My Foundations of Education

1. History of U.S. Education

1.1. The Educational Reaction and Reform and the Standard Era

1.1.1. This reform started in the 1980's and was largely led by Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Education, Terrel Bell. There were new basic courses put in to place that all high school students had to pass in order to graduate. These courses included 4 years of English, 3 years of mathematics, 3 years of science, 3 years of social studies, and a half a year of computer science. Colleges also were made to raise their admission requirements and that the preparation of teachers to be strengthened.

1.2. The Democratic - Liberal School

1.2.1. The Democratic-Liberal interpretation is progressive evolution in education, and the school system providing equal opportunity for all students. Lawrence Oremin said educational history involved the expansion of opportunity and purpose. As students from diverse backgrounds went to school longer social goals became just as important as intellectual goals. Democratic-Liberals view the history of education optimistically for the most part. It did have its flaws but it was going towards more opportunities for students.

2. Politics of Education

2.1. The four purposes of education

2.1.1. 1. Intellectual: Teach basic cognitive skills and transmit specific knowledge

2.1.2. 2. Political: Inculcate allegiance to political order and to help prepare them to become citizens

2.1.3. 3. Social: Help solve social problems and to socialize children into society

2.1.4. 4. Economic: Prepare students for their later occupational roles.

2.2. Liberal Perspective

2.2.1. Liberal perspective of the role of the school is to prepare students to live in a democratic society. Also to prepare them for their role in society and to be open to different cultures.

2.2.2. Liberal perspective of explanations of unequal performance says that students start out with different life chances and through policies society must try and equal out the playing field for students.

2.2.3. Liberal perspective of the definition of educational problems is that lower class students and students from different cultures often do not receive the same education as other children. Also, that schools are often too concerned with discipline and do not help the children develop as they should.

3. Philosophy of Education

3.1. Pragmatism

3.1.1. Pragmatism comes from the Greek word pragma which means work. Pragmatists do study history but they are more interested on finding solutions to problems in today's society.

3.2. Generic Notions

3.2.1. Pragmastic generic notions is referred to as Dewey's Pragmatism. He believed that students should help make their lesson plans and participate in group learning. He was an advocate for freedom and responsibility for students since those are two components of democratic living.

3.3. Key Researchers

3.3.1. The founders of this school of thought are George Sanders Pierce, William James, and John Dewey. There were European philosophers from earlier periods who can be classified as pragmatists and they were Frances Bacon, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

3.4. Goal of Education

3.4.1. Dewey said that the primary goal of education is growth. Dewey believed that the schools needed to balance the needs of society with the needs of an individual. The schools should function to prepare students for life in a democratic society and by doing this students would be able to put the social order into a more democratic one.

3.5. Role of Teacher

3.5.1. The role of the teacher is no longer to be the authoritarian but the facilitator. The teacher must still have discipline in place but she is the encourager and writes the curriculum of which the students must learn.

3.6. Method of Instruction

3.6.1. Methods of instruction can be individualized or in groups. Teachers no longer use desks that can not be moved. They use furniture that the students can move either to be in groups or to work individually. Memorization was replaced with individual study, problem solving, and the project method.

3.7. Curriculum

3.7.1. The curriculum that progressives use is a core curriculum or an integrated curriculum. Dewey thought an integrated curriculum most effectively balanced traditional disciplines and child centered curriculum.

4. Schools as Organizations

4.1. Major Stakeholders

4.1.1. District 4 Senator: Paul Bussman

4.1.2. District 7 House of Representatives: Kenneth Johnson

4.1.3. State Superintendent: Michael Sentance

4.1.4. Representative on State School Board: Jeffrey Newman

4.1.5. Local Superintendent: Jon Smith

4.1.6. Local School Board: Christine Garner, Beth Vinson, Gary Bradford, Shanon Terry, and Reta Waldrep

4.2. Elements of change within school processes and school cultures

4.2.1. Conflict: When change happens it is not meant to create conflict. It does bring hidden problems and disagreements up. Staff must be willing to work through these conflicts.

4.2.2. New Behaviors: Change does happen so it is important for staff to be willing to communicate and new leaders emerge.

4.2.3. Team Building: This must be in place for entire staff. Shared decisions are important and keeping of relationships. This will help keep people from feeling like they are not part of the team.

