1. Schools as Organizations
1.1. Dekalb County, Alabama
1.1.1. U,S, Senator: Richard Shelby (R) & Jeff Sessions (R)
1.1.1.1. State Senators: Clay Scofield (R-9)
1.1.2. U.S. Representative: Robert Aderholt (R-4)
1.1.2.1. State Representative: Kerry Rich (R-26)
1.1.3. State Superintendent: Tommy Bice (Retires March 31, 2016)
1.1.3.1. Board Member: Mary Scott Hunter, District 8
1.1.4. DeKalb County Schools
1.1.4.1. Local Superintendent: Hugh Taylor
1.1.4.2. Chairman: Matt Sharp
1.1.4.2.1. Vice Chairman: Jeff Williams
1.2. U.S. & France School Systems
1.2.1. France is centralized compared to U.S. The central government controls the educational system.
1.2.1.1. Two public school systems- one for ordinary people and one for the elite.
1.2.1.1.1. French educational system is competative.
1.2.1.1.2. The objective of the French system is to produce a small number of highly qualified intellectuals
1.2.1.2. French students are taught to frame ideas almost as an end unto itself, even as a matter of aesthetics
1.2.1.3. Approximately a third of students enroll in some form of higher education, although only about 15% graduate from university.
1.2.2. The U.S. system is decentralized and dedicated to the concept of equal educational opportunity.
1.2.2.1. States retain the authority and responsibility for education
1.2.2.1.1. 50 separate school systems
1.2.2.1.2. Public and private scools
1.2.2.1.3. People are responsible for the schools; authority structure of the public school system is diffuse.
1.2.2.2. As school system has been growing, it has become more centralized, but there is also considerable diversity in the system.
1.2.2.3. Urban school districts have mostly minority students, suburban populations often less than 5% minorities Schools are more diverse at the same time there is increasing residential segregation
1.2.2.3.1. Few academic impediments to high school graduation, social and personal impediments
2. Education Reform
2.1. Privatization school-based reform
2.1.1. From the 1990's, the traditional distinction between public and private education became blurred, with private companies increasingly becoming involved in public education in a variety of wayx
2.1.1.1. First, for-profit companies took over the management of failing schools and districts.
2.1.1.2. Second, they have the majority of contracts for supplemental tutoring under NCLB.
2.1.2. It is clear that corporations see the multi-billion dollar education industry as a lucrative market
2.1.3. In 2012, portfolio models of education have replaced traditional school districts, with schools operated by a combination of providers.
2.1.4. The success of these types of reform has been mixed
2.2. Full service and Community Schools
2.2.1. A way to attack education inequality is to examine and plan to educate not only the whole child, but also the whole community.
2.2.2. Canada's HArlem Children's Home & Newark's Broader Bolder Approach are models of community based reforms.
2.2.3. Focus on meeting students' and their families educational, physical, psychological, and social needs in coordinated and collaborative fashion between school and community services
2.2.3.1. Centers open extended hours to provide a multitude of services such as adult education, health clinics, after-school programs, job placement and training programs, and tutoring services.
2.2.4. Specifically designed to improve at-risk neighborhoods by helping prevent problems and support them.
2.2.4.1. Model supports Anyon's argument to repair the larger social and economic problems of society as a means of improving public education, there is no evidence that these schools affects students achievement.
3. Equality of Opportunity
3.1. educational achievement and attainment of special needs individuals
3.1.1. Parents began to put pressure on the system for equality in the late 1960s.
3.1.2. 1975-Education of All Handicapped(EAH) Children Law passed by Congress. Purpose was to guarantee proper identification and appropriate class placements.
3.1.2.1. Efficacy of the law became a critical issue for policy makers and advocates of the disabled in the mid-1980's. Law provided adverse effects like over-identification, failure of replacement into the mainstream, and over representation of minority students in special needs classes.
3.1.3. Late 1980's- Regular education Initiative: mainstreaming into regular classes. Inclusion: All children into the mainstream
3.1.4. Today, REI and EHA controversies continue. Too many are being labeled and minorities are over-represented, but its is not clear that all students will benefit from inclusion.
3.2. Round 3 Response
3.2.1. Borman and Dowling's findings partially confirm both Coleman's ooriginal data from 1966 and his 1982 study.
3.2.2. 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 studet achievment than and individual.s race and class
3.2.2.1. Race and class are predictors of academic success
3.2.2.2. School segregation based on race and Socioeconomic status within school interactions dominated by middle class values are largely responsible for gaps in student achievement.
3.2.2.3. Education reform must focus on eliminating high levels of segregation and schools must bring an end to tracking systems and biases that favor whites and middle class students.
4. Curriculum and Pedagogy
4.1. Developmental Curriculum
4.1.1. Related to the needs and interests of the student rather than the needs of society. This curriculum emanated from the aspects of Dewy's writing related to the relationship between the child and curriculum and it emphasized he process of teaching as well as its contents
4.1.1.1. Teaching was student-centered and was concerned with relating the curriculum to the needs and interests of each child at particular developmental stages.
