1. Politics of Education
1.1. Four Purposes of Education
1.1.1. Intellectual - Teaches basic cognitive skills.
1.1.2. Political - Teaches the basic laws of society and inculcate allegiance to patriotism.
1.1.3. Social - To teach the part of socialization to help solve problems and insure social cohesion.
1.1.4. Economic - Prepares students for occupational roles and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
1.2. Liberal Perspective
1.2.1. Role of school - The liberal perspective stresses the school's role in providing the necessary education to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed in society. They believe in the school's role in teaching children to respect cultural diversity. They stress the importance of citizenship and participation in a democratic society and the need for an educated citizen in such a society.
1.2.2. Explanations of Unequal Performance - The liberal perspective hold to the belief that students begin school with different life chances and this leads to some groups having more advantages than others. They believe society must attempt through polices and programs to equalize these advantages so students from disadvantaged backgrounds can have better opportunities.
1.2.3. Definition of Educational Problems - The liberal perspective argues that schools often limit the life chances of poor and minority children. They argue that schools place to much emphasis on discipline and authority, and they believe the traditional curriculum leaves out the diverse cultures of the groups that comprise society.
2. History of U.S. Education
2.1. The Rise of the Common School
2.1.1. Horace Mann of Massachusetts lobbied for the first free public education. Due to his efforts, the first normal school was established in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1839. Mann believed that school could change the social order and that education could foster social mobility. These beliefs are significant because they are the basis from many people's belief in the U.S. public school system today.
2.2. Historical Interpretation of U.S, Education
2.2.1. The Radical - Revisionist School - Radical historians did agree that the education system expanded, however, they believe it expanded to meet the needs of the elites in society for the control of the working class and immigrants. These historians pointed out that each period of education reform led to increasing stratification within the educational system. This resulted in the working-class, poor, and minority students getting the short end of the stick.
3. Sociological Perspectives
3.1. Theoretical Perspectives
3.1.1. Functionalism - Functionalists view society as a kind of machine, where one part articulates with another to produce the dynamic energy required to make society work. Sociologist Emile Durkheim Believed that harmony. Functionalists believe that educational reform is supposed to create structures, programs, and curricula that are technically advanced, rational, and encourage social unity.
3.1.2. Conflict Theory - Believed the glue of society is economic, political, cultural, and military power. From a conflict point of view, schools are like social battlefields, where students struggle against teacher and teachers struggle against administration. Karl Marx was the founder of the conflict school in the sociology of education. U.S. sociologists Willard Waller argued that without constant vigilance, schools would erupt into anarchy because students are forced to go to school against their will.
3.1.3. Interactionalism - Interactional theories about the relationship between school and society are primarily critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict theories. They pose the question of what students and teachers do in school. they demand a deeper analysis of the process by which students are labeled gifted or learning disabled.
3.2. 5 Effects of Schooling on individuals with the Greatest Impact
3.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes - Research indicates that differences between schools in terms of their academic programs and polices do make differences in student learning. Research also shows that schools where students are compelled to take academic subjects and where there is consistent discipline, student achievement levels go up. Higher educated people tend to be more liberal in their political thoughts, and they tend to have greater social participation.
3.2.2. Employment - Research shows that a college degree leads to greater employment opportunities. However, studies indicate that education is only weakly related to job performance. In most cases, getting a college and professional degree is important for earning more money.
3.2.3. Teacher Behavior - Teachers greatly impact student learning and behavior. They set standards for students and influence student self-esteem and sense of efficacy. Teachers who have lower expectations for minority and working class students may trap these students in a cycle of low expectation, which results in low achievement. Research therefore indicates that when teachers demand more of their students and praise their good work, students learn more and had greater self - esteem.
3.2.4. Inadequate Schools - Differences between schools and school systems reinforce existing inequalities. Research shows that urban education has failed to educate minority and poor children. While students who attend suburban and private schools have better educational experiences.
3.2.5. Gender - Gender discrimination produces education inequalities. The fact that most teachers are female and most administrators are male could be sending mixed signals to female students. Therefore, they are not encouraged to live up to their potential. However, over the past two decades, the gender gap has all but disappeared. Schools are becoming active organizational agents in recreating inequalities.
