1. Sociological Perspectives
1.1. Theoretical Perspective
1.1.1. Functionalism: begins with a picture of society, stresses the interdependence of the social system, often examine how well the parts are integrated with each other. view society as a kind of machine where one part articulates with another, tend to assume that consensus is the normal state in society, and that conflict represents a breakdown of shared values. Schools socialize students into the appropriate values and sort and select students according to their abilities. The educational reform is supposed to create structures, programs, and curricula that are technically advanced, rational, and encourage social unity.
1.1.2. Conflict Theory: believe that social order is based on the ability of dominant groups to impose their will on subordinate groups through force, cooptation, and manipulation, believe the glue of society is economic, political, cultural, and military power, do not see the relation between school and society as unproblematic or straightforward, emphasize struggle. They see school are similar to social battlefields, where students struggle against teachers, and teachers against administrators, and so on.
1.1.3. Interactionalism: attempt to make the commonplace strange by turning on their heads every day, taken for grant behaviors, and interactions between students and other students, and between students and teachers, examine the interactional aspects of school life, by people who are less likely to create theories that are logical and eloquent but without meaningful content.
1.2. 5 Effects of Schooling on Education
1.2.1. Knowledge and Attitude: It is found that the higher the social class background of the student, the higher his achievement level is, differences between schools in terms of their academic programs and policies do make differences in student learning, demonstrates that academically oriented schools do produce higher rates of learning, where students are compelled to take academic subjects and where there is consistent discipline, student achievement levels go up. It has been found that the actual amount of time students spend in school is directly related to how much they learn. The more education individuals receive, the more likely they are to read, and to take part in politics, and public affairs, related to individuals' well-being and self-esteem.
1.2.2. Teacher Behavior: Teachers wear many different occupational hats. Teachers are models for students and influence student self-esteem and sense of efficacy. Teachers' expectations of students were found to directly influence student achievement. Teachers' expectations play a major role in encouraging or discouraging students to work to their full potential. Research indicates that many teachers have lower expectations for minority and working-class students.
1.2.3. Inadequate Schools: The way in which children are educated today will not prepare them for productive and fulfilling lives in the future. Urban education has failed to educate minority and poor children. Students who attend suburban schools and private schools get a better educational experience. Students who attend the most elite private schools obtain substantial educational benefits, both in terms of their actual educational experience and the social value of their diplomas.
1.2.4. Gender: girls usually start school cognitively and socially ahead of boys, by the end of high school, girls have lower self-esteem and lower aspirations than do boys. Women go to college at higher rates than men, but they often go to two-year colleges, or to less academically prestigious institutions. Over the past two decades, the gender gap in academic achievement has all but disappeared.
1.2.5. De facto Segregation: evidence indicates that racially mixed schools benefit minorities and do not suppress white achievement. African-American who attended integrated schools were less likely to be arrested by the police, more likely to live in desegregated neighborhoods, and women were less likely to have a child before the age of 18. Thus, racial integration at the school level seems to be beneficial to minority students, and there is no conclusive evidence that majority students are harmed by integration.
2. Schools as Organizations
2.1. Federal Level
2.1.1. House of Representative: Rep. Robert B. Aderholt
2.1.2. Senators: Richard C. Shelby, Luther Strange
2.2. Local Level
2.2.1. House of Representative: Ken Johnson
2.2.2. Senator: Paul Bussman
2.3. State School Board Level
2.3.1. State Superintendent: Michael Sentance
2.3.2. Representative on State School Board: Jeff Newman
2.4. Local School Board Level
2.4.1. Superintendent: Dr. Jon Bret Smith
2.4.2. School Board: Ms. Christine Garner Dr. Beth M. Vinson Mrs. Reta Waldrep Mr. Gary Bradford Ms. Shanon Terry
2.5. Levels of Structure of Education
2.5.1. Governance: who controls the schools
2.5.2. Size and Degree of Centralization: how big is the school system, and what type of organizations is in the school system
2.5.3. Student Composition: what type students make up the school for instance, race, ethnic, class and ability backgrounds
2.5.4. Openness: how are the schools divided and who is allowed to attend the different schools in that system
2.5.5. Private Schools: schools that are not run by the government
2.5.6. Advancement Rate: how the students advance in school for instance who goes to college in that system
3. Curriculum & Pedagogy
3.1. Developmentalist: The students were important because it related to their needs and interest. Did not focus on the needs of the society. It was student-centered. Stressed flexibility in a variety of ways: 1.) with what was being taught, 2.) how it was taught. Related school to life experiences. Made education come alive. A teacher's role was to be the facilitator of student growth.
3.2. 2 dominant traditions of teaching:
3.2.1. Mimetic: Education was to transmit knowledge. Second hand knowledge but not limited to textbook, teacher's role is just to be a transmitter between the second hand knowledge and student, it has measurable goals, and objectives
3.2.2. Transformative: change the student in a meaningful way, allow the student to think and stress their opinion on a subject, students become an important part of the learning process while the teacher takes a less authoritarian role, does not have a clearcut way to assess and measure educational outcomes, classrooms are child- centered
4. Educational Inequality
4.1. Cultural Differences
4.1.1. African American studies less, watch more television, and have lower goals than their white classmates. They are more likely to be affected by an anti school culture and parents push less for their grades.
