1. POLITICS OF EDUCATION
1.1. LIBERAL APPROACH
1.1.1. Intentions
1.1.1.1. Develop free human beings who know how to use their minds and are able to think for themselves.
1.1.1.2. Produce citizens who can exercise their political liberty responsibly
1.1.1.3. Shape cultivated persons who can use their leisure fruitfully
1.1.2. The desired outcome of provided a liberal education is to shape students into people who:
1.1.2.1. Are broad-minded and unprejudiced, tolerant, and unbiased.
1.1.2.2. Contemplate the consequences of their actions; are keen on their conceptions and perceptions.
1.1.2.3. Understand and take seriously their societal roles..
1.1.2.4. Are freethinkers.
1.1.3. Widely considered both the most sustaining and adaptable scholarly customs in history.
1.2. PROGRESSIVISM
1.2.1. Oppositions:
1.2.1.1. Domineering instructors.
1.2.1.2. Lessons derived entirely from textbooks.
1.2.1.3. Acquiescent retention of facts.
1.2.1.4. Secluding schools from society.
1.2.1.5. Employing corporal or cognitive intimidation to control classes.
1.2.2. Supports:
1.2.2.1. Adolescents' freedom to mature on their own terms.
1.2.2.2. Curiosity stimulated by firsthand exposure as a preferred way to encourage education.
1.2.2.3. Instructors taking the role of assistants to learning.
1.2.2.4. Strong collaborations between school and home.
1.2.3. Notable advocates:
1.2.3.1. Marietta Johnson established the Organic School at Fairhope, Alabama where she emphasized a progressive education that focused on lesson plans primarily involving activities and extending adolescence;
1.2.3.2. Professor of education, William Heard Kilpatrick, designated progressivism as an indispensable component of teachers' transitions from preservice to practice.
2. HISTORY OF U.S. EDUCATION
2.1. MOVE TOWARD PUBLIC SCHOOLING
2.1.1. The Common School
2.1.1.1. Spread rapidly between 1820 and 1850
2.1.1.2. Horace Mann was the most renowned common school leader.
2.1.1.2.1. Public Schools = essential to a democratic society
2.1.1.2.2. Statewide system of schools funded by local and state taxes
2.1.1.2.3. Directly governed by elected school boards
2.1.1.2.4. Staffed by trained teachers
2.1.1.2.5. Free of church control
2.1.2. Normal Schools and Women's Education
2.1.2.1. Normal schools set the patterns of pre-service education for teachers.
2.1.2.2. Elementary school teaching became an important career path for women and opportunities for women expanded.
2.1.3. Secondary Schools
2.1.3.1. The academy was the forerunner of the high school.
2.1.3.1.1. Replaced grammar school
2.1.3.1.2. Broader curriculum and higher student population.
2.1.3.2. Then came the high school.
2.1.3.2.1. Taxes for public schools
2.1.3.2.2. By 1890, public high schools enrolled over 2x as many students as private schools.
2.1.3.2.3. Compulsory attendance
2.1.3.2.4. Led to urbanization
2.1.3.3. Secondary school organization
2.1.3.3.1. By the 1920s, high schools had 4 curricular patterns:
2.1.3.3.2. 4-year sequence
2.1.3.3.3. Junior high schools (1920s and 1930s)
2.1.3.3.4. Middle schools (1960s)
2.2. HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION
2.2.1. Rise of education as a powerful force for literacy, democracy, and equal opportunity and a firm basis for higher education.
2.2.2. Revolution characterized by enlightenment and modernization triumphing over ignorance, cost-cutting, and narrow traditionalism.
2.2.3. Teachers became dedicated to the public interest and reformers with a wide vision.
3. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
3.1. FUNCTIONALIST THEORY
3.1.1. Focus on the positive functions performed by the education system.
3.1.1.1. Creating social solidarity
3.1.1.2. Teaching skills necessary for work
3.1.1.3. Teaching us core values
3.1.1.4. Role Allocation and meritocracy
3.1.2. Helps form a more‐cohesive social structure by bringing together people from diverse backgrounds.
3.1.3. Core values in American education
3.1.3.1. Reflect those characteristics that support the political and economic systems that originally fueled education.
3.1.3.2. Children in America receive rewards for following schedules, following directions, meeting deadlines, and obeying authority.
3.2. EFFECTS OF SCHOOLING
3.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes
3.2.2. Employment
3.2.3. Mobility: for the middle class, education may be linked to mobility but for the rich and the poor, it may have very little to do with it
4. PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
4.1. REALISM
4.1.1. Notions
4.1.1.1. Such knowledge is the most reliable guide to individual and social behavior
4.1.1.2. There is a world of real existence, of objects, not made by human beings
4.1.1.3. The human mind can know about the real world
4.1.2. Key Researchers
4.1.2.1. Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384-322 BC), a student of Plato, developed realism.