4.2.4. Process and Content are Interrelated: How the team gets the work done is just as important as the content that the team in attempting to change.

5. Sociological Perspectives

5.1. Theoretical Perspective Between School and Society

5.1.1. Functionalists usually think that consensus is the normal state in society and that conflicts represent a shared breakdown on shared values. In a highly integrated society, schools socialize students to have appropriate values. Educational reform from a functional viewpoint should encourage social unity.

5.1.2. Conflict theory talks about how the powerful make the rules and the lower class are forced to cooperate. In this sense the school is like a social battleground where students are against teachers, and teachers against administrators.

5.1.3. Interactionalism is mainly an extension of the functional and conflict theories. These two are very abstract and do not give the information of day-to-day in the classroom. So the interactional theory takes these two ideas to a deeper level about the daily interaction between teacher and student.

5.2. Five Effects of Schooling on Individuals

5.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes: The social background a student comes from can have a lot to do with the attitude that they possess and the amount of school they go to. However, research shows that students who attend schools where students must take academic subjects and discipline is in place their achievement goes up.

5.2.2. Employment: Having a college degree makes it easier for an individual to get a job and usually a higher paying job then someone with only a high school diploma. The amount of education a person has is usually unrelated to their job performance, that is something that the person learns over time.

5.2.3. Education and Mobility: The more education a person has the more opportunities that person has for success and moving up in the social class. However for some people, especially in the lower class, they do not see a need for further education and in some cases may can not afford it. Also the kind of school a student attends, whether private or public, can effect their ability to get into college because one is more prestigious than the other.

5.2.4. Teacher Behavior: Teachers play a vital role in their students' life. It is their job not to only motivate students but teach them the skills they need in order to succeed. Teachers have to take on many roles everyday dealing with students and they must keep a positive attitude for the students.

5.2.5. Gender: In U.S. society men often have more authoritarian jobs than women. When a man has the same job as woman he is generally paid more than she is. Before these last two decades women usually chose a two year program or went to a lower ranking university. However, in these past two decades, women have started attending school longer and the gender gaps in many subjects has started to disappear.

6. Curriculum and Pedagogy

6.1. Developmentalist Curriculum

6.1.1. The needs of students over the needs of the society.

6.1.2. Student centered learning

6.1.3. Teacher relates curriculum to needs and interests of the students.

6.1.4. The teacher is seen as a facilitator of student growth instead of an authoritarian figure.

6.2. Two Dominant Traditions of Teaching

6.2.1. Mimetic Tradition

6.2.1.1. Purpose of education is to transmit knowledge to students.

6.2.1.2. Teacher uses didactic method of instruction which means lecture or power point is the main forms of teaching.

6.2.1.3. This method stresses the importance of rational sequencing in teaching and of assessing the students knowledge.

6.2.2. Transformative Tradition

6.2.2.1. Believes that education should change the student in a meaningful way.

6.2.2.2. Teacher is not seen as an authoritarian figure.

6.2.2.3. Teaching involves the active participation of the students.

6.2.2.4. Tends to reject scientific model of teaching and instead sees it as an artistic endeavor.

7. Equality of Opportunity

7.1. How class, race, and gender impact education outcomes

7.1.1. Class: Working and under class students are less likely to do well in school and even less likely to go to college. Parents usually do not have much to do with the child's education. Teachers tend to not expect as much out of these students. Middle and upper class students do better in school and got to college and graduate at a higher rate. Teachers are more apt to help these students. Parents tend to believe in their education

7.1.2. Race: Race has a direct impact on the education of students. On average African Americans and Hispanic American students do worse in school than white students. They are usually on a lower reading level and dropout at a higher rate.

7.1.3. Gender: Females dropout less than men, are higher achieving in reading and writing, and attend post secondary institutions more than men but usually not as nice of one. Men do better in math, attend nicer post secondary schools than women, and score higher on SAT's. In the last 20 years the numbers have started decreasing but men still have the advantage in education.

7.2. Two Responses to the Coleman Study from 1982

7.2.1. Response 1: Private schools tend to have higher academic scores. Coleman says that when comparing public and Catholic schools that the differences do exist, but in terms of differences in learning, the results are insignificant.