4.1.2. Working class and nonwhite students as resisting the dominant culture of the schools. They reject the white middle class culture of academic success and believe an antischool culture. They value a working class culture.
4.2. School Centered Explanations
4.2.1. School Financing: public schools are funded through revenues (local, state, and federal sources.) Majority of funds - state and local (property tax). More higher class communities are able to provide more per pupil spending than poorer districts. More states are beginning to use state funding to close the gap between rich and poorer districts (all districts will receive a minimum standard).
4.2.2. Gender: Many scholars adopted Gilligan's concept of caring as a part of female psychologoy and argue that the schools devalue connectedness and caring in favor of male behaviors (competition). Feminists agree that schools limits the educational opportunities and life chance of women, and that schools should socialize both boys and girls to be caring and connected.
4.2.3. Curriculum and Ability Grouping: Students are divided into groups based on their abilities starting in elementary school and follow them throughout their schooling. Shanker - education in the US 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. Lower tracks - didactic, teacher directed practices rote learning fact based evaluation. Higher tracks - dialectical student centered practices with discussion and thinking based evaluation.
4.2.4. Curriculum and Pedagogic Practices: Schools in working-class neighborhoods: authoritarian, teacher-directed pedagogic practices, vocationally, social efficiency curriculum at the secondary level. Middle-class communities: less authoritarian, more student center pedagogic practices, have a humanistic liberal arts college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level. Upper class: more likely to attend private school with authoritarian pedagogic practices and classical humanistic college preparatory curriculum at the school level. Schooling corresponds to the social class of students in a particular school with such differences for socializing students from different social class backgrounds to their different places in society.
5. Philosophy of Education
5.1. Generic Notions: developed in the nineteenth century, Motto: "By their fruits, ye shall know them", encourages people to find processes that work in order to achieve their desired ends, interested in contemporary issues, and in discovering solutions to problems in present-day terms, action oriented and experimentally grounded, believe our mind is a blank state but looking for processes to help fill the void.
5.2. Pragmatism
5.2.1. Key Researchers: George Sanders Pierce, William James, John Dewey, Francis Bacon, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau
5.2.2. Goals of Education: schools are a place where ideas can be implemented, challenged, and restricted with the goal of providing students with the knowledge of how to improve the social order, schools should balance the needs of society and community on one hand and the needs of the individual on the other, schools were to integrate children into not just any type of society, but a democratic one, main role of education was growth.
5.2.3. Role of Teacher: The teacher is no longer the authoritarian figure, rather the teacher assumes the peripheral position of facilitator. The teacher encourages, offer suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study. They write curriculum and must have a command of several disciplines in order to create and implement curriculum.
5.2.4. Method of Instruction: believe children learn both individually and in groups, believe children should start their mode of inquiry by posting questions about what they want to know, use field trips and projects and abandon formal instructions, use table and chairs that could be grouped as needed, believe children could converse quietly with one another, stand up and stretch if warranted and could pursue independent study or group work, believe in individualized study, problem-solving, and the project method.
5.2.5. Curriculum: use the core curriculum, and integrated curriculum, which is based on the needs of learners, balance required subjects with chosen subjects, balance on what the community needs.
6. Radical: believe schools ought to eliminate inequalities and reproduce the unequal economic conditions of the capitalist economy, should socialize individuals to accept the legitimacy of the society, argue that schools reproduce economic, social and political inequality within U.S. society.
7. Politics of Education
7.1. Four purposes of education
7.1.1. Intellectual: teach basic cognitive skills such as reading, writing, and math, to transmit specific knowledge, and to help students acquire higher order thinking skills.
7.1.2. Political: 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.
7.1.3. Social: help solve social problems, to work as one of many institutions to ensure social cohesion, and to socialize children into the various roles,behaviors, and values of the society.
7.1.4. Economic: prepare students for their later occupational roles, and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
7.2. Role of the School
7.2.1. Conservative: provide the necessary educational training to ensure that the most talented and hard-working individuals receive the tools necessary, socialize children into the adult roles necessary to the maintenance of the social order, believe school's function as one of transmitting the cultural traditions through what is taught, view the school as essential to both economic productivity and social stability.
7.2.2. Liberal: stress the school's role in providing the necessary education to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed in society, believe in the school's values of socializing children into societal roles and stressing the pluralistic nature of U.S. society, believe in schools' role in teaching children to respect cultural diversity, so that they understand and fit into a diverse society, stress the importance of citizenship and participation in a democratic society and the need for an educated citizenry in such a society, stress the school's role in enabling the individual to develop his talents, creativity, and sense of self, they see the role of education as a way to balance the needs of society, and the individual that is consistent with a democratic and meritocratic society, envision a society in which citizens participate in decision-making, and adult status is based on merit and achievement, in which all citizens receive a fair and equal opportunity.
