1. •Equality of Opportunity
2. •Philosophy of Education
2.1. Phenomenology
2.1.1. 1. Generic Notions: Phenomenologists focus on the phenomena of consciousness, perception, and meaning, as they arise in a particular individual's experiences (page 190).
2.1.2. 2. Key Researchers: Phenomenology was primarily developed by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Pontay (page 190).
2.1.3. 3. Goal of Education: Existential phenomenologists go further; they emphasize the notion of possibility, since the individual changes in a constant state of becoming. They see education as an activity liberating the individual from a chaotic, absurd world (page 191).
2.1.4. 4. Role of Teacher: Teachers must take risk; expose themselves to resistant students; and work constantly to enable their students to become, in active. The role of the teacher is an intensely personal one that carries with it a tremendous responsibility (page 191).
2.1.5. 5. Method of Instruction: The teacher constantly rediscovers knowledge, the students discover knowledge, and together they come to an understanding of past, present, and future, particularly a future ripe with possibilities. Thus, the role of the teacher is to help students understand the world through posing questions, generating activities, and working together (pages 191).
2.1.6. 6. Curriculum: Phenomenologists would choose curriculum heavily biased toward the humanities. Phenomenologists believe in exposing students at early ages to problems as well as possibilities, and to the horrors as well as accomplishments humankind is capable of producing (page 191).
3. •Schools as Organizations
3.1. State Senators
3.1.1. Richard Shelby & Jefferson Sessions
3.2. House of Representatives
3.2.1. Bradley Byrne, Martha Roby, Mike Rodgers, Robert Aderholt, Mo Brooks, Gary Palmer, & Terri Sewell
3.3. State Superintendent
3.3.1. Thomas R Bice
3.4. Repensentative on State School Board
3.5. Local Supernitendent
3.5.1. Matthew Massey
3.6. Local School Board
3.6.1. Angie Bates, Mary Louise Stowe, David Voss, Jeff Anderson, Dan Nash
3.7. Education Plan
3.7.1. Japan
3.7.1.1. Some experts thought that the educational system in Japan was exemplary to the US. page 227
3.7.1.2. The Japanese educational system seemed to produce skilled and highly competent mangers and workers. pg 227
4. •Educational Inequality
5. •History of U.S. Education
5.1. REFORM MOVEMENT: THE RISE OF THE COMMON SCHOOL
5.2. 1. In the decades following 1815, group of reformers emerged, these men and women often lacked higher education and did not hold public office but often articulated their ideas with the fervor of evangelical Christianity [page 67].
5.3. 2. The struggle for free public education was led by Horace Mann of Massachusetts [page 67].
5.4. 3. Horace Mann's annual reports served as models for public school reforms throughout the nation, and, partly due to Mann's efforts, the first state normal school or teaching training school, was established in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1839 [page 67].
5.5. HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION: THE DEMOCRATIC-LIBERAL SCHOOL
5.6. 1. Ellwood Cubberly and Merle Curti have portrayed the Common School Era as a victory for democratic movements and the first step in opening U.S education to all [page 83].
5.7. 2. The Democratic-liberals believe that the history of U.S education involves the progressive evolution, of a school system committed to providing equality of opportunity for all [page 83].
5.8. 3. Democratic-liberal historians suggest that 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 meritorious (which usually meant the privileged) [page 83].
6. •Curriculum and Pedagogy
7. Sociological Perspectives
7.1. Theoretical Perspectives
7.1.1. Functional Theories
7.1.1.1. 1. Functionalists view society as a kind machine, where one part articulates with another to produce the dynamic energy required to make society work(page 117-118).
7.1.2. Conflict Theories
7.1.2.1. 1. The achievement ideology convinces students and teachers that schools promate 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 school, which, in turn, reflect and correspond to the power relations within the larger society ( Bowles & Gintis, 1976) (page 118).
7.1.3. Interactional Theories
7.1.3.1. 1. Basil Bernstein (1990), has argued that the structural aspects of the educational system and the interactional aspects of the system reflect each other and must be viewed holistically. He also has examined how speech patterns reflect students' social class backgrounds and how students from working-class backgrounds are at a disadvantage in the school setting because schools are essentially middle-class organizations (page 120).
7.2. Effects on Schooling on Individuals
7.2.1. Knowledge and Attitudes
7.2.1.1. 1. It is found that the higher the social class background of the student, the higher his or her achievement level (page121).
7.2.2. Employment
7.2.2.1. 1. In 1986, about 54 percent of the 8 million college graduates in the US entered a professional or technical jobs (page 121).
7.2.3. Education and Mobility
7.2.3.1. 1. Private and public school students may receive the same amount of education, but a private school diploma may act as a "mobility escalator" because it represents a more prestigious educational route (Cookson & Persell, 1985) (page122).