1. History of U.S. Education
1.1. The Emergence of Public Education
1.1.1. I think that the emergence of public high school is the most important reform based on many reasons. Before public high school most students attended private academies, but when public high schools were formed they gave a lot more students the opportunity to go to a secondary school. from 1875 to 1940 the number of students enrolled in public schools went from less that 25,000 to over 6.5 million. The emergence of public high schools also brought with it a change in high school curriculum. The National Education Association (NEA) created a standard of curriculum that included classical and modern day languages, English, mathematics, history and science. Following WW2 a professor from Harvard named Charles Prosser proposed the "Education for Life Adjustment" which addressed the practical concerns of daily living for not only those at the bottom of the educational ladder but for all high school students. Without the emergence of public schools the access to a secondary school would not have been available to near as many children.
1.2. The Democratic-Liberal School
1.2.1. The Democratic-Liberal believe in a school system that provides a quality education to all. They also believe that schools should be expanded to a larger group of people, and they disagree with conservative beliefs that schools are elite instructions for the meritorious. The democratic-liberal school believes that if education became more diverse that the focus of education would be social goals instead of intellectual ones. They also believe that the U.S. educational system should move closer to both social goals and intellectual goals without leaning too far to either side.
2. Philosophy of Education
2.1. Existentialism
2.1.1. Existentialists believe that individuals are placed on earth alone and have to make sense out of what they encounter, and pose questions about how their concerns make a difference in the lives of individuals. Some of the key researchers in existentialism are Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber and Karl Jaspers. Existentialists believe that education should accentuate individuality and should include discussions about the tensions of living in the world and how anxiety through conflict should be addressed. They believe that the role of the teacher is very personal and they should take risks and constantly work with their students. They view learning as a very personal thing and that each student has a specific way that they learn and it is the teacher's job to find that way through asking questions, creating activities and group work. Existentialists believe in a curriculum that is based heavily on humanities, especially literature, drama and music.
3. politics of Education
3.1. Purposes
3.1.1. Intellectual
3.1.1.1. 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
3.1.2. Political
3.1.2.1. 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
3.1.3. Social
3.1.3.1. are to help solve social problems; are 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
3.1.4. Economic
3.1.4.1. are to prepare students for their later occupational roles and to select, train and allocate individuals into the division of labor
3.2. Perspectives
3.2.1. The role of the school
3.2.1.1. Conservative Perspective - the role of the school is to provide the most talented and hardworking individuals with the tools they need to maximum economic and social productivity. Conservatives believe the school is essential to social stability and economic productivity.
3.2.2. Explanations of unequal educational performance
3.2.2.1. Conservatives believe that individuals or groups of students should be able to succeed or fail based on their own intelligence, hard work, and initiative. Conservatives believe that school systems are designed to provide the opportunity for all students to succeed. If they are unable to succeed it may be because they are lacking in some areas or because they are members of a group that do not place education on a higher priority list.
3.2.3. Definition of educational problems
3.2.3.1. Conservative perspective defines educational problems as the decline of standards, the decline of cultural literacy, the decline of values or of civilization and the decline of authority. Conservatives also believe schools are stifled by bureaucracy and inefficiency because they are immune to the laws of the competitive free market.
4. Sociological Perspectives
4.1. Perspectives
4.1.1. Functionalism
4.1.1.1. Functionalist believe in interdependence of the social system. They view society as a machine where one part works with another to create an energy flow to make society work. They believe that in well functioning societies schools associate students into the appropriate values and pick students based on their abilities. They believe in programs and curricula that are advanced and encourage social cohesion.
4.1.2. Conflict Theory
4.1.2.1. Some sociologists believe that social order is not based on agreement but the ability of a group to dominate and manipulate another. They believe that society is based on economic, political, cultural and military power. They believe that schools are like battlefields with struggles between the student, teacher and administration much like modern society.
