405STRUCTURE

Acknowledgements: The following sources were extensively used in the development of this outline and attached notes:

Apple, M. Education and Power
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Segall, W. and Wilson, A. Introduction to Education, Teaching in a Diverse Society
The American School: 1642 - 1996; Spring, Joel.

Becoming a Teacher
Motivations
Beginning teachers – Huberman, Grounauer, and Martu (1993) found that individuals go into teaching for several reasons, among them: 1. (Born to teach) Interested in working with children, or they wanted to share their love of subject matter or knowledge. Their primary motivation was to help others. 2. Success as educational aide, volunteer, or substitute teacher. 3. They feel that as children they were not taught well, and now they want to make a difference. 4. They want to control others.

Teaching as a Career
    • Intrinsic Rewards
1) Allow you to share in your students’ excitement as they learn.
2) Ask students to come up with their own list of intrinsic rewards.

    • Extrinsic Rewards
Salaries and fringe benefits. Tenure and job security. Free time. Freedom to express creativity. Independence and authority

    • Stress and Burnout
42% of teachers will leave the profession within the first ten years of teaching. Of course, a very large number of these stay in the profession as administrators, resource teachers, consultants, specialists, etc. Most teachers who leave teach Language arts or Social Studies.
Reasons for leaving include 1. Stress within the classroom, or complications in their personal lives. 2. Personal problems such as divorce or illness within the family. Erosion of intrinsic or extrinsic rewards. 3. Burnout

What is Teaching?
Teaching is a profession where you interact daily with children, parents, and society. Teaching is more than delivering curriculum according to standards, frameworks, and standardized programs. Teaching is a calling, an art.

    • Teaching as a Skill/Art Form
Teaching is more than a structured activity that follows certain prescribed steps and results in children learning. Teaching is an art that requires teachers to be willing to extemporize, to experiment using different strategies and methods. Teaching an as art requires allowing students to share responsibility for their learning.

The Need for Teachers
There are currently 2.9 million public and non-public school teachers (2.7 million public school teachers). The average age of the classroom teacher is 40. Three fourths are female; 87% are white, 7% are African American, 4% are Hispanic, 1% Native American, and 1% Native American. It is projected that we will need 3.4 million teachers by 2006. However, since education depends on the state for funding, the need for teachers often clashes with budgetary realities.

Increasing Number of Students
There has been a net increase in the number of students. The number of students will grow from about 53.7 million today to about 54.6 million by 2006. However, the student-teacher ration has fallen in the last ten years.

    • Increased Diversity
Although there is increased diversity in the student body, the number of teachers from minority background has actually decreased. In 1970 more than 12% of the nation’s teachers were minorities. By the year 2000 that number was only 5%, while minority students made up 34% of the student population.

Current Teaching Force
Characteristics: Overall, 41 percent of teachers at public schools hold a master's degree, compared with 30 percent at private schools. Public and private school teachers in the Northeast are more likely to hold master's degrees than their peers in other regions. Public schools with low minority enrollments (less than 10 percent) and schools with low percentages of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (less than 15 percent) both have higher percentages of teachers with master's degrees than those with high minority enrollments (50 percent or more) and those with high percentages of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (30 percent or more).
Teachers' degree specialization differs for elementary and secondary school teachers. Among all elementary teachers, 24 percent majored in an academic subject, 18 percent in a subject area specialization in education, 45 percent in general education, and 13 percent in some other education specialization (e.g., special education, curriculum and instruction, or educational administration) for their graduate or undergraduate degree. Among all secondary teachers, 49 percent majored in an academic subject, 38 percent in a subject area specialization in education, 7 percent in general education, and 6 percent in some other education specialization for their graduate or undergraduate.
* In 1993-94, 73 percent of public school teachers were women, 33 percent were under 40, and 47 percent had a master's degree or above. By comparison, about 75 percent of the 378,000 full-time and part-time private school teachers were women. About 42 percent of the private school teachers were under age 40, and 34 percent had a master's or higher degree.