4.1.1.1.1. Stressed flexibility in both what was taught and how it was taught, with the emphasis on the development of each child's individual capacities.
4.1.1.1.2. 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.
4.1.2. Not very influential in the U.S. public schools; influential in teacher education programs, as well as an important model in independent and alternative schools. It was in the private, independent sector that this view first became dominant.
4.1.2.1. Today, many of the early progressive schools still exist and in varying degrees still reflect their early progressive character.
4.1.2.2. In the public sector, the whole-language movement for teaching reading and writing has a developmental approach. It relates literacy instruction tot he experiences and developmental stages of children.
4.1.3. In the 1960's and 1970's, the reemergence of what Ravitch called romantic progressivism occurred and placed it's philosophical allegiance with this form of curriculum and pedagogy.
4.1.3.1. A radical component, was a boarding school called Summerhill, founded by A. S. Neill, had no required curriculum and became a prototype of the "open" and "free" schools of the period.
4.2. Functionalists Curriculum
4.2.1. Represents the codification of the knowledge that students need to become competent members of society.
4.2.1.1. Transmits to students the cultural heritage required for a cohesive social system.
4.2.1.2. Role of the curriculum is to give students the knowledge, language,, and values to ensure social stability.
4.2.2. The general functionalist theory was concerned with the role of schools in combating the social and moral breakdown initiated by modernization.
4.2.2.1. Emile Durkheim argued the schools had to teach students to fit into the less cohesive modern world.
4.2.3. Modern theories developed in the U.S. through the work of Parsons and Dreeben. They stressed the role of schools in preparing students fo rthe increasing complex roles required in a modern society. School curriculum shouls be designed to enable students to function within the society.
4.2.3.1. Modern society is one where individuals are rewarded based on achievement and competence.
4.2.4. Schools teach students the values that are essential to a modern society. Schools teach students to respect others, to respect differences, and to base their opinions on knowledge rather than tradition.
4.2.4.1. Such attitudes are necessary in a society where innovation and change are the foundation of technological development.
5. Sociological Perspectives
5.1. Functional Theories
5.1.1. Society is a machine and together they communicate to provide the energy required to make society work.
5.1.2. Emily Durkheim virtually invented the sociology of education and believed moral values were the foundation.
5.1.3. assume that consensus is normal in society and conflict represents the breakdown of shared values.
5.1.3.1. schools socialize students into values and sort them out according to their abilities
5.1.3.2. A functional view of educational reform creates technically advanced and rational structures, programs, and curricula that encourages social unity
5.2. three effects of schooling on individuals that have the greatest impact on students
5.2.1. Knowledge and attitudes: For a student to learn, they need to be positive about their education and striving to learn. If a child grows up believing his education does not matter, it won't be a priority to that student. I believe, like the book states, education is impacted by the child's well-being and self-esteem. Students need to be shown their education is important and that they are good enough.
5.2.2. Teacher Behavior: Teachers are a large part of a student's life for the school year. Teachers are in a position of a model that is looked up to every day of the school year. Teachers should be encouraging and should share their positiveness with their students to encourage them to work as hard as they can.
5.2.3. Peer Groups: Who a student is spending time with plays a large role in shaping their ideas on education. So many students want to fit in, and by doing this, they can sometimes jeopardize their chances of trying their best. It is hard to fit in, but it is even harder when they are older and are still hunting for the self they left behind that wanted an education.
6. Politics of Education
6.1. Neo-Liberal Perspective
6.1.1. school choice through charters and vouchers is needed to destroy the public school monopoly and to provide the competition required to improve urban schools
6.1.1.1. traditional public schools have created inequalities through school's failing for their students, instead of providing equal access to all students. (Bowles and Gintis's Schooling in Capitalist America).
6.1.1.2. Race to the Top requires states to expand charter schools and implement Valued Added Models of teacher evaluations
6.1.2. often a synthesis of conservative and liberal perspectives
6.1.3. reforms stress austerity, the market model, individualism, state intervention, and economic prosperity, race, and class, five areas for educational policy
6.1.4. blame failing schools and ineffective teachers as the primary causes of students and school failures
6.1.4.1. Education is needed for global economic competitiveness; improving education is important to U.S. global economics superiority (Apple, 2004; Lipman, 2011).
6.2. Progressive Vision of Education
6.2.1. views the schools as central to solving social problems, as a vehicle for upward mobility, as essential to the development of individual potential, and as an integral part of a democratic society.
6.2.2. believes schools should be involved in the progress of making things better
6.2.3. visions encompass the left liberal to the radical spectrums when using a political continuum with the left signifying the radical pole and right the conservative.
7. History of U.S. Education
7.1. Conservative Perspectives
7.1.1. critics argued that U.S. students didn't know as much as they should and schools were just okay. They all pointed out the failure of so-called progressive education to fulfill its lofty social goals without sacrificing academic quality.