7.3. Explanation of Unequal Educational Performance
7.3.1. Conservative: argue that individuals or groups of students rise and fall on their own intelligence, hard work and initiative, and that achievement is based on hard work and sacrifice, school system is designed to allow individuals the opportunity to succeed. If they do not, it may be because they are as individuals deficient in some manner or because they are members of a group that is deficient.
7.3.2. Liberal: argue that individual students or groups of students begin school with different life chances and some groups have significantly more advantages than others, society must attempt through policies and programs to equalize the playing field so that students from disadvantaged backgrounds have a better chance.
7.3.3. Radicals: believe that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds begin school with unequal opportunities, believe that the conditions that result in educational failure are caused by the economic system, not the educational system, and can only be ameliorated by changes in the political-economic structure.
7.4. Definition of School Problems
7.4.1. Conservative: believe that when the liberal and radical demand for greater equality, schools systems lowered academic standards and reduced educational quality, schools watered down the traditional curriculum and thus weakened the school's ability to pass on the heritage, schools lost their traditional role of teaching moral standards and values, schools lost their traditional disciplinary function, often became chaotic, because they are state-controlled and immune from the laws of a competitive free market, stifled by bureaucracy and inefficiency.
7.4.2. Liberal: believe schools have too often limited the life chances of poor and minority children, schools place too much emphasis on discipline and authority, inequalities of results, and the traditional curriculum leaves out the diverse culture of the groups that comprise the pluralistic society.
7.4.3. Radical: believe the educational system has failed the poor, minorities, and women, schools have stifled critical understanding of the problems of American society through a curriculum, and teaching practices that promote conformity, traditional curriculum is classist, racist, sexist, and homophobic, and leaves out the cultures, histories, and voices of the oppressed, educational system promotes inequality of both opportunity and results.
8. History of US Education
8.1. Reform Movement
8.1.1. The Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944, which brought about the GI Bill. Ravitch stated: it was the most adventure in mass higher education that had ever been attempted by any society, offered 16 million servicemen and women an opportunity to pursue higher education, provided a just reward for national service and a way to avoid massive unemployment in the postwar economy, provide access to higher education to people of economic disadvantage and / or poor elementary and secondary preparation
8.2. Historical Interpretation
8.2.1. Democratic Liberal School: believe that the U.S. history of U.S. education involves the progressive evolution, and committed to providing equality of opportunity for all, 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 privileged, tend to interpret the U.S. educational history optimistically the evolution of the nation's schools has been a flawed, often conflictual march toward increased opportunities, believe that there the U.S. educational system must continue to move closer to each, without sacrificing one or the other too dramatically.
9. Equality of Opportunity
9.1. Impact Educational Outcome
9.1.1. Class: Social class affects the educational experiences in different ways. 1. Financial Status (upper class and middle class expect: children to finish school) Middle and upper class more likely to speak a basic English language. Teachers think more highly of the upper class and upper class students. 2. Peer Groups in a school where more upper and middle class students are enrolled they expect more academically.
9.1.2. Race: It is a direct impact on a child's education. Minorities have lower scores on Sat tests than white students. Minority students receive fewer educational opportunities than white students.
9.1.3. Gender: Women are often rated as better students than men. Females less likely to be a high school dropout. Women do better in reading and writing. Men do better in math. Men do better on Sat test. More women are now going to college than men. Over the last twenty years gender differences have been reduced.
9.2. Coleman Study Responses from 1982
9.2.1. Jencks: found in 1985 that the yearly increment attributable to Catholic schooling was tiny. The differences that do exist between public and Catholic schools are significant but in terms of significant differences in learning the results are negligible. Private schools are better for low- income students (especially in urban areas). They are also becoming more elite and like suburban public schools.
9.2.2. Borman and Dowling: found in 2010 that where a student goes to school is often related to their race and socioeconomic background. The racial and socioeconomic makeup of a school has a greater effect on student achievement than an individual's race and class. They believe race and class are predictors of academic success. They stressed that to eliminate the high level of segregation schools must bring an end to the tracking systems and biases that favor white and middle class students.
10. Educational Reform
10.1. School Based Reforms
10.1.1. School Based Partnerships: Corporations will partner with schools to offer funding. However it has fallen dramatically since 1970s. Some school business partnerships include scholarships for poor students to attend college.
10.1.2. School to Work Programs: 1990s businesses partnered with schools to extend a vocational emphasis to non-college bound students regarding skills necessary for successful employment and to stress the importance of work-based learning. School to Work Opportunities Act of 1994. Based on three core element: school-based learning, work-based learning, connecting activities
10.2. Reforms
10.2.1. Economical: When the state education agencies take control of school districts from local authorities. State takeovers are credited with: 1. reducing nepotism with a school district's decision-making process 2. Improving school district's administrative and fiscal management practices 3. Removing the threat of teachers' strikes within a school district 4. Upgrading the physical condition of schools 5. Implementing innovative programs within a school district
10.2.2. Community; Not only educate the whole child but also educate the whole community. Full service schools focus on meeting student's and their families educational, physical, psychological, and social needs in a coordinated fashion between school and community services. Examples: adult education, health clinics, recreation facilities, after school programs, mental health services, drug and alcohol programs, job placement and training programs and tutoring services.