Class notes 1/30/08

Class notes EDUC 600

Kyle and Jimmy

1/30/08

Recap:

• Reviewed political perspectives
• Conservative
• Liberal
• Radical
• Discussion of Tinkering with Utopia
• Public education and democracy
• Myth of America
• Grammar of Schooling
• Myth of Progress and the Myth of Merit

Modern Organization of Schools

• The organization of the schooling process is referred to as the Grammar of Schooling
• Over the history of this country, this organization has been attempted to be reformed to meet the needs of contemporary society. Some events which have spurred reform are:
• The great depression, economic downturn in the 1980’s, possibly today if trends continue
• Sputnik and the red scare
• A historical survey of these reforms has revealed that the major changes to the organization of the school system are cyclical in their nature.
• Changes that have been proposed in the past are being recycled and reused in the present.
• The authors of the book said that the primary reason for this is that there is a lack of knowledge that such reforms had ever been tried before.
• Policy talk cycles but changes are evolutionary, which creates a situation of great expectations.
• Reforms can only go so far… the more radical they are in their nature (i.e. to the extent they challenge the grammar of schooling) the less likely they are to be successful in the changes they are attempting to implement.

What should schools be there for?

• There are to major competing thoughts on the idea of what the primary duty of high school should be. The ideals at play in this discussion are of freedom and equality in the school systems and the two organizations behind them. The Committee of Ten and the CPOSE saw the purpose of schooling in very different terms, and thus devised very different strategies for schools. These plans covered everything from what and how classes were taught to how the schools were organized.
• In the late 19th Century (1893), the Committee of Ten was formed to answer this very question. The Committee was headed by Charles W. Elliott and consisted of like minded “Ivy League College Folks.”
• As a result of their occupations, the Committee had a conservative view of the purpose of schooling, which was the school system’s job was to ensure that all students received an academic education (i.e. the focus of education should be on the core subjects of science, math, english, and social studies.)
• Believed everyone would benefit from high academic standards regardless of intentions after school (vocational, higher education, etc.)
• `The Committee was formed in response to the growing number of people at the turn of the century entering the school system, and as a result the realm of higher education.
• They wanted to ensure that students were prepared for college upon arrival. The Committee was their vehicle to separate the “wheat from the chaff,” so that they were able to allow the best and brightest into the college ranks. They proposed a standardization of high schools across the country so that colleges would be able to predict the likelihood a student would succeed in college
• This was also the vehicle they utilized to keep the affluent status quo (who were already proficient students) attending college and the poor immigrants (who may struggle through this new system) out.
• Ideologies and reform can be seen in present day schools with the division of classes from general to advanced in the same subject field.
• The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education was organized in 1917 to offer an alternative to the perspective proposed by the Committee of Ten.
• They believed that high schools should be for all people and not just those who are bound for college, and as a result, they made proposals that made schools for everyone.
• In their opinion, schools had to be places that were for everyone so that they would stay in school and be a viable member of society.
• The CPOSE desired a vocational element be added to the school system so that those students who were not going to college could learn a skill and be a viable member of the workforce upon their completion of high school.
• They also proposed a system of “tracking” in which students’ academic progress would be monitored and would then be used to place them on an education path that would be more attune to their individual needs. For example, if a student is not performing very well in his or her academic classes and have no desire to go to college they would be placed on a track that would enable them to take a variety of vocational classes.
• Standardize Testing was created in this time period to serve as the Cardinal principles’ vehicle for track placement.
• 1957 is an incredibly important date in the history of the public education system in the country. It is the year that the Soviet Union put the very first satellite into orbit around the earth.
• This was all but the death nail in the coffin of the CPOSE, because the policy-makers saw this defeat as the fault of a school system that had gone away from focusing on the important academic subjects, which had been the central theme of the conservative Committee of Ten.
• In the aftermath of this event, policy-makers chose to revert to the older philosophy of schooling and began pouring funding into science and math in hopes of trying to make up the ground they felt they lost to the soviets.

The Learning Factory

• One of the leading metaphors in education and schooling is the school is a factory, because of many characteristics the two share in common. Most people did not at one time go to college, so school was the environment that readied this new population for the workforce. Factories were also seen as institutions that effectively managed large amounts of people and therefore a good model to apply to school settings.
• Hierarchy: The organization of public schools and factories both center around a stratified structure
• Principle = plant manager
• Teachers = worker
• Students = product

• The Day: In both the school and the factory all the goings-on is controlled by the bell. A bell rings to start the day, start and stop activities, and to end the day.
• Repetitive tasks: Both environments seek to make the workers as efficient as possible by creating an environment that seeks them to repeat tasks over and over until mastery is achieved.

Tinkering Towards Utopia Chapter Review, very brief outline of our class discussion

Chapter three

• What is meant by the success or failure of school reform?
• Fidelity, Effectiveness and Longevity.
• Don't take in effect in unintended reform.
• Kindergarten - child saving, transition into wider social world.
• Junior High - taking children at risk and keeping them in school, catered to age.
• Created smaller community of learners

• Governing New York school
• Nation at risk - St. testing, fixing problems, forms blueprint for no child left behind.

Chapter 4

• Why does the grammar of school persist?
• The grammar of school has been widely excepted for years, as a result it is seen as legitimate
• Created the grammar of school institution
• The Graded School
• The Carnegie Unit

• Challenged the grammar of schooling standards
• The Dalton Plan
• Eight Year Study
• High Schools of Tomorrow

Chapter 5

• How and why schools have been reinvented?
• The business of schooling
• Managing education
• Contracting for performance
• Teaching by machine
• The business of teaching

Epilogue

• Where is education today and how did it get there? What is the purpose of reform?
• Reform is a slow evolutionary process
• Reform has been cyclic in nature
• Reform must have teacher input

• Its purpose should be to improve learning, not just test scores
• Learning can take place at
• Intellectual level
• Civic
• And social development