1. Schools as Organizations
1.1. The Nature of Teaching
1.1.1. Few professions are as demanding as teaching. Teachers must be skilled in so many areas of technical expertise and human relations.
1.2. The roles of a teacher include: colleague, friend, nurturer of the learner, facilitator of learning, researcher, program developer, administrator, decision maker, professional leader, and community activist.
1.2.1. This can cause teacher burnout, known as role switching.
1.3. Under-qualified Teachers
1.3.1. Out-of-field teaching - teachers being assigned subjects that do not match their training or education.
1.4. A requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is that all schools have highly qualified teachers in every classroom.
1.4.1. In 1999-2000, 99 percent of public school teachers held at least a bachelor's degree and almost half held a master's degree or higher.
1.5. In 2008, 75.2 percent of all public school teachers in the United States were women.
1.6. When top high school seniors were asked to indicate their future professions, less than 10 percent indicate that they are interested in becoming teachers.
2. Curriculum and Pedagogy
2.1. The Developmentalist Curriculum
2.1.1. Related to the needs and interest of the student rather than the needs of society.
2.1.2. The curriculum emanated from the aspects of Dewey's writings related to the relationship between the child and the curriculum and it emphasized the process of teaching as well as its content.
2.1.3. It stressed the importance of relating schooling to the life experiences of each child in a way that would make education come alive in a meaningful manner.
2.2. The Modern Functionalist Theory
2.2.1. Stressed the role of the schools in preparing students for the increasingly complex roles required in a modern society.
2.2.2. The specific content of the curriculum, such as literature or history, is less important than the role of schools in teaching students how to learn - a skill vital in an increasingly technocratic society.
2.3. The Transformative Tradition
2.3.1. Proponents of the tradition believe that the purpose of education is to change the student in some meaningful way, including intellectually, creatively, spiritually, and emotionally.
2.3.2. Transformative educators believe that all teaching begins with the active participation of the student that results in some growth.
2.4. Major Stakeholders
2.4.1. State Senators : Richard Shelby and Jefferson Sessions.
2.4.2. House Representative : Gary Palmer
2.4.3. State Superintendent : Tom Bice
2.5. Politics of Education
2.5.1. Conflict over curriculum are more likely to occur in public schools than in private ones.
2.5.2. The pluralist model - Decisions are made through the input of many groups, each attempting to exercise influence and control.
2.5.2.1. The political elite model - a small number of powerful groups dominate the political landscape and have disproportionate control over political decision making
2.6. The stratification of the curriculum
2.6.1. It is important to note that ability grouping and curriculum tracking are related aspects of the curriculum stratification system.
2.6.2. First : Some schools require all students to learn the same curriculum and therefore group students without regard to ability.
2.6.2.1. Second : Other schools require all students to learn the same curriculum and thus group students based on ability.
2.6.2.1.1. Third : Other schools stratify students based on both ability and the curriculum, with high-ability students at the secondary level enrolled in an academic curriculum and the low-ability students at the secondary in a vocational or general curriculum.
3. Equality of Oppurtunity
3.1. Hispanic-Americans have a drop out rate of 17.6 percent an only 70 percent of Hispanic-Americans are reading at 17 years old at the intermediate level.
3.2. 62.7 percent of Hispanic-Americans 25 years or older graduated from high school and 13.9 percent received a bachelor's degree.
3.3. This could be for the fact that where 25 percent of Hispanic-Students in the 12th grade had 6 to 10 percent of teachers are absent on an average day.
3.4. Study shows that Catholic schools seem to advantage low income minority students, especially in urban areas.
3.5. A recent article by Baker and Riordan that Catholic schools in the 1990's have become more elite.
3.5.1. Sociologist and priest Andrew Greely argued the Baker and Riordan's evidence ignores the past two decades of findings that support a democratic view of Catholic schools.
3.6. Do school differences make a difference in terms of student outcomes? At this point, probably the best answer to this question is a highly qualified and realistic yes.
4. Educational Inequality
4.1. Critics of the Cultural Deprivation theory believe it to be paternalistic at best and racist at worse. Critics argue that it removes the responsibility for school success and failure from schools and teachers, and places it on families.
4.2. Critics were also concerned the relative failure of many of the compensatory education programs that were based on it assumptions about why disadvantaged children have lower levels of achievement than more advantaged children.