4.1.2.2. During the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) created a synthesis of Aristotle's natural realism and Christian doctrine known as Thomasism.
4.1.3. Goals of Education
4.1.3.1. All persons have a rational potentiality
4.1.3.1.1. Schooling should be available to all
4.1.3.1.2. Employ a universal curriculum
4.1.3.1.3. Prepare students to make rational decisions
4.1.3.2. Schools function as primarily academic institutions that societies establish to provide students with knowledge about the objective world.
4.1.3.3. Students gain knowledge through sensation and abstraction
4.1.4. Role of the Teacher
4.1.4.1. Present material systematically
4.1.4.2. Encourage the use of objective criteria
4.1.4.3. Be effective and accountable
4.1.5. Curriculum
4.1.5.1. A subject-matter curriculum that emphasizes humanistic and scientific disciplines.
4.1.6. Method of Instruction
4.1.6.1. Knowing consists of conceptualization based on sensation and abstraction.
4.1.6.2. Tabula rasa
4.1.6.2.1. Epistemological idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception
4.1.6.3. Subject-matter disciplines
5. SCHOOLS AS ORGANIZATIONS
5.1. STATE SUPERINTENDENT DR. THOMAS R. BICE
5.1.1. Nonpartisan
5.2. LOCAL SUPERINTENDENT DR. EUGENE CASEY WARDYNSKI
5.2.1. Fall 2012: HCS was the first school district in the nation to implement a Digital 1:1 initiative across all grade levels, Pre-K through 12th grade. Students in grades Pre-K through 2nd grade use iPads in the classroom and all students in grade levels 3rd through 12th have a school issued laptop that they use in the classroom and at home.
5.3. HUNTSVILLE CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION
5.4. HCS (DISTRICT 08) BOARD MEMBER MARY SCOTT HUNTER
5.4.1. Traditional, rigorous education standards for K-12 and the two-year colleges -- Emphasizing responsible textbook selection
5.4.2. The fight for jobs -- Re-energizing technical education to provide hungry markets with the skilled workers they need
5.4.3. The fight against corruption -- Protecting schools from union bosses and education bureaucrats
5.4.4. Proration -- Stabilizing the education budget while maintaining and enhancing education initiatives
5.4.5. The need to restructure tenure practices -- Protecting and rewarding exceptional teachers and giving them flexibility while adding the capability to affect fair personnel changes
5.4.6. Charter schools -- Examining the successes in 36 other states and looking for ways to benefit Alabama through best practices.
5.5. SEN. JEFF SESSIONS
5.5.1. Former schoolteacher devoted to finding ways to improve our nations' education system.
5.5.2. Has worked hard to improve adolescent literacy rates
5.5.2.1. Leading advocate of the Alabama Reading Initiative (Alabama's successful K-3 reading program).
5.5.2.2. Recently introduced the Striving Readers Act (S. 958), a groundbreaking bill that would provide additional resources to schools nationwide for adolescent literacy.
5.5.2.2.1. This legislation aims to train teachers and equip states with the right tools to help older students read at grade level.
5.6. SEN. RICHARD C. SHELBY
5.6.1. Voted in favor of NCLB in 2001
5.6.2. Voted in favor of extending student loan interest rates for undergraduate Federal Direct Stafford Loans in 2012
5.6.3. Voted in favor of an amendment making federal education dollars portable in 2013
5.6.4. Voted in favor of maintaining federal subsidies for student loans in 2013
5.7. United States compared to Japan
5.7.1. Expenditures for education
5.7.1.1. Public Education Expenditures as Percentage for Gross Domestic Product: US --> 4.2% Japan --> 3.0%
5.7.2. Extent of Centralization
5.7.2.1. US: most important decisions are decentralized across thousands of diverse public school districts
5.7.2.2. Japan: highly centralized educational systems and decisions, following nationwide standards concerning acceptable class size and what will be taught in a given subject at a particular grade and time.
5.7.2.2.1. Careful planning and delivery of a national curriculum help students acquire important concepts within a sequential and comprehensive framework.