4.1.3. Interactionalism
4.1.3.1. Interactional theories about the correlation between school and society are mainly assessments of the functional and conflict perspectives. Interactionalists believe that functional and conflict theories are very generalized and observe structure and process at a broad level.
4.2. Effects of Schooling
4.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes
4.2.1.1. Sociologist disagree on how much of an effect a students social class background has on their achievement levels in school. Some believe that it greatly effects it, while others believe that is plays a minimal role. Sociologists believe that more years of schooling leads to more knowledge and social participation. Study's show that in schools where there is consistent discipline the achievement level of students rises.
4.2.2. Employment
4.2.2.1. Students believe that graduating from college will get them a better job where they can have more opportunities and make more money, and those students would be right. Research shows that larger corporations require higher education for managerial and administrative jobs. On average a college graduate make 20,000 dollars more a year than just a high school graduate. Being a college graduate looks a lot better to an employer than a high school graduate because they make the assumption that the college graduate will be better at the job that the high school graduate but that is not always the case.
4.2.3. Teacher Behavior
4.2.3.1. Teachers have a huge impact on the lives of their students, and a teachers behavior towards their students can affect how well the students learn. Teachers that have higher expectations for their kids directly influence their student's achievements. The attitude of a teacher has a direct effect on a student's self perception, and if the teacher has a bad attitude they could be responsible for the student not reaching grade level standards or even dropping out.
4.2.4. Inadequate Schools
4.2.4.1. One of the most conclusive ways that schools cultivate is through inadequate schools. The differences between suburban school and private school educations is evidence of existing inequalities. Students who attend a private school have many more educational benefits in regards to their actual education and the value of their diploma.
4.2.5. Tracking
4.2.5.1. Tracking refers to a students placement in curricular programs based on the students abilities and aptitude. There have been many studies that show tracking is based more on a students social class and race rather than their actual knowledge. Students that are placed in "high-ability" tracks are inclined to get better teachers, facilities and have more extracurricular activities than students in lower tracks. This means that students in a higher track often receive a better education than students in lower tracks.
5. Schools as Organizations
5.1. State Senator- William Holtzclaw
5.2. House of Representatives- Mac McCutchen
5.3. State Superintendent- Michael Sentance
5.4. Representative on State School Board- Jeffrey Newman
5.5. Local Superintendent- Dr. Tom Sisk
5.6. Local School Board- Earl Glaze
5.7. Conflict
5.7.1. It causes hidden problems, issues, and disagreements to surface during school restructuring, and requires that staff learn to manage and resolve conflicts.
5.8. New Behaviors
5.8.1. learning to build communication and trust between new relationships. It enables the emergence of leadership, communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution within the school system.
5.9. Team Building
5.9.1. Must extend to the entire school and allows for shared decision making between the schools staff. It helps to eliminate elitism and exclusiveness.
5.10. Process and content are interrelated
5.10.1. A teams process for change is just as important as the content of the change. They are equally as important in building trust and openness within the team and between the team and the school. Without the trust and openness you can not effect the process or the change.
6. Cirriculum and Pedagogy
6.1. Developmentalists Curriculum
6.1.1. This type of curriculum is more focused on the needs and interests of the student rather the needs of society. It emphasizes the process of teaching as well as the content that is being taught. Developmentalists state that the curriculum needs to relate to the interests of each child at a particular development stage. Based on this curriculum the teacher is not a transmitter of knowledge but is there to facilitate the growth of the student.
6.2. The Mimetic Tradition
6.2.1. The Mimetic tradition is composed of five steps that are based on presenting knowledge to the learner. The mimetic tradition is closer to what most people seem to think that education is about. The knowledge involved in the mimetic tradition can also be judged right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, correct or incorrect based on the teachers own knowledge or other models found in a textbook. The five steps are test, present, perform/evaluate, if the performance is correct you reward the student, if the performance is incorrect the student enters a remedial loop and after the unit of knowledge has been achieved you advance.