4.3. Student-Centered explanations suggest that it was the differences among the groups of students that had a greater impact on educational performance.
4.4. Within-School Differences
4.4.1. Far more significant differences in academic performance among students in the same school than among than among students in different schools.
4.5. Within-School differences does not rule out the possibility that schools affect educational inequality, as it is possible that differences in h school such as ability grouping an curriculum tracking may explain these differences.
4.6. Educational researchers and policy makers concluded that the reason students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds did less well in school had more to do with the students themselves, their families, their neighborhood and communities, and perhaps even their genetic makeup.
5. Educational Reform
5.1. Teacher education had at least 5 major reports ( National Commission on Excellence in Teacher Education, the California Commission on the Teaching Profession, the Holmes Group, the Southern Regional Education Board, and the Carnegie report) where the debate revolved around 3 major points:
5.1.1. 1. The perceived lack of rigor and intellectual demands in teacher education programs. 2. The need to attract and retain competent teacher candidates. 3. The necessity to reorganize the academic and professional components of teacher education programs at both the baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate levels.
5.2. Focused on the educational quality for a competitive U.S economy ad the value of education in a democratic political system.
5.3. The Carnegie report argued that the decline in traditional low-wage jobs in the U.S economy and the corresponding increase in high-technology and service positions would require the schools to better prepare its students for the "new" economic reality.
5.4. The Holmes group, on the other hand, avoided explicit political-economic goals.
5.5. The Holmes Group is dedicated not just to the improvement of teacher education but to the construction of a genuine profession of teaching.
5.6. Echoing many of the recommendations of the Carnegie Commission and the Holmes Group on school-university cooperation, Goodlad stressed the importance of rewarding teacher-educators for their work, rather than neglecting them, as currently the case, to the bottom rung of the university status hierarchy.
6. Politics of Education
6.1. The Neo-liberal Perspective is often a synthesis of conservative and liberal perspectives. Neo-Liberal reformers have critiques failing traditional urban public schools and attribute their failures to teacher unions and their support of teacher tenure and layoff based on seniority and the absence of student, teacher and school accountability to ensure improvement.
6.2. Neo-Liberal reforms stress five areas for educational policy:
6.2.1. 1. Austerity
6.2.1.1. Austerity involves cutting public spending on education
6.2.2. 2. The market model
6.2.2.1. Ne-liberals support charter schools, vouchers for private school attendance (especially for low-income children), and privatization for schooling through for-profit educational management companies.
6.2.3. 3. Individualism
6.2.3.1. Neo-liberals believe that educational success or failure is the result of individual effort rather than of social and economic factors
6.2.4. 4. State Intervention
6.2.4.1. State intervention in the educational system is at times necessary to ensure equality of opportunity.
6.2.5. 5. Economic prosperity, race and class
6.3. The Neo-liberal agenda has become important feature of official federal, state, and local policy
6.3.1. At the federal level, President Bush's No Child Left Behind (2001) and President Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's signature program, Race to the Top.
6.3.2. At the state level, Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has pledged to eliminate teacher tenure and seniority based layoff, increase the number of charter schools, and pass voucher legislation
6.3.3. At the local level, Democratic Newark Mayor, Cory Booker has initiated a school reform process that includes an expansion of charter schools
6.4. Traditional visions tend to view the schools as necessary to the transmission of the traditional values of U.S society, such as hard work, family unity, individual initiative, and so on.
6.5. Traditionalist believe the schools should pass on the best of what was and what is.
6.6. Radical <--> Progressive <--> Liberal <--> Traditional <--> Conservative
7. History of Education
7.1. Education for women and African Americans
7.1.1. Traditionally, the role of a women was that of helpmate or homemaker to the male. This perspective role for women held sway throughout the nineteenth century and, for some, into the twentieth century.
7.2. Female reformers dedicated to education for women, such as Catherine Esther Beecher and Mary Lyon, opened schools for females.
7.2.1. Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke Seminary of 1837. The entry requirements and level of instruction were the same for women as for men at their institutions of higher learning.
7.3. In 1856, the University of Iowa became the first state university to admit women.
7.4. African American Benjamin Roberts filed a legal suit in Boston in 1846 over the requirement that his daughter attend a segregated school.
7.4.1. Roberts Vs. City of Boston
7.4.1.1. Court ruled that the local school committee had the right to establish separate educational facilities for whites and blacks.