5.7.3. Enrollment in Higher Education Percentage of 25 to 34-year-olds with post-secondary education
5.7.3.1. U.S.: 39% Japan: 52%
5.7.4. Achievement Levels
5.7.4.1. Reading literacy scores of 15-year-olds
5.7.4.1.1. U.S.: 504 Japan: 522 Average: 500
5.7.4.2. Correlation between social class and achievement test scores
5.7.4.2.1. The spread between working-class and middle-class students is much greater in the U.S. than in others Japan that has high average scores and relatively low spread between high and low achievers.
5.7.4.3. Cultural factors
5.7.4.3.1. The high levels of mathematics achievement reported for Japan may be attributable primarily to the great value their cultures attach to mathematics performance and to strong family support for achievement.
5.7.5. Parental involvement
5.7.5.1. Intense parental involvement is expected.
5.7.5.1.1. In particular, mothers feel great responsibility for children’s success in school.
5.7.5.1.2. Families provide much continu- ing support and motivation, ranging from elaborate celebration of entry into first grade to widespread enrollment of children in supplementary private cram schools (juku), which students attend after school and on weekends.
5.7.5.2. Compared with U.S. parents, Japanese parents emphasize effort over ability when asked to identify causes of success or failure in school.
5.7.6. Status of teachers
5.7.6.1. Japanese educators have relatively high social status, which enhances their authority in working with students and parents.
5.7.6.1.1. Partly for this reason there are numerous applicants for teaching positions, thus allowing administrators to select highly qualified candidates.
5.7.7. Day Care
5.7.7.1. Outstanding day care helps prepare children for school success. In addition, socialization practices in the family and in early childhood education help students learn to adapt to classroom situations and demands.
5.7.7.2. U.S. schools, in contrast, tend to attain good discipline by making instruction attractive and by “bargaining” with students to obtain compliance, at great cost to academic standards and rigor.
5.7.8. Length of School Year
5.7.8.1. U.S.: less than 200 days Japan: 240 days
5.7.9. Class and Gender limitations
5.7.9.1. Opportunities for working-class students and women to attend postsecondary institutions and gain high occupational status appear severely limited.
6. CURRICULUM & PEDAGOGY
6.1. Activity-Centered Curriculum
6.1.1. Led by William Kirkpatrick who believed that teachers could not anticipate the interests and needs of children, making any pre-planned curriculum impossible.
6.1.2. Proposes purposeful activities as relevant and lifelike as possible and tied to a student's needs and interests, such as:
6.1.2.1. Group games
6.1.2.2. Dramatizations
6.1.2.3. Story projects
6.1.2.4. Field trips
6.1.2.5. Social enterprises
6.1.2.6. Interest centers
6.1.3. All facet of this curriculum involved problem solving and active student participation
6.1.4. Emphasized socialization and the formation of stronger school-community ties
6.2. Constructivist Learning Theory
6.2.1. Anticipating contemporary constructivist learning, Marietta Johnson believed children learn most successfully and satisfyingly when engaged in the active exploration of their environment and when constructing their own meaning of reality based on their direct experiences.
6.2.2. Accentuated physical exercise, nature study, music, crafts, field geography, story telling, dramatizations, and games. Creative activities such as dancing, drawing, singing, and weaving took center stage, while reading and writing were delayed until the child was nine or ten years old.
6.2.3. Johnson designed a teacher-education program that went from preservice to practice.
6.2.3.1. During preservice, caring and effective teachers needed to develop:
6.2.3.1.1. A sincere affection for and understanding interest in children
6.2.3.1.2. A knowledge base in child and adolescent development and psychology and in the skills and subjects they taught
6.2.3.1.3. An interest in social welfare
6.2.3.2. As practitioners, teachers should create safe, developmentally friendly, and engaging classroom environments in which children learn at their own pace, according to their own interests.
7. EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY
7.1. The Coleman Study
7.1.1. First study in 1966 examined the effects of differentiated resources on student achievement, with the intention of showing that children attending impoverished schools (a disproportionate number of whom were African American) would perform badly.
7.1.2. Second study, in the 1970s, he analyzed the effects of forced racial integration (busing) on "white flight," becoming an advocate of school choice for impoverished families.
7.1.3. Third, in the 1980s, he explored (with Sally Kilgore and Thomas Hoffer) the differential achievement of poor children attending private, Catholic, and public schools.
7.1.4. Findings
7.1.4.1. Students' test outcomes were unrelated to the usual characteristics of schools (e.g., the quality of school facilities, programs, and teachers)
7.1.4.2. The improvement in academic results among minority children was significantly linked to the quality of the student body–as measured by the proportion of students with encyclopedias in their home and the proportion with high aspirations.
7.1.5. Based on his recommendations, the system of busing black children into public schools located in white neighborhoods was implemented as an effort to eliminate racial segregation in education.