4. Philosophy of Education
4.1. Pragmatism
4.1.1. Generic Notions - Supports the belief in a better society through education. Proposed the idea that educators start with the needs and interest of the child in the classroom, allow the child to participate in planning his or her course of study, employ project method or group learning, and depend heavily on experiential learning.
4.1.2. Key Researchers - Francis Bacon emphasized experience pointed firmly within the world of daily existence, and he is thought of as the pioneer in the pragmatic school of philosophy. John Locke believed the mind was a tabula rasa, a blank tablet, and that one acquires knowledge though one's senses. Jean - Jacques Roussea, a french philosopher, believe that individuals in their primitive state were naturally good and that society corrupted them . John Dewey's philosophy of education became the most important influence on what is now termed progressive education.
4.1.3. Goal of Education - Schools should be a place ideas can be implanted, challenged, and restricted with the goal of providing students with the knowledge of how to improve the social oder. Ideas where rooted in the belief that schools instilled democratic and cooperative values in children, they would be prepared as adults to transform from the social order democratic one.
4.1.4. Role of the Teacher - The teacher assumes the position of facilitator. The teacher encourages, questions, implements courses of study, and writes curriculum.
4.1.5. Method of Instruction - Instructional methods included problem - solving and inquiry method. Dewey proposed that children learn both individually and in groups. Books where often written by teachers and students together. Tables and chairs were favored to allow students to work in groups. What may have appeared as a chaotic classroom was instead a carefully orchestrated classroom with children learning in a non traditional, yet natural, way.
4.1.6. Curriculum - A core curriculum, or an integrated curriculum was used. Progressive educators support starting with contemporary problems and working from the known to the unknown. This curriculum is known as the curriculum of expanding environments.
5. Schools as Organizations
5.1. Elements of Change
5.1.1. Team Building
5.1.1.1. Team building must extend to the entire school. Shared decision making must consciously work out and give on-going attention to the relationships between staff
5.1.2. New Behaviors
5.1.2.1. Since change requires new relationships and behaviors, the process of change must include building communication and trust, enabling leadership and initiative to emerge, and learning techniques of communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution.
5.1.3. Conflict
5.1.3.1. Previously hidden problems, issues, and disagreements must be allowed to surface. Staff involved in school reconstructing must be prepared to elicit, manage, and resolve conflict.
5.1.4. Process and Content
5.1.4.1. The process 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 within the team, and the usefulness and the visibility of the project will influence future commitments.
5.2. School District #7
5.2.1. State Senator- Paul Bussman
5.2.2. State Representative- Ken Johnson
5.2.3. State Superintendent- Michael Sentance
5.2.4. State School Board Representative- Jeffrey Newman
5.2.5. Local Superintendent- Dr. Alan Miller
5.2.6. Local School Board- Kris Burleson, Beth McAlpine, Steve Stott, Sandra Manasco, Barry Burleson, Donna Jones
6. Curriculum & Pedagogy
6.1. Humanist Curriculum
6.1.1. The Humanist curriculum reflects the idealist philosophy that knowledge of the traditional liberal arts is the cornerstone of an educated citizenry and that the purpose of education is to present to students the best of what has been thought and written.
6.2. Two Dominant Traditions of Teaching
6.2.1. Transformative Tradition
6.2.1.1. Proponents of this tradition believe that the purpose of education is to change the student in some meaningful way, including intellectually, creatively, spiritually, and emotionally.
6.2.2. Mimetic Tradition
6.2.2.1. The mimetic tradition is based on the viewpoint that the purpose of education is to transmit specific knowledge to students. At the heart of this tradition is the assumption that the educational process involves the relationship between the knower (the teacher) and the learner (the student), and that education is a process of transferring information from one to the other.
7. Educational Reform
7.1. School-based Reform
7.1.1. Privatization- From the 1990s, private education companies became increasingly involved in public education in a variety of ways. For-profit companies took over management of failing schools and districts. Corporations often see the multi-billion dollar education industry as a lucrative market.