    • Surpluses and Shortages
Pupil/Teacher Ratio
* During the 1970s and early 1980s, public school enrollment decreased, while the number of teachers rose. As a result, the public school pupil/teacher ratio declined from 22.3 in 1970 to 17.9 in 1985. After 1985, the number of pupils per teacher continued downward, reaching 17.2 in 1990. The pupil/teacher ratio was stable during the early 1990s, but began to decline again during the mid 1990s. However, we need to consider the number of out-of-the-classroom teachers into this ratio.
* By 2000, the pupil/teacher ratio had decreased to an estimated 16.0. The pupil/teacher ratio includes teachers for disabled students and other special teachers, who generally are excluded from class size calculations.

Salary Trends
* In 1999-2000, most public school districts used a salary schedule to determine base salaries for teachers, compared to private and public charter schools. An estimated 96.3 percent of public school districts used a salary schedule. This contrasts with 65.8 percent of private schools and 62.2 percent of public charter schools. Of those schools or districts using a salary schedule, public charter schools offered the highest base salary for teachers with a bachelor’s degree and no experience.
The average starting salary for teachers with no experience in public charter schools that used a salary schedule was $26,977, compared with $25,888 for public school districts. Private schools offered the lowest base salary, with teachers with a bachelor’s degree and no experience earning $20,271 annually.

Teacher Preparation Programs
Preparing to Be a Teacher
    • Academic courses
Undergraduate Studies: Liberal Studies, Ethnic and Women Studies, or Single Subject pre-credential programs

    • Professional courses
Cal Poly Pomona’s BCAP and Masters program

Undergraduate Education Experiences
    • Early Field Experience
Classroom Observations/Participation (TED 105 or TED 405)

    • Internships
Cal Poly Pomona’s Win-Win project

    • Student Teaching
Traditional Student Teaching
Emergency Student Teaching
Intern Student Teaching

Preparation Beyond the Classroom
School Administration
Requires administrative credential/Two levels

    • School Site
Principal, Assistant principal, coordinators, school site specialist, resource teacher

   • School District
Supervisors, Coordinators, Directors, Assistant Superintendent, Superintendents

  • Educational Specialists
  • Consultants
• Curriculum Specialists

Effective Teachers
Personal and Professional Characteristics
• Tend to be good managers
• Have high expectations of themselves and their students
• Believe in their own effectiveness
• Vary teaching strategies
• Handle discipline through prevention
• Are usually warm and caring
• Are democratic in their approach
• Are concerned with perceptual meanings rather than facts and events
• Are comfortable interacting with students and staff
• Have a strong grasp of subject matter
• Are readily available to students outside class
• Tailor their teaching to meet students’ needs
• Are reflective practitioners, open to new learning theories, and classroom techniques
• Are flexible, enthusiastic, and imaginative

Teaching as a Profession
Defining the Profession
A professional is an individual who performs a unique task that sets him apart from society. This unique task is so important to society, that each individual agree to follow a special code of ethics, administered by a professional organization.

    • Unique knowledge
    • Code of ethics
The educator strives to help each student realize his or her potential as a worthy and effective member of society. The educator therefore works to stimulate the spirit of inquiry, then acquisition of knowledge and understanding, and the thoughtful formulation of worthy goals.
In fulfillment of the obligation to the student, the educator…

1. Shall not unreasonably restrain the student from independent action in the pursuit of learning
2. Shall not unreasonably deny the student’s access to varying points of view
3. Shall not deliberately suppress or distort subject matter relevant to the student’s progress
4. Shall make reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning or to health and safety
5. Shall not intentionally expose the student to embarrassment or disparagement
6. Shall not on the basis of race, color, creed, sex, national origin, mental status, political or religious beliefs, family, social, or cultural background, or sexual orientation, unfairly…
    Exclude any student from participation in any program
    Deny benefits to any student
    Grant any advantage to any student
7. Shall not use professional relationships with students for private advantage
8. Shall not disclose information about students obtained in the course of professional service unless disclosure serves a compelling professional purpose, or is required by law.

