1. Politics of Education
1.1. Purpose of Education
1.1.1. Intellectual
1.1.1.1. To teach students the basic skills of reading, writing, and math. To teach them how to solve problems they may encounter in life.
1.1.2. Political
1.1.2.1. To teach the students about patriotism, basic laws of society, and prepare those that will go on to be in politics.
1.1.3. Social
1.1.3.1. To teach students about being social in society. Teaching them about their various roles, behaviors, and the values of society.
1.1.4. Economic
1.1.4.1. To teach students skills for the future careers.
1.2. Perspective
1.2.1. The role of the school
1.2.1.1. Conservative perspective- schools provide training to make sure the most talented and hard-working learn what they need to to become the most productive in the economy and in social life. Essential to both economic productivity and social stability. Schools teach cultural traditions in their curriculum. Students get the socialization to become help them maintain social order.
1.2.2. Explanations of unequal educational performance
1.2.2.1. Liberal perspective- Society must attempt through policies and programs to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds have a better chance at succeeding. Students all start at different levels and some students have an advantage over others.
1.2.3. Definition of educational problems
1.2.3.1. Radical perspective- The system has failed the poor, minorities, and women through classist, racist, sexist, and homophobic policies. Curriculum leaves out culture, history and voices of the people left out. The educational system is unfair in both opportunity and results.
2. History of U.S. Education
2.1. Reform Movement that had most influence
2.1.1. I feel that the the reform movement that had the most influence would be the reform that took place during the time of the Industrial Revolution (1820-1860). The rise of the common school.
2.1.1.1. This would be the beginning of a structured schooling for teachers. Public school address the concern for stability and order and the concern for social mobility. A school to teach teachers was created. Public schools would teach skills such as hygiene, punctuality, and rudimentary skills that would create docile, willing workers. Horace Mann spoke of school as a preparation for citizenship as well as the "balance wheel"-- "the great equalizer of the conditions of men" School would help create educated men and women that could hold public office.
2.2. One historical interpretation of U.S. Education
2.2.1. Common Persepective
2.2.1.1. Critics all pointed to the failure of so-called progressive education to fulfill its lofty social goals without sacrificing academic quality. U.S. Students knew very little and that U.S. schools were mediocre. Diane Ravitch (1977) argued that the preoccupation and using education to solve social problems has not solved these problems and, simultaneously, has lead to the erosion of educational excellence. Ravitch praises the schools for being a part of large-scale social improvement while damning them for losing their academic standards in the process. Bloom blames the universities for watering down their curriculums; Hirsch blames the public schools for valuing skills over content; and Bennett called for a return to a traditional Western curriculum. Ravitch has argued that conservative and neo-liberal pursuit of academic excellence has neither improved the schools or moved us closer to a fair and just society. She accuses conservatives and neo-liberals of ignoring the effects of poverty on student achievement.
3. Sociological Perspectives
3.1. Define each of the theoretical perspectives concerning the relationship between school and society
3.1.1. Functionalism
3.1.1.1. School and society work together. Schools socialize students into the appropriate values, and sort and select student according to their abilities. Educational reform is supposed to create structures, programs, and curricula that are technically advanced, rational, and encourage social unity.
3.1.2. Conflict Theory
3.1.2.1. The authority and power of the school. Students and teachers believe that schools promote learning, and sort and select students according to their abilities and not according to their social status. In this view, the achievement ideology disguises the real power relations within the schools, which, in turn, reflect and correspond to the power relations within the larger society. Conflict sociologists emphasize struggle. Everyone is struggling against someone else. Students against teachers, teachers against administrators, and so on.
3.1.3. Interactionalism
3.1.3.1. 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. It is exactly what one does not question that is most problematic at a deep level. People are less likely to create theories that are logical and eloquent, but without meaningful content.
3.2. 5 effects of schooling on individuals with greatest impact
3.2.1. Knowledge and Attitueds
3.2.1.1. It has been found that the actual amount of time students spend in school is direclty related to how much they learn. The more education individuals receive, the more likely they are to read newspapers, books, and magazines, and to take part in politics and public affairs. Education is also related to individuals' sense of well-being and self-esteem.
3.2.2. Employment
3.2.2.1. Students graduating from college will lead to greater employment opportunities. Large corporations require high levels of education for certain positions.
