1. History of Education
1.1. The Age of Reform
1.1.1. Opposition to Public Education
1.1.2. Education for Women and African-Americans
1.1.3. Urbanization and the Progressive Impetus
1.2. Post-World War II Equity Era: 1945-1980
1.2.1. Cycles of Reform: Progressive and Traditional
1.2.2. Equality of Opportunity
1.3. Educational Reaction and Reform and the Standards Era: 1980's-2012
1.4. Conservative Interpretation
1.4.1. Conservatives have analyzed the historical tensions between equity and excellence and have, in common, a vision that the evolution of U.S. education has resulted in the dilution of academic excellence.
1.4.2. The Conservative Perspective critics pointed out failure to fulfill social goals without sacrificing academic quality
1.4.3. The Conservative Perspective is accused of ignoring the effects of poverty on student achievement
1.5. Historical Moments
1.5.1. 1822- First public high school, Boston English, opens.
1.5.2. 1855- First Kindergarten is available in the US
1.5.3. 1896- Plessy vs. Ferguson
1.5.3.1. "Separate, but equal"
1.5.4. 1954- Brown vs BOE
1.5.4.1. Repealed 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson
1.5.4.2. The courts ruling desegregated schools
1.5.5. 1972- Title XI
1.5.5.1. Prohibits the discrimination of gender
1.5.6. 1975- Disabled students are admitted to public education
1.5.7. 2002- No Child Left Behind
1.5.7.1. Standardized Testing
1.5.7.2. Increased accountability
1.5.7.3. State wide assessments
1.5.8. 2015- Every Students Succeeds Act
1.5.8.1. State driven
2. The Philosophies of Education and Its Significance for Teachers
2.1. Philosophy
2.1.1. Existentialism and Phenomenology
2.1.1.1. Modern researchers
2.1.1.1.1. Soren Kierkegaard
2.1.1.1.2. Martin Buber
2.1.1.1.3. Karl Jaspers
2.1.1.1.4. Jean Paul Sartre
2.1.1.1.5. Maxine Greene
2.1.1.1.6. Edmund Husserl
2.1.1.1.7. Martin Heidigger
2.1.1.1.8. Maurice Merleau-Ponty
2.1.1.2. General Notions
2.1.1.2.1. Phenomenologists focus on phenomena of consciousness, perception, and meaning, as they arise in a particular individuals experiences
2.1.1.2.2. People must create themselves and create/find their own meaning
2.1.1.3. Goal of Education
2.1.1.3.1. Education should focus on needs of individual and stress individuality
2.1.1.3.2. Education is an activity liberating the individuality from a chaotic, absurd world
2.1.1.4. Role of Teacher
2.1.1.4.1. Intensely personal role that carries tremendous responsibility
2.1.1.4.2. Teacher role is to help student understand the world through posing questions, generating activities, and working together
2.1.1.5. Method of Instruction
2.1.1.5.1. Every student has a different learning style and it is up to the teacher to discover what works with each student
2.1.1.5.2. Buber's l-thou approach: Teacher and student learn together in a non traditional, non threatening "friendship"
2.1.2. Pragmatism
2.1.2.1. Curriculum
2.1.2.1.1. Follow Dewey's core curriculum
2.1.2.1.2. Curriculum changes when social order changes and as students needs and interests change
2.1.3. Idealism
2.1.3.1. Modern Idealists
2.1.3.1.1. St. Augustine
2.1.3.1.2. Rene Descartes
2.1.3.1.3. Emmanuel Kant
2.1.3.1.4. George Wilhelm Friedrich
2.1.3.2. Goal
2.1.3.2.1. Educators who subscribe to idealism are interested in the search for truth through ideas rather than through the examination of the false shadowy world of matter
2.1.3.3. Role of Teacher
2.1.3.3.1. Analyze and discuss ideas with students in order for students to move to new levels of awareness so that ultimately they can be transformed
3. Educational Inequality
3.1. Sociological explanation of unequal achievement: Cultural Deprivation Page 423
3.1.1. Suggests that working-class and nonwhite families often lack cultural resources, such as books and other educational stimuli, and arrive at school at a significant disadvantage
3.1.2. Oscar Lewis (1966) notes that the poor have a deprived cultures that lacks the value system compared to the middle-class
3.1.3. The cultural differences theory emerged from the failure of the genetic differences theory and the cultural deprivation theory
3.2. Gender Gaps in Education
3.2.1. Individual-Level Factors
3.2.1.1. Status attainment theory examines access to resources, broadly defined, related to attending and completing college
3.2.2. Family resources
3.2.2.1. Resources related to educational background exert their influence at each level of educational attainment, partly through academic performance and partly through educational transitions.
3.2.3. Gender-role attitidues
3.2.3.1. In the United States, there have been large changes in gender-role attitudes in recent decades, with the clear trend of declining numbers of Americans expressing support for traditional gender roles and greater numbers expressing more egalitarian views
4. Educational Reforms
4.1. A school-based Reform: Charter Schools Page 522-524
4.1.1. Charter schools first began in Minnesota in 1991 and has spread to 41 other states plus DC and Puerto Rico
4.1.2. Charter schools are not regulated by any level of government. They must achieve better scores to remain teaching their style. Trial and error.