6.3. The Transformative Tradition
6.3.1. This tradition is comprised of three modes which are personal modeling, "soft" suasion and use of narrative. This tradition is thought to be more ingrained within the psychological makeup of the student and is perhaps more enduring than the mimetic tradition. This tradition focuses on trying to transform the student into a person with the traits that are highly prized by the society at large. Where the mimetic tradition looked at knowledge being presented to the learner this tradition looks at knowledge as being poured or stored in the learner.
7. Equality of Opportunity
7.1. Class
7.1.1. Getting an education is expensive and the longer someone stays in school the more likely they are to need financial support from their parents or significant other. Families that are considered working class may not have the financial means to send their child to college whereas a upper-middle class family can afford to send their child to a 4 year university to further their education. The book states that there is a direct correlation between parental income and children's performance in school. the book also states that children from working class families are more likely to underachieve, resist the curriculum and drop out at higher rates than someone from a upper-middle class family.
7.2. Race
7.2.1. I just want to start off with some numbers from the book. Students between the ages of 16 and 24 that are white drop out of school at a rate of 5.2%, African Americans at 9.3% and Hispanic students drop out at a rate of 17.6%. The book states that it is difficult to separate class from race and the reason that minorities drop out at a much higher rate is the simple fact that minorities are not given the same opportunities as white students. Minorities are more likely to come from lower or working class families that simply cannot afford to send their child to college.
7.3. Gender
7.3.1. To start off women are generally considered better students than men. Women drop out at a lower rate than men and are more likely to have a higher reading proficiency than men. Women are also more likely to have higher SAT scores, and more women attend post-secondary school than men. The only area that men outperform women in school is in mathematics. The differences between men and women in education have reduced over the last 20 years but in spite of all the facts stated in the book there are still advantages for men when it comes to attaining certain prestigious academic prizes over women. Today there is little doubt that society discriminates against women both socially and occupationally.
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. The two types of cultural deprivation are focused on both the school and the family. One theory suggest that working class and minority families lack the resources such as books and other educational stimuli that lead to an educational disadvantage. According to this theory, middle class cultures value hard work and initiative, the delay of immediate gratification and the importance of school as a means for a better future. This theory of deprivation results in students who are educationally disadvantaged who achieve poorly because they have not been raised to acquire the skills necessary for successful academic achievement.
8.1.1. This theory states that because of the cultural and familial deprivation faced by poor students the school must provide an environment that makes up for lost time. For students that are not prepared for school at home, it is the role of the pre-school to provide the necessary foundations for learning with programs like HeadStart that attempt to involve parents in their children's schooling. Programs like HeadStart attempt to develop parenting and literacy skills necessary for their children's educational development.
8.2. School financing- There's a vast difference in funding between affluent and poor school districts. This leads to a difference in the quality of education for the students. With the difference in funding, more affluent communities are able to provide more spending per student than poorer communities.
8.3. Curriculum and ability grouping- At the elementary school level, students are divided into separate classes based on a variety of different characteristics but for the most part receive a similar curriculum in the different groups. This curriculum may be taught at a different pace and the teachers may have different expectations for their students. At the secondary level, students are divided by ability and curriculum. This is to ensure that the best and brightest students receive the type of education required to prepare them for societies most essential positions.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. privatization-
9.1.1. From the 1990s the distinction between public and private education became blurred. Private education companies became involved in public education in many ways. For profit companies like the Edison Company took over management of failing schools and districts. Philadelphia public schools were taken over by the state in 2003 due to low achievement. The effectiveness of privatization is not clear, but corporations see the multi billion dollar education industry as a lucrative market.
9.2. School to work programs
9.2.1. In the 1990s, school-business partnerships became incorporated into school-to-work programs. This was meant to bring emphasis to non college bound students about the skills needed for employment after high school. On May 4th, 1994 President Bill Clinton signed the School-to-work Opportunities Act which provided money to states to develop school-to-work systems. Every program contains three core elements which are school-based learning, work-based learning and connecting activities. Although these programs meant well, research has shown that the programs often fail to fulfill their promise.