout the nation, and, partly due to Mann's efforts, the first state normal school, or teacher training school, was established in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1839. Mann's arguments for the establishment of the common school, or free publicly funded elementary schools, reflects both the concern for stability and order and the concern for social mobility. Mann was one of America's greatest educational reformers, radicals take issue with his arguments, pointing to the common school as pernicious device for teaching skills such as hygiene, punctuality, and rudimentary skills that would create docile, willing workers. Mann's belief that school can change the social order and that education can foster social mobility are beliefs responsible for the faith and support many people give to U.S. public schools.
5.2. Choose and describe one historical interpretation of U.S. Education.
5.2.1. The Democratic-Liberal School
5.2.1.1. Democratic-liberals believe that the history of U.S. education involves the progressive evolution, albeit flawed, of a school system committed to providing equality of opportunity for all. Democratic-liberal historians suggest that each period of educational expansion involved the attempts of liberal reformers to expand educational opportunities to larger segments of the population and to reject the conservative view of schools as elite institutions for the meritorious (which usually meant the privileged). Lawrence A. Cremin, in his three-volume history of U.S. education and in study of the Progressive Era, portrays the evolution of U.S. education in terms of two related processes: popularization and multitudinousness. More students from diverse backgrounds went to school for longer periods of time, the goals of education became more diverse, with social goals often becoming as or more important than intellectual ones. Although democratic-liberals tend to interpret U.S. educational history optimistically, the evolution of the nation's schools has been a flawed, often conflictual march toward increased opportunities. The ideas of equality and excellence are just that: ideals. Democratic-liberals believe that the U.S. educational system must continue to move closer to each, without sacrificing one of the other too dramatically.
6. Sociological Perspectives
6.1. Define the theoretical perspective concerning the relationship between school and society: functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionalism.
6.1.1. Functional Theories
6.1.1.1. Functional sociologists 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. The earliest sociologist to embrace a functional point of view about the relation of school and society was Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), who virtually invented the sociology of education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His major works include Moral Education (1962), The Evolution of Educational Thought (1977), and Educational and Sociology (1956). He believed that education in virtually all societies, was of critical importance in creating the moral unity necessary for social cohesion and harmony. For Durkheim, moral values were the foundation of society.
6.1.1.1.1. Durkheim's emphasis on values and cohesion set the tone for how present-day functionalists approach the study of education. Education reform, then, from a functional point of view, is supposed to create structures, programs, and curricula that are technically advanced, rational, and encourage social unity. It should be evident that most U.S. educators and educational reformers implicitly base their reform suggestions on functional theories of schooling.
6.1.2. Conflict Theories
6.1.2.1. Social order is not based on collective agreement, but on the ability of dominant groups to impose their will on subordinate groups through force, cooptation, and manipulation. The glue of society is economic, political, cultural, and military power. Conflict sociologists do not see the relation between school and society as problematic or straightforward. Conflict sociologists emphasize struggle.
6.1.2.1.1. Karl Marx (1818-1883) is the founder of conflict school in the sociology of education. His analytic imagination and moral outrage were sparked by the social conditions found in Europe in the mid nineteenth century. Marx believed that the class system, which separated owners from workers and workers from the benefits of their own labor, made class struggle inevitable.
6.1.3. Interactional Theories
6.1.3.1. Interactional theories about the relation of school and society are primarily critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict perspectives. The critique arises from the observation that functional and conflict theories are very abstract, and emphasize structure and process at a very general level of analysis.
6.1.3.1.1. Interactional theories attempt to make the commonplace strange by turning on their heads everyday taken-for-granted behaviors and interactions between students and students, and between students and teachers.
6.2. Identify and describe 5 effects of schooling on individuals that you think have the greatest impact on students as explained in the book.
6.2.1. Knowledge & Attitudes
6.2.1.1. Ron Edmonds
6.2.1.1.1. The pioneer of the effective schools movement.
6.2.1.2. Heyns (1978)
6.2.1.2.1. A study by Heyns found that sixth a d seventh grade students who went to summer school, used the library, and read a great deal in the summer made greater gains in knowledge than pupils who didn't study in the summer.
6.2.2. Employment
6.2.2.1. Students believe that graduating from college will lead to greater employment opportunities.
6.2.2.2. Collins (1971)
6.2.2.2.1. Research has shown that large organizations, such as corporations, require high levels of education for white-collar, managerial, or administrative jobs.
6.2.2.3. Berg (1970)
6.2.2.3.1. Studied factory workers, maintenance workers, department store clerks, technicians, secretaries, bank tellers, engineers, industrial research scientists, military personnel, and federal civil service employers and found that the level of education was essentially unrelated to job performance.
6.2.3. Education & Mobility
6.2.3.1. MacLeod (1995)
6.2.3.1.1. He found that working-class boys often reject the prevailing "attainment through education" ethos by emphasizing their relative lack of economic and social mobility through cultural values that glorify physical hardness, manual labor, and a certain sense of fatalism.
6.2.3.2. Turner (1960)
6.2.3.2.1. He compared contest mobility in the United States and sponsored mobility in the United Kingdom. Students are selected at an early age for academic and university education and where social class background is very important in determining who will receive academic or vocational training.
6.2.3.3. Hopper (1971)
6.2.3.3.1. He made a point that there is a difference between educational amount and educational route. That is, the number of years of educational attainment, but where people to go to school also affects their mobility.
6.2.3.4. Rosenbaum (1976)
6.2.3.4.1. He likened mobility to tournament selection, where winners are allowed to proceed to the next round of competition, and losers are dropped from the competition.