7.1.2. Teacher Quality- NCLB's requirement that all schools have highly qualified teachers in every classroom highlighted the problem of unqualified teachers in urban schools. Data indicates that a significant numbers of classrooms are staffed by teachers who are not highly qualified in the particular subject they teach. The goal is to have a qualified teacher for every classroom and every subject.
7.2. Education Reforms
7.2.1. Full Service and Community Schools- Reform to not only educate the child, but the whole community. Full service schools focus on meeting student's and their families educational, physical, psychological, and social needs in a coordinated and collaborative fashion between school and community services.
7.2.2. School Finance Reforms- Reform for equalized funding between urban and suburban school districts. Promotes the idea of additional programs in order to eliminate disadvantages within poorer school districts.
8. Equality of Opportunity
8.1. Impacts on Educational Outcomes
8.1.1. Class
8.1.1.1. Students from different social classes can often have different kinds of educational experiences. Study shows that children from working-class or underclass families are more likely to underachieve or drop out. While children from upper-middle class and upper-class are more likely to go to college and receive a degree.
8.1.2. Race
8.1.2.1. An individual's race has a direct impact on how much education he or she is likely to achieve. Minority students tend to receive fewer and inferior educational opportunities than white students.
8.1.3. Gender
8.1.3.1. In the past, an individual's gender was directly related to his or her educational attainment. Today, females are less likely to drop out of school, and are more likely to have a higher level of reading and writing sills when compared to males. Males still outperform females in mathematics. However, in the last 20 years, gender differences between men and women, in terms of educational attainment, have been reduced.
8.2. Response to the Coleman Study
8.2.1. Response #1
8.2.1.1. Many opposed Coleman's idea that private schools outperform public schools. Jencks used Coleman's findings to compare public and Catholic schools, and he found the annual increment attributable to Catholic schools to be tiny. Alexander and Pallas also claimed that Catholic schools only have a trivial advantage over public schools. However, there is basis for both sides of the debate over private vs pubic school.
8.2.2. Response #2
8.2.2.1. Borman and Dowling disagreed with Coleman's argument that schools don't matter. They argued that school segregation based on race and socioeconomic status and within school interactions dominated by middle-class values are largely responsible for gaps in student achievement.
9. Educational Inequality
9.1. Cultural Deprivation Theory
9.1.1. Deutsch (1964)
9.1.1.1. Belief that deprivation results in educationally disadvantaged students who achieve poorly because they have not been raised to acquire the skills and dispositions required for satisfactory academic achievement.
9.1.2. Theory of 1960
9.1.2.1. This theory suggests that working-class and nonwhite families often lack the cultural resources, such as books and other educational stimuli, and they arrive at school with a significant disadvantage.
9.2. School-Centered Explanations for Inequality
9.2.1. School Financing
9.2.1.1. Public schools are financed through a combination of revenues from local, state, and federal sources. Also, a majority of funds come from state and local taxes, with local property taxes a significant source. This results in more affluent communities being able to provide more pre-pupil spending than poorer districts, often at a less burdensome rate than in poorer communities. This unequal funding has been the subject of considerable legal attack by communities that argue that funding based on local property taxes is discriminatory, and it denies equality of opportunity.
9.2.2. Curriculum and Ability Grouping
9.2.2.1. Ability grouping and curriculum grouping is an organizational component of U.S. schooling. Elementary students often receive a similar curriculum, but it may be taught at a different pace, or the expectations for different students may vary. Secondary school level students are divided both by ability and curriculum, with different groups of students often receiving different types of education within the same school.
9.2.3. Gender and School
9.2.3.1. Schools can often limit the educational opportunities and life chances of women. Curriculum materials portray men's and women's roles often in stereotypical and traditional ways. The organization of schools often reinforce gender roles and gender equality by suggesting that women are better suited to teach elementary grades and men secondary.
9.2.4. Curriculum and Pedagogic Practices
9.2.4.1. Theorists argue that there are significant differences between the culture and climate of schools in lower socioeconomic and higher socioeconomic communities. Schools in working class neighborhoods are likely to have authoritarian and teacher-directed pedagogic practices. Middle-class communities are more likely to have less authoritarian and more student-centered pedagogic practices. While upper-class students are likely to attend elite private schools with authoritarian pedagogic practices.