7.1.2. The Troubled Crusade writer Diane Ravitch wrote, the concern with using education to solve social problems has not solved anything and has lost educational excellence.
7.1.2.1. She accuses conservatives and neo-liberals of ignoring the effects of poverty on student achievement.
7.1.2.2. She claims the progressive reforms of the twentieth century denigrated traditional roles of schools in passing on a common culture and produced a generation of students who lost knowledge about their Western heritage.
7.1.3. Bloom blames university for watered-down curriculum; Hirsch blames public schools for valuing skills over content; and Bennett called for a traditional Western curriculum to return. All of these critics share a common vision that the evolution of U.S. education has resulted in the dilution of academic excellence.
7.2. Standards Era
7.2.1. President Clinton's Goals 2000, President G. W. Bush's No Child Left Behind, and President Obama's Race to the Top purport to balance equality and excellence as their goal.
7.2.2. the National Commission on Excellence, founded by Terrel Bell, issued, A Nation at Risk. As solutions, the commission offered five recommendations: 1. All graduating high school students complete the "new basics." 2. All levels of schools should expect higher achievement from students and all colleges amd universities raise admissions requirements. 3. time should be devoted to teaching the new basics more than before. 4. teacher preparation should be strengthened and the teacher profession should be more respected and rewarding. 5. citizens require their elected representatives to support and fund these reforms
7.2.3. The school choice movement seeks to give parents the right to choose the public school to send their children, rather than just the school in their surrounding neighborhood
7.2.3.1. divided between those who support public school choice and those who would include intersectional choice policies.
7.2.3.2. Charter schools became the most important reform in this area.
8. Philosophy of Education
8.1. Pragmatism
8.1.1. Generic notions
8.1.1.1. The school becomes an "embryonic community" where students could learn skills both experimentally as well as from books, in addition to traditional information, which would enable them to work cooperatively in a democratic society.
8.1.1.2. Educators start with the needs and interests 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 experimential learning
8.1.2. Key researchers
8.1.2.1. The founders of this schools of thought are George Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. European philosophers from earlier periods who could also be classified as pragmatistics are Frances Bacon, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
8.1.2.1.1. "What will work to achieve my desired end?"
8.1.3. Goal of Education
8.1.3.1. Dewey believed that school should provide "conjoint, communicated experience"- that it should function as preparation for life in a democratic society.
8.1.3.2. balance the social role of school with its effects on the social, intellectual, and personal development of individuals (balance the needs of society and community in one hand and the needs of the individual on the other)
8.1.3.3. The school has to play a key role in creating a modern form of cohesion by socializing diverse groups into a cohesive democratic community.
8.1.3.4. Primary role: growth; where there is growth, there is more growth.
8.1.4. Role of Teacher
8.1.4.1. Facilitator
8.1.4.1.1. encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan and implement courses of study
8.1.4.2. Writes the curriculum and must have a command of several disciplines in order to create and implement curriculum
8.1.5. Method of Instruction
8.1.5.1. Problem-solving or inquiry method- child start their mode of inquiry by posing questions about what they want to know.
8.1.5.1.1. Individualized study, problem solving, and the project method; learning in nontraditional yet natural ways
8.1.6. Curriculum
8.1.6.1. Core/ Integrated Curriculum. Starting with contemporary problems and working from the known to the unknown, which is known as "the curriculum of expanding environments"
8.1.6.2. Curriculum changes as the social order changes and as children's interests and needs change.
8.1.6.3. Controversy of ideas over Dewey's ideas about traditional discipline-centered curriculum.
8.1.6.3.1. Some state Dewey's emphasis on the need for the curriculum to be related to the needs and interests of the child suggests he was against traditional subject matter and in favor of a child-centered curriculum based on imagination and intuition
8.1.6.3.2. Others felt he proposed a balance between traditional disciplines, and the needs and interests of the child.
9. Educational Inequality
9.1. sociological explanation of unequal achievement
9.1.1. Far more significant differences in academic performance among students in the same school than among students in different schools: within-school differences
9.1.2. The reason students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds did less well in school had more to do with the students themselves, families, neighborhood and community, culture, and perhaps even their genetic makeup.
9.1.2.1. These student-centered explanations became dominant in the 60s and 70s and are still highly controversial and politically charged
9.1.3. The differences among the groups of students rather than school differences were the reason for the lower educational achievement of working class and non whites.
9.2. School-centered explanation
9.2.1. Questioned earlier research about not excluding the possibility that schools have significant effects on students.
9.2.1.1. There are significant with-in school differences suggesting schools do make a difference.
9.2.2. Differences in academic performances between group of students in the same school: Completly individualistic explanation states these diffferences are the result of individual differences in intelligence or initiative. Another explanation sees these differences as the result of differences prior to entering school
9.2.3. Suggests school processes are central to understanding unequal educational performance.