Commitment to the Profession
The education profession is vested by the public with a trust and responsibility requiring the highest ideals of professional service.
In the belief that the quality of the services of the education profession directly influences the nation and its citizens, the educator shall exert every effort to raise professional standards, to promote a climate that encourages the exercise of professional judgment, to achieve conditions that attract persons worthy of the trust to careers in education, and to assist in preventing the practice of the profession by unqualified persons.
In fulfillment of the obligation to the profession, the educator…
1. Shall not in an application for a professional position deliberately make a false statement or fail to disclose material fact related to competency and qualifications.
2. Shall not misrepresent his/her professional qualifications
3. Shall not assist any entry into the profession of a person known to be unqualified in respect to character, education, or other relevant attribute
4. Shall not knowingly make a false statement concerning the qualifications of a candidate for a professional position
5. Shall not assist a non educator in the unauthorized practice of teaching
6. Shall not disclose information about colleagues obtained in the course of professional service, unless disclosure serves a compelling professional purpose or is required by law.
7. Shall not knowingly make false or malicious statement about a colleague
8. Shall not accept any gratuity, gift, or favor that might impair or appear to influence professional action

Professionalism
• Public Evaluation of Effective Teachers
• Peer Evaluations and Review

Ensuring the Quality of Teachers
Certification/Credentialing
• California Commission on Teaching Credentialing
• Teacher preparation Standards

Alternative Certification Programs
District credentialing programs, Intern programs, CalTeach
On December 5, 2002, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) took action to make available to school districts the Individualized Internship Certificate (IIC), consistent with the requirements of federal legislation, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).
This intern option is designed for persons who are serving as teachers of record, but who are not enrolled in an existing district or university internship program. This IIC provides an option for those teachers who have demonstrated subject matter competence, but have portions of their pedagogical preparation and supervised fieldwork to complete. This certificate is valid for two years, but participants are encouraged to complete the program in less time whenever possible.

Professional Standards Boards
Establish standards of minimum competency

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
Provides strong classroom leadership regarding criteria for the certification of teachers

Professional Teacher Organizations
Teacher Specialty Organizations
NABE
CABE
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language
American Mathematical Society
Music Teachers National Association
National Council for the Social Studies
National Science Teachers Association
National Council of Teachers of English.

National Teachers Unions
Over 70% of the nation’s 2.9 million public school teachers belong to teacher unions. NEA has 1,605, 000 active members, while AFT has 600,000 active members.
Collective bargaining and the assignment of teachers, teacher compensation
Role of unions in controversial issues such as vouchers, privatization, and efforts to introduce market-oriented reforms. One of every ten delegates to democratic conventions is a member of NEA or AFT.

• National Education Association (NEA)

• American Federation of Teachers (AFT)

State and Local Affiliates
In California, affiliates of NEA include CTA, UTLA, etc.

Non-Public Associations
National Catholic Educational Association
Council for Jewish Education
National Association of Episcopal Schools
Religious Education Association

University Associations
The Holmes Group – Restricted to Deans of colleges of Education
The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education

National Professional Associations
Public Perceptions
Elam, Rose, and Gallup (1995) found that more than 66% of all parents would like at least one of their children to become a teacher. 90% of Americans said they would be willing to pay increased taxes to improve education for their children (School bond measures in California). 81% said they would be willing to spend more tax money in inner city schools. However, public schools are not held in the same high esteem. Only 2% of respondents gave public schools an A. 20% graded them between A and B, 50% graded them C, 17% gave them a D, and 4% gave them an F, although most respondents graded their particular public school either A or B.

Improving Working Conditions
    • Beginning salary
Pay scales from several districts
    • Merit pay
    • Decision making process

Education in Colonial America
New England Colonies
Unlike the Southern or the Middle Colonies, they were different from England. They had left England to escape religious persecution, and they sought to establish better communities than the ones they left behind.

    • Homogenous Society
They were homogenous in language, religion, and culture. The church and the state governed jointly through the use of public disapproval, whipping, banishment, and fines. Conformity in behavior was expected of all people.

    • Belief that people are basically evil
Belief that children were born in sin, and that their behavior had to be formed through corporal punishment

    • Education as a means to salvation
Elementary schools were established to overcome idleness, and to show people the way to salvation. They stressed education as a means of ensuring that children would grow up to be literate, God-fearing, hard-working, frugal, industrious, and law-abiding adults. The curriculum was narrow, limited and moralistic. Puritan philosophy literally called for beating the devil out of the child. Most children were apprenticed, and the minimal instruction they received was for the purpose of maintaining religious conformity and the power of existing authority

      • Massachusetts Act of 1642
First educational law in this country. It made education of children a responsibility of the state, with parents responsible for sending their children to school.

     • 1647: Massachusetts “Old Deluder Satan Law”
Stated that education was required so children would not fall into the clutches of Satan. Provided for the financing of teachers’ salaries, educational supplies, materials, and setting up of curriculum by local communities.