3.2.3. Education and Mobility
3.2.3.1. Where you go to school is as important as how much schooling you get. Some students are not able to choose where they go to school based on their social class.
3.2.4. Teacher Behavior
3.2.4.1. Teachers take on many roles everyday. Sometimes this can cause role strain or teacher burnout. Teachers' expectations play a major role in encouraging or discouraging students to work to their full potential. Also how the teachers "label" their students effect the students. If the teacher has low expectations, then there will be low achievement for that student.
3.2.5. Student Peer Groups and Alienation
3.2.5.1. The adult culture of the teachers and administrators is in conflict with the student culture. This conflict can lead to alienation and even violence.
4. Philosophy of Education
4.1. Pragmatism
4.1.1. Genetic Notion
4.1.1.1. Children can learn skills both experientially as well as from books. Often referred to as progressive, proposed that educators start with the needs and interests of the child in the classroom, allow the child to participate in the planning their course of study, employ project method or group learning, and depend heavily on experiential learning.
4.1.2. Key Researchers
4.1.2.1. George Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910), John Dewey (1859-1952), Frances Bacon, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
4.1.3. Goal of Education
4.1.3.1. "A leveler of social reform"-- to be the central institution for societal and personal improvement, and to do so by balancing a complex set of processes. Prepare students to function in a democratic society. Provide students with the knowledge of how to improve the social order.
4.1.4. Role of the Teacher
4.1.4.1. The teacher encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study. No longer the authoritarian figure. Teachers writes the curriculum and must have a command of several disciplines in order to create and implement curriculum.
4.1.5. Methods of Instruction
4.1.5.1. Children learn both individually and in groups. Furniture, usually nailed to the floor, was discarded in favor of tables and chairs that could be grouped as needed. What might appear as chaotic was a carefully orchestrated classroom with children going about learning in a non traditional yet natural way.
4.1.6. Curriculum
4.1.6.1. Progressive schools generally follow Dewey's notion of a core curriculums. A particular subject matter, such as whales, might yield problems to be solved using math, science, history, reading, writing, music, art, wood or metal working, cooking and sewing--all the academic and vocational disciplines in an integrated interconnected way.
5. Schools as Organizations
5.1. Major Stakeholders
5.1.1. Federal Alabama Senators
5.1.1.1. Richard Shelby
5.1.1.2. Luther Strange
5.1.2. Federal House of Representative
5.1.2.1. Rep. Robert Aderholt
5.1.3. State Senator
5.1.3.1. Larry Stutts
5.1.4. State House of Representative
5.1.4.1. Rep. Mike Millican
5.1.5. State Superintendent
5.1.5.1. Ed Richardson (Interim)
5.1.6. Representative on state school board
5.1.6.1. Jeffrey Newman
5.1.7. Local superintendent
5.1.7.1. Ryan Hollingsworth
5.1.8. Local School Board
5.1.8.1. Daryl Weatherly
5.1.8.2. Jim Atkinson
5.1.8.3. Joyce Fowler
5.1.8.4. Belinda McRae
5.1.8.5. Beverly Burleson
5.2. Elements of Change
5.2.1. Conflict is a necessary part of change
5.2.1.1. Efforts to democratize schools do not create conflicts, but they allow (and to be successful, require) previously hidden problems, issues, and disagreements to surface. Staff must be prepared to elicit, manage, and resolve conflict.
5.2.2. New behaviors must be learned.
5.2.2.1. Building communication and trust, enabling leadership and initiative to emerge, and learn new techniques of communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution.
5.2.3. Team building must extend to the entire school.
5.2.3.1. 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.
5.2.4. Process and content are interrelated.
5.2.4.1. 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 built up within the team and between the team and the school.
6. Curriculum & Pedagogy
6.1. Curriculum theory
6.1.1. Humanist
6.1.2. Social Efficiency
6.1.3. Developmentalist
6.1.3.1. Based upon the relationship between the child and the curriculum. Emphasized the process of teaching as well as its content. Student centered and concerned with relating the curriculum to the needs and interests of each child at particular developmental stages. Flexibility in what was taught and how it was taught. The teacher is a facilitator of student growth, not a transmitter of knowledge.