6.2.4. Inadequate Schools
6.2.4.1. Urban education, has failed to educate minority and poor children. Differences between schools and school systems reinforce existing inequalities. Students who attend suburban schools and private schools get a better educational experience that the other children. (Coleman, Hoffer, & Kilgore, 1982)
6.2.5. De Facto Segregation
6.2.5.1. A study found that African-Americans from low-income communities who attended racially mixed schools were more likely to graduate from high school and college than similar African-American children who attended segregated schools.
7. Philosophy of Education
7.1. Pragmatism is a philosophy that encourages people to find processes that work in order to achieve their desired ends.
7.1.1. Generic Notions
7.1.1.1. Dewey's from of pragmatism (instrumentalism and experimentalism) was founded on the new psychology, behaviorism, and the philosophy of pragmatism. His ideas were influenced by the theory of evolution and by an eighteenth century optimistic belief in progress. His progressive methodology rested on the notion that children were active, organic beings, growing and changing, and thus required a course of study that would reflect their particular stages of development.
7.1.2. Key Researchers
7.1.2.1. John Dewey (1859-1952) William James (1842-1910) George Sanders Pierce (1839-1914)
7.1.3. Goal of Education
7.1.3.1. The primary role of education is growth. The goal is to ultimately make human beings who will live life to the fullest, who will continually add to the quality and meaning of their experience and to their ability to direct that experience, and who will participate actively with their fellow human beings in the building of a good society.
7.1.4. Role of Teacher
7.1.4.1. The teacher moves from the authoritarian figure to the peripheral position of facilitator. The teacher helps write curriculum and must have a command of several disciplines in order to create and implement curriculum.
7.1.5. Method of Instruction
7.1.5.1. Children learn both individually and in groups. They use the problem-solving or inquiry method as a method of instruction. Formal instruction was abandoned. Traditional blocks of time for specific discipline instruction were eliminated.
7.1.6. Curriculum
7.1.6.1. Core curriculum or integrated curriculum. Progressive educators support starting with contemporary problems and working from the known to the unknown which is called expanding environments. Some contemporary scholars think that the curriculum should be related to the needs and interests of the child.
8. Schools as Organizations
8.1. State Senators
8.1.1. Marshall County District 9
8.1.1.1. Clay Scofield (R-9)
8.2. House of Representatives
8.2.1. State Representative
8.2.1.1. Randall Shedd (R-11)
8.2.2. U.S. Representative
8.2.2.1. Robert B. Aderholt (R-4)
8.3. State Superintendent
8.3.1. Michael Sentance
8.4. Representative on State School Board
8.4.1. Cynthia S. McCarty
8.5. Local Superintendent
8.5.1. Cindy Wigley
8.6. Local School Board- Marshall County
8.6.1. Mr. Bill Aaron-Chairman
8.6.2. Dr. Vincent H. Edmonds-Vice Chairman
8.6.3. Mr. Terry Kennamer-Board Member
8.6.4. Mr. Mark Rains-Board Member
8.7. Identify and describe the elements of change within school processes and school cultures.
8.7.1. Conflict
8.7.1.1. Efforts to democratize schools do not create conflicts, but they allow previously hidden problems, issues, and disagreements to surface. Staff involvement in school restructuring must be prepared to elicit, manage, and resolve conflicts.
8.7.2. New Behaviors
8.7.2.1. 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.
8.7.3. Team Building
8.7.3.1. Team building must extend to the 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.
8.7.4. Process and Content
8.7.4.1. Process and Content are interrelated. The process of a team uses in going about its work is as important as the content of educational changes it attempts. The substance of a project often depends upon the degree of trust and openness built up within the team and between the team and the school. At the same time, the usefulness and the visibility of the project will influence future commitments from and the relationships among the staff and others involved.
9. Educational Inequality
9.1. Cultural Deprivation
9.1.1. Conflict Theorists
9.1.1.1. The role of schooling is to reproduce rather than eliminate inequality.
9.1.1.2. The fact that educational outcomes are to a large degree based on family background is fully consistent with this perspective.
9.1.1.3. They do not believe that equality of opportunity is a sufficient goal.
9.1.2. Functionalist
9.1.2.1. The role of the schools is to provide a fair and meritocratic selection process for sorting out the best and brightest individuals, regardless of family backgrounds.
9.1.2.2. The vision of a just society is one where individual talent and had work based on universal principles of evaluation are more important than ascriptive characteristics based on particularistic methods of evaluation.
9.1.2.3. Expect that the schooling process will produce unequal results, but these results ought to be based on individual differences between students, not on group differences.
9.1.2.4. Believe that unequal educational outcomes are the result in part of unequal educational opportunities.
9.2. Describe four school-centered explanations for educational inequality.
9.2.1. School Financing
9.2.1.1. Jonathan Kozol (1991) documented the vast differences in funding between affluent and poor districts.
9.2.1.2. More affluent communities are able to provide more per-pupil spending than poorer districts.
9.2.1.3. Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do not receive equality of opportunity, at least in terms of funding.
9.2.2. Effective School Research
9.2.2.1. Coleman and Jencks- differences in school resources and quality do not adequately explain between-school differences in academic achievement was viewed by teachers as a mixed blessing.
9.2.3. Between School Differences- Curriculum and Pedagogic Practices
9.2.3.1. Schools do affect educational outcomes, at times, independent of extra school factors.
9.2.3.2. 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. Middle-class are more likely to have less authoritarian and more student centered pedagogic practices and to have a humanistic liberal arts college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level. Upper-class students are more likely to attend elite private schools with authoritarian pedagogic practices and a classical-humanistic college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level.
9.2.4. Within-School Differences- Curriculum and Ability Grouping
9.2.4.1. Elementary- divided into reading groups and separate classes based on teacher recommendations, standardized test scores, and sometimes ascriptive characteristics such as race, class, or gender.