   • District Schools
     • Local Control
Towns of fewer than 50 people were required to support the school in the nearest town with more than 50 people.
Towns of more than 50 people were required to appoint someone to teach reading and writing to all the children who wanted to learn.
Towns of more than 100 people were required to have a Latin Grammar school, to prepare young men for college.

     • New England Model of School Districts
Supported by local taxes

Education in Colonial America
Southern Colonies
    • Land Owners and Aristocrats
      • English System of Education
Southern colonies depended on England for the education of its youth. Girls were not educated for fear they would take masculine characteristics.
     • Tutorial Schools
Graduates from Oxford and Cambridge were hired as tutors for children of the new aristocracy. Boys were taught the elements of Latin, reading, writing, and theology. Many of these boys later attended some of the best colleges in England, returning to the colonies to take positions of power and leadership. Education was not existent for the lower socio-economic classes.
    • Old Field Schools
Local elementary schools maintained through private support, usually in an unused field house. Operated only a few months of the year. Curriculum: reading, writing, and arithmetic.
     • College of William and Mary
By the late 1600’s the Southern colonies did not want to send their sons to England to complete their education, so in 1692, they founded the College of William and Mary, with a typical English curriculum. William and nary introduced courses in the arts and sciences, experimenting with new teaching methods.

    • Native Americans
Refused to work the land for white settlers, forcing white settlers to import indentured servants and Africans.

    • Indentured Servants

    • Slavery
Settlers brought the first slaves to Virginia in 1619. By 1770, there were about 150,000 slaves in the US. It was unlawful to educate slaves.

Education in Colonial America
Middle Atlantic Colonies
    • Ethnic, Religious, Linguistic, and Cultural Diversity
The Middle colonies did not have a rigid class structure like the South, or a dominating religious structure like New England. Some schools were supported by churches, others were developed by individuals responding to social demands that children learn a trade.
   • Intellectual Freedom
     • Dame Schools
Beginning classes were held in a woman’s home. Operated only a few months of the year. Curriculum consisted of basics of the alphabet, some reading, and prayers.
     • Quaker Schools
Offered apprenticeship for teachers. First schools for freed slaves. Reading, writing, arithmetic, some bookkeeping. Students included the poor, females, and blacks.
     • Latin Grammar Schools
Secondary schools, preparatory for college. Curriculum focused on the classics. Students were upper-class white males.
     • Common Schools
Available to the working classes. Reading, writing, arithmetic, navigation, surveying, and mathematics.

Education, Language, and Culture
Creation of a Dominant Culture
There was major clash between German and English settlers over language usage. The language used in the schools was thought to be the means by which one ethnic group could gain supremacy over another. William Penn actively recruited the oppressed from England, and the European continent. The original settlement of English Quakers and Anglicans was followed by a large number of German religious minorities, including Amish and Mennonites. By 1776, Benjamin Franklin estimated that the Colonial population of Pennsylvania consisted of one third Quakers, one-third Germans, and one-third religious minorities from all over Europe. The English embarked on a policy of “cultural Anglicization.” This policy was directed at Germans. In 1727, the Pennsylvania Assembly passed a law requiring all German males to swear an oath of allegiance to the British Crown.

    • Language and Cultural Domination
Proposals to prohibit German printing houses, the publication of German government documents, and the importing of German books. There were recommendations for the establishment of English only schools. Benjamin Franklin was a major proponent of English only schools and opponent of the expansion of the German culture.

    • Charity Schools
Franklin played a significant role on the establishment of Charity Schools, which were used for Anglicization efforts, although hey were supposed to be religious institutions for education poor German children. However, the German community attacked these schools for giving a false picture of German culture. By 1764, the effort was abandoned as a failure.

    • The Academies
The concept of a secular school, free from religious control emerged from concerns with political freedom and the scientific revolution. Concern with political freedom was central to the American Revolution, and became embodied in the Constitution. Academies served the idea that science and politics were suitable subjects for the curriculum, and that freedom of inquiry should be encouraged. Some academies were run by individuals, and others by religious institutions. When the idea of the academies was introduced in the US, it served as a model for newly established colleges, and for the development of the high school.

    • Education as key to Social Mobility
The Academy movement in America was the result of a desire to provide a more utilitarian education than classical grammar schools. They provided a useful education, and transmitted the culture required for entrance into the middle class. They provided social mobility for the average citizen. They were often called “people’s colleges.” The most famous plan for an academy was advanced by Benjamin Franklin. The institution established to carry out his plans became the University of Pennsylvania. The desire for a "utilitarian" education is represented by the following statement:
“it would be well if students could be taught every thing that is useful, and every thing that is ornamental; but art is long, and their time is short. It is therefore proposed that they learn those things that are more likely to be useful and most ornamental.” B. Franklin (1749)

Nationalism and Morality
Webster and the Development of a Dominant Culture
Noah Webster constantly combined efforts to create a dominant culture and build nationalism. Part of his legacy is a standardized dictionary of the English language, an American version of the Bible, and his famous spelling book. As a member of the Massachusetts’ legislature he worked actively for a state school fund. His efforts initiated the movement that culminated in Horace Mann’s movement for the Common Schools. He believed that, in addition to teaching reading, and writing, texts should produce good, patriotic Americans, develop an American language, and create a unified national spirit. He believed that moral and political values had to be imposed on the child. His spelling book contained the Federal Catechism, and a moral catechism to teach the moral values that Webster considered necessary for maintaining order in a republican society. According to Webster, the foci of education were patriotism, nationalism, and virtue.

Jefferson and Natural Aristocracy
Jefferson did not believe that schooling should impose political values, or mold the virtuous republican citizen. He believed that education should provide the average citizen with the tools of reading and writing, and that political beliefs would be formed through the exercise of reason. For Jefferson, the most important source of political education was the reading of history and newspapers. He believed that the new republic needed to identify its future leaders in the early years of their schooling, and provide them with an education through college. This educated leadership would form a natural aristocracy.

Charity Schools and Juvenile Reformatories
Charity schools were the first attempt to use the schools as a means of socializing children into an industrious way of life. Charity schools and reformatories sought to create good moral character by replacing a weak family structure, and destroying criminal associations. The New York Free School Society and other reformers sought to link waywardness with the failure of the family. The creation of Charity schools created a division between social classes. The poor attended charity schools, and the better off attended other private and public institutions. Charity schools also provided the first educational opportunities for the children of freed slaves, but they failed to provide for the ever-increasing number of immigrant children. The creation of the Lancasterian system, designed to handle large numbers of children in an efficient, inexpensive manner. Some classes had as many as 450 students, and the system was highly regimented, with constant activity, designed to instill the values of orderliness and obedience. The normal day included two hours of classroom instruction, and four hours of labor in workshops. Then lunch and recreation followed by four more hours of labor, and then two more hours of classroom instruction. Religious exercised were given in the early morning and before bedtime.

Institutional change and the American Colleges
Residential colleges were deemed necessary in order to provide a form of family control over students. Colleges instituted a traditional liberal arts curriculum, despite demands for a more practical course of studies. There were only nine colleges before the revolution. Between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War more than 250 new colleges were established. During the early years all colleges reflected a social concern for social goals. However, new colleges came to serve narrow, religious interests. Intense denominational rivalries led to cheap local colleges that made it easy to obtain a college degree.

Public versus Private Colleges and Schools
The Dartmouth College case, argued by Daniel Webster, defined the line between government controlled and private institutions. Marshall wrote that private colleges are corporations, and a corporation is no more a state instrument than a natural person exercising the same powers would be. This meant that a college chartered by the state had the same rights against government interference, as did an individual. It also meant that if the state wanted to promote education to serve its own purposes, it would need to create its own institutions. The same argument applied to institutions of elementary and secondary education.

The Common School Reform
Ideology of the Common School Movement
Common school reformers believed that education could be used to reduce tensions between social classes, eliminate crime and poverty, stabilize the political system, and form patriotic citizens. Education would be the key to “the good society.” The ideology of the Common School Reform established the basic framework, from the 19th Century to the present, fro popular and official discussions about the goals and purposes of public education in the US.
The spread of the common school ideology was aided by the educational writers of the Post Revolutionary period such as Noah Webster and Thomas Jefferson, and by the arguments for social and moral reform made by the leaders of the Charity school movement. Those who created the ideology of the Common School worked with the fervor of religious crusaders. In fact, the life of Horace Mann can be characterized as a constant search for social salvation. He first adopted the law as the means for social redemption, but turned later to education.

Horace Mann’s “Middle course”
Mann argued that the hope for ridding society of evil actions was not in the law, but in moral education.

• Common political creed, common morality, non-sectarian religion
It was argued that if children from a variety of religious, social class, and ethnic backgrounds were educated in common, there would be a decline in hostility and friction among different groups. Mann argued that the presence of the Bible in schools provided instruction in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity without reference to denominational differences, and this provided the basis for all creeds. In addition to the use of the Bible in schools, Mann claimed that laws of the state required the teaching of the basic moral doctrines of Christianity, which he listed as instruction in piety, justice, love of country, benevolence, sobriety, industry, frugality, chastity, moderation, and temperance. Within the framework of his reasoning, religious instruction in the common schools was to be based on a non-sectarian use of the Bible with the teaching of broad religious principle, common to all Christian denominations. Children in common schools were to receive a common moral education, based on the general principles of the Bible, and on common virtues.
Mann used the same argument to define his goals for political education in the common schools. He proposed that common schools teach only those articles of republican faith common to all sensible and judicious men, all patriots, and all genuine republicans. Schools then were expected to teach a common political creed.
Mann wished to avoid political violence, and violence between social classes. He was concerned with the creation of deep divisions between the social classes, caused by the growth of modern industry. Unlike Marx, Mann believed that the answer to class conflict was a common school education, not revolution by the working class. Mann believed that the common school would eliminate conflict by improving the general wealth of society. According to him, investment in education is a form of capital investment, because it leads to the production of new wealth, and teaching is a means of developing human capital because it provides the individual with the intellectual tools for improved labor.

Schools as Instruments of Public Policy
The Common school reform brought about the acceptance of the idea of a direct linkage between government educational policies and the solving and control of social, economic, and political problems.
n Creation of State Agencies to Control Local Schools
The common school was to be administered by state and local governments for the purpose of achieving public goals, such as remedying social, political, and economic problems. Before the common school period, children did go to school, but education was provided by a variety of public and private school organizations. Massachusetts had laws requiring the provision of education. New York and Pennsylvania supported Charity schools. Other schools passed laws allowing for the development of schools but did not provide funding. Most children who had received an education attended private schools. The main effect of the common school reform was a shift of students from private to public schools. The Common School reform brought education into the public goals of the government, and created new forms of school organization. It established and standardized state systems of education, statewide taxes to support education, and a minimum of three years of tax supported education to all white children.

Educational Reform and Multiculturalism
The Common School and the Threat of Cultural Pluralism
In addition to being threatened by African American, and Native American cultures, Webster’s dream of a unified national culture was faced in the 1830’s with the problem of Irish immigration. The Common School movement was in part an attempt to stop the drift towards a multicultural society. President Jackson completed the removal of Indians west of the Mississippi, and the government tried to civilize the southern tribes through a system of segregated schools. There was also widespread fear that Africans and Indians would contaminate white blood. Many Whites hoped that a common school would assure that the United States was dominated by a unified Protestant Anglo Saxon culture. Their public philosophy called for government action to provide schooling that would be more common, more equal, more dedicated to public policy, and therefore, more effective in creating cultural and political values centering on Protestantism, republicanism, and capitalism.

   • The Irish Catholics
Stereotypes defining Irish immigrants as savages, and “slaves of their passions” developed during the long course of English domination of Ireland. By the time of the great Irish migration to the United States, English exploitation of Irish workers had reduced the average Irish family to a life of misery and famine. By 1845, one million Irish had immigrated to the United State, to port cities such as Boston and New York. Competing with freed blacks, the Irish found employment building roads and railroads, working in mines, and digging canals. Irish workers were considered by other European Americans as dogs and dray horses, to be worked like other animals.
Protestant Anglo Saxons feared that the “drunken Irish”, acting mainly “out of passion,” rather than reason might destroy the American Dream. Protestant ministers warned their congregations of the “Dangerous classes, who were inferior in nature, some perhaps only behind us in development. A lower form consisting of Negroes, Indians, Mexicans, Irish, and the like…”
The Catholicism of the Irish also bothered Protestants. By the 19th century, many Protestants believed that the Catholic Church was the church of Satan, and that the Pope