7.5. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, which announced the end of slavery in all states in rebellion against the union.
7.5.1. In 1865, several months after the end of the Civil War, congress passed the 13th amendment, which freed 4 million slaves. In 1868, the 14th amendment to the constitution was ratified, giving full citizenship to ex-slaves.
7.6. In 1868, the Freedman's Bureau helped to establish historically Black Colleges, including Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Hampton Institute in Virginia.
8. Sociological Perspectives
8.1. Functional Theories
8.1.1. Begin with a picture of society that stresses the interdependence of the social system.
8.1.2. Often examine how well parts are integrated with each other
8.1.3. View society as a kind of machine, where one part articulates with another to produce the dynamic energy required to make society work.
8.2. The earliest sociologist to embrace a functional point of view about the relation of school and society was Emile Durkheim.
8.2.1. For Durkheim, moral values were the foundation of society.
8.3. Effects of Schooling on Individuals
8.3.1. Knowledge and Atitudes
8.3.1.1. Nobody argues that schools have no impact on student development, but there are sharp divisions among researchers about how significant school effects are, when taking in account students social background.
8.3.1.2. Generally, the higher the social class background of the student, the higher his or her achievement level.
8.3.2. Employment
8.3.2.1. High school graduates earned on average, $32,552 in 2011; College graduates earned on average, $53,976.
8.3.2.2. Women with professional degrees, on average, earn considerably less than men with college degrees.
8.4. Sociology and the Current Educational crisis
8.4.1. Since 1987, one-fourth of all preschool children in the United States live in property.
8.4.2. As of 2009, there were 15.5 million children with families living in property and 31.9 million children from low-income families.
8.5. Determinism
8.5.1. Individual actions are determines be external forces.
8.5.1.1. Voluntarism
8.5.1.1.1. Individuals are capable of freely shaping the world.
8.6. The Sociology of Education
8.6.1. Societal level
8.6.1.1. The most general structures of a society.
8.6.2. Institutional level
8.6.2.1. A society's major institutions.
8.6.3. Interpersonal level
8.6.3.1. The process, symbols, and interactions that occur within such institutional settings.
8.6.4. Intrapsychic
8.6.4.1. Individual thoughts, beliefs, values, and feelings which are to a large degree shaped by the society's institutions and interactions.
9. Philosophy of Education
9.1. Pragmatism comes from the Greek word pragma, meaning work. It is the philosophy that encourages people to find processes that work in order to achieve their desired ends.
9.1.1. problem --> speculative thought --> action --> results
9.2. Generic Notions
9.2.1. Dewey's form of pragmatism - instrumentalism and experimentalism - was founded on the new psychology, behaviorism, and the philosophy of pragmatism.
9.2.2. Dewey's ideas about education, often referred to as progressive, proposed that education star 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 experimental learning.
9.2.3. Dewey's progressive methodology rested on the notion that children were active, organic beings, growing and changing, and thus required a course of study that would reflect their particular stages of development.
9.3. Goals of Education
9.3.1. Dewey stressed the importance of the school as a place where ideas can be implemented, challenged, and reconstructed, with the goal of providing students with the knowledge of how to improve the social order.
9.3.2. The key to Dewey's vision is his view that the role of the school was to integrate children into not just any type of society, but a democratic one.
9.3.3. For Dewey, the primary role of education is growth.
9.4. Role of the Teacher
9.4.1. In a progressive setting, the teacher is no longer the authoritarian figure from which all knowledge flows; rather, the teacher assumes the peripheral position of facilitator. The teacher encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study.
9.5. Methods of Instructing
9.5.1. Dewey proposed that children learn both individually and in groups. He believed that children should start their mode of inquiry by posing questions about what they want to know.
9.5.2. Formal instruction was abandoned. Traditional blocks of time for specific discipline instruction were eliminated. Used tables and chairs that could be grouped as needed. Children could converse quietly with one another, could stand up and stretch if warranted, and could pursue independent study or group work.
9.6. Curriculum
9.6.1. Progressive schools generally follow Dewey's notion of core curriculum, or integrated curriculum. Progressive educators support starting with contemporary problems and working from the known to the unknown, or what is now called in social studies education, "the curriculum of expanding environments". Curriculum changes as the social order changes and as children's interest and needs change.