4.1.3. Public charter schools coming to Alabama as soon as Fall 2016 according to Al.com
4.2. School-centered explanation: School Financing Page 428-431
4.2.1. Kazol's Savage Inequalities (1991) compared funding from public schools in nice suburbs and poor inner-city schools
4.2.2. There have been many court cases in States about the school financing inequality. Notable cases in Texas and California.
4.2.3. In a 5-4 decision, Texas deemed it not unconstititunal to use property taxes as basis for school funding. Justice Marshall argued that the decision was a commitment to moving away from equal opportunity.
5. Politics of Education
5.1. My Political Perspective and Vision of Education
5.1.1. Conservative Perspective
5.1.1.1. Conservative thinking originated from 19th century Social Darwinist thoughts
5.1.1.2. Conservative thinking is the process that enables the strongest to survive and that the weak would have to adapt to survive. (William Graham Sumner)
5.1.1.3. Conservatives believe free market competition is most economically productive and is most respectful to human needs
5.1.1.4. Free market capitalism allows for maximum growth and individual liberty and competition with minimum potential abuses. (Smith and Friedman)
5.1.1.5. Conservatives view that individuals are rational people that decide on a cost-to-benefit scale.
5.1.1.6. Conservatives believe an individual has the capacity to earn or not earn their place in society, individual drive is what separates the strong from the weak, and solutions to problems should be addressed at the individual level
5.1.1.7. Ronald Reagan ascended the conservative viewpoint (1980-1988) arguing that welfare state policies and government intervention in the economy was the heart of american discomfort. His presidency was characterized by free market capitalism, eliminated government regulations, and reducing social programs.
5.1.1.8. Conservatives believe students must compete to survive and that their human progression is dependent on their initiative and drive
5.1.2. Traditional Vision of Education
5.1.2.1. Traditionalist view schools as necessary to the transmission of traditional values of U.S. society
5.1.2.2. Traditionalist look for schools to instill hard work, family unity, and individual initiative
5.1.2.3. Traditionalist believe schools should pass on the best of what was and what is
6. Sociology of Education
6.1. Effect of Schooling on Individuals
6.1.1. Knowledge and Attitudes
6.1.1.1. Schools where students are compelled to take academic subjects and where there is constant discipline, student achievement levels go up
6.1.1.2. More years of schooling leads to greater knowledge and social participation
6.1.2. Employment
6.1.2.1. Graduating from college will lead to greater employment opportunites
6.1.2.2. The amount of education is weakly related to job performance
6.1.2.3. Possession of a college degree is simnifically related to higher income
6.1.3. Education and Mobility
6.1.3.1. Private school diplomas are considered a mobility escalator because of the additional route
6.2. Understanding the Processes of Schooling
6.2.1. Becoming Deviant: The Labeling Perspective
6.2.2. The Origins of Labeling: Teacher Expectations
6.2.3. An Outcome of Labeling: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
7. Curriculum, Pedagogy, and the Transmission of Knowledge
7.1. Historical Curriculum Theory
7.1.1. Social Efficiency Curriculum
7.1.1.1. A philosophically pragmatist approach developed in the early twentieth century as a putatively democratic response to the development of mass public secondary education
7.2. Sociological Curriculum Theory
7.2.1. Functionalist Theory
7.3. Stratification of the Curriculum
7.3.1. U.S. schools offered a stratified curriculum to students, with some students receiving an academic curriculum and others receiving a vocational or general curriculum
7.4. Curriculum
7.4.1. Heavily biased curriculum covering the humanities to help evoke responses to move to a new level of awareness
8. Equality and Opportunities
8.1. Educational achievement of one marginalized population:
8.1.1. Hispanic Average NAEP Reading and Math scores from 1973-2008 have gradually increased with bumps in the road on the way there. Ranging from age 9 to 17.
8.1.2. Low Parent/School involvement in the Hispanic community. Especially in high poverty areas. Page 362
8.2. Responce to the Coleman Study:
8.2.1. Geoffrey Borman and Maritza Dowling publish the third and final response to date to the Coleman Study of 1966 in 2010.
8.2.2. They found that where a student attends school is often related to race and socioeconomic factors. Page 369
8.2.3. They found that racial and socioeconomic population in schools has a greater effect on student achievement that a students race and class. Page 369
8.2.4. Biggest take-back: eliminate high-level segregation in schools.
9. School as Organizations
9.1. Federal Legislatures
9.1.1. U.S. Senators: Richard Shelby and Luther Strange
9.1.2. U.S. Representative: Bradley Bryne
9.2. State Legislature
9.2.1. Governor: Kay Ivey
9.2.2. State Senator: Richard Shelby
9.2.3. State Representative: Mo Brooks
9.2.4. State Superintendent: Michael Sentance
9.2.5. State School Board Representative: Mary Scott Hunter
9.3. Local School Systems
9.3.1. Athens City Schools
9.3.1.1. Superintendent: Trey Holladay
9.3.1.2. School Board President: Russel Johnson
9.3.1.3. School Board Vice President: Beverly Malone
9.3.1.4. Members: Chris Paysinger, Jennifer Marville, James Lucas, Scott Henry, Tim Green
9.3.2. Limestone County Schools
9.3.2.1. Superintendent: Tom Sisk
9.3.2.2. School Board Chair: Earl Glaze