7.2.2. Response 2: Where a student attends school often has a lot to do with their race. The predominant race and socioeconomical status of the school tend to have more of an impact on the student then their own race.

8. Educational Reform

8.1. Two School Based Reforms

8.1.1. Privatization: This is where private education companies take over the management of failing schools and districts. Some of these companies include Edison Company, Kaplan, and Sylvan Learning Centers. The success of these types of reforms are mixed.

8.1.2. Teacher Quality: At the secondary level about one-fifth of core classes are taught by teachers who do not have certification in that area. Problems with staffing in urban city schools has a lot to do with organizational issues on the school. Principals find it easier to hire unqualified teachers and with the absence of professionalism and poor working conditions the dropout rate among teachers is high. Recently, school improvement reformers have stressed the existence of teacher tenure and seniority based transfers and layoff provisions in union contracts as a primary factor in preventing an improvement of teacher quality.

8.2. Two Political Reforms

8.2.1. State Intervention: This usually takes place in districts with problems that are determined to be beyond the local capacity. Most state accountability systems have a have a reward and sanctions programs based on how the school is operating. There appears to be no standard method of imposing or implementing state control on school districts. There also appears to be no standard method of returning control back to local authorities.

8.2.2. Mayoral Control: This is usually implemented over urban districts. Proponents say it helps to reduce corruption and leads to effective and efficient management and budget. Critics say that it is undemocratic and reduces community and parental involvement. According to research mayoral control is a good enabler for the kind of leadership needed in school systems. Nine cities with mayoral control were studied and while all improved it is impossible to say that alone improved the schools. Mayoral control can be a good thing to implement along with community support and involvement.

9. Educational Inequality

9.1. Cultural Deprivation Theories

9.1.1. Theory One

9.1.1.1. Coleman Report's that differences in the schools and their resources did not explain the performance difference in working class and non-white students. These students come to school without the needed social and intellectual skills, according to some educational theorists. This theory popularized in the 1960's. It suggest that working class and non-white families often lack cultural resources, such as books and educational stimuli. These students arrive at school already at a disadvantage from other students.

9.1.2. Theory Two

9.1.2.1. The poor have a deprived culture from the middle class system. The culture of poverty wants immediate gratification, they reject hard work and initiative as a means to success. They do not believe that education gives the freedom of social mobility. Middle class, however, values initiative and hard work. The delay of immediate gratification for reward is fine with them because they see the importance of school to be successful in the future. According to cultural deprivation theorist Deutsch the deprivation results in students who are educationally disadvantaged. They achieve poorly because they are not raised to acquire the skills for academic achievement.

9.2. Four School Centered Explanations for Educational Inequality

9.2.1. School Financing: Public schools are financed through a combination of revenues from local, state, and federal sources. The majority of funds come from state and local taxes. The local property tax is a significant source. Property taxes are higher in more affluent places. Therefore the schools in that area have more money than poorer communities with lower property values. Also, since families that live in nicer communities have higher incomes they are able to spend more on students than poorer families.

9.2.2. Between-School Differences: Curriculum and pedagogic practices in schools in working class neighborhoods are more likely to have authoritarian and teacher directed pedagogic practices. Also to have a vocational or social efficiency curriculum at the secondary level. Schools in middle class communities are more likely to have less authoritarian and more student centered pedagogic practices. The curriculum at the secondary level is usually a humanistic liberal arts college prep. Upper class students are more likely to attend elite private schools. There they will have authoritarian pedagogic practices and a classical humanistic college prepatory curriculum at the secondary level.

9.2.3. With-in School Differences: Curriculum and ability grouping in elementary school students are divided into different reading groups and separate classes based on teacher recommendations, standardized test scores, and sometimes characteristics such as race, class, and gender. In elementary schools students generally receive the same curriculum but at different paces and teachers may have different expectations of students. At the secondary level, students are divided by ability and curriculum. Therefore in the same school different groups of students are receiving different types of education.

9.2.4. Gender and Schooling: Curriculum portrays men and women roles in a stereotypical and traditional way. The traditional curriculum often silences women by leaving out significant aspects of women's history. The hidden curriculum reinforces traditional gender roles and expectations through classroom organization, instructional practices, and classroom interactions.