6.1.4. Social Meliorist
6.2. 2 dominant traditions of teaching
6.2.1. Mimetic
6.2.1.1. Didactic method, which relies on the lecture or presentation as the main form of communication. Involves the relationship between the knower (the teacher) and the learner (the student). Emphasis on measurable goals and objectives. Stresses the importance of rational sequencing in the teaching process and assessment of the learning process.
6.2.2. Transformative
6.2.2.1. Purpose of education is to change the student in some meaningful way, including intellectually, creatively, spiritually, and emotionally. Reject the authoritarian relationship between teacher and student and argue instead that teaching and learning are inextricably linked.
7. Equality of Opportunity
7.1. Educational Impact
7.1.1. Class
7.1.1.1. The longer a student stays in school, the more likely they will need parental financial support. The number of books in a home is related to the academic achievement of its children. Upper and middle class children are more likely to speak "standard" English. The higher the social class, the more likely the student is to go to college.
7.1.2. Race
7.1.2.1. Minorities have a higher dropout rate, lower reading proficiency, lower SAT scores, which leads to a lower rate of admission in colleges.
7.1.3. Gender
7.1.3.1. Females have a lower dropout rate, and a higher level of reading and writing proficiency than males. Males do better in math than females, and have higher SAT scores. More females are now attending post-secondary institutions than men, although it is true that many of the post secondary institutions that women attend are less academically and socially prestigious than those postsecondary institutions attended by men.
7.2. Coleman 1982 Study
7.2.1. Private schools seem to "do it better," particularly for low-income students.
7.2.2. 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.
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. 2 Types of Cultural Differences Theory
8.1.1. African-American children do less well in school because they adapt to their oppressed position in the class. African-American families and schools socialize their children to deal with their inferior life chances rather than encourage them to internalize those values and skills necessary for positions that will not be open to them.
8.1.2. School success requires that African American students deny their own cultural identities and accept the dominant culture of the schools, which is a white middle-class model. African-American students thus have the 'burden of acting white" in order to succeed.
8.2. School-centered explanations
8.2.1. School Financing
8.2.1.1. Public schools are financed through a combination of revenues from local, state, and federal sources. Majority of funds come from state and local taxes, with local property taxes a significant source. Property values in more wealth neighborhood raise more money for the schools in that area. These districts are then able to spend more per student.
8.2.2. Effective School Research
8.2.2.1. High Expectations for students by teachers and administration, strong and effective leadership by a principal or school head, accountability processes for students and teachers, monitoring of student learning, high degree of instruction time on task, flexibility for teachers and administrators to experiment and adapt to new situations and problems.
8.2.3. Between-School Differences
8.2.3.1. Working-class neighborhoods
8.2.3.1.1. Far more likely to have authoritarian and teacher-directed pedagogic practices, and to have a vocationally or social efficiency curriculum at the secondary level.
8.2.3.2. Middle-class communities
8.2.3.2.1. 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.
8.2.3.3. Upper-class
8.2.3.3.1. More likely to attend elite private schools with authoritarian pedagogic practices and a classical-humanistic college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level.
8.2.4. Within-School Differences
8.2.4.1. Elementary School
8.2.4.1.1. Students are divided into reading groups and separate classes based on teacher recommendations, standardized test scores, and sometimes by race, class or gender.
8.2.4.2. Secondary School
8.2.4.2.1. Students are divided by ability and curriculum, with different groups of students often receiving considerably different types of education within the same school.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. 2 School-based reforms
9.1.1. School-Business Partnerships
9.1.1.1. Business leaders became increasingly concerned that the nation's schools were not producing the kinds of graduates necessary for a revitalization of the U.S. economy. The businesses pledged money towards schools to help them with a plan to produce better graduates. Some also included scholarships for poor students to attend college.
9.1.2. Privatization
9.1.2.1. For-profit companies take over the management of failing schools and districts. The success of this type has been mixed.
9.2. 2 reforms that impact education
9.2.1. State Intervention and Mayoral Control
9.2.1.1. Advantages
9.2.1.1.1. Constitutional responsibility
9.2.1.1.2. Opportunities to combine resources and knowledge to improve children's learning
9.2.1.1.3. Implement improvement measures
9.2.1.1.4. Healthier community environment
9.2.1.1.5. Changes to low performing schools
9.2.1.1.6. Personal agendas not tolerated
9.2.1.1.7. Ability to collect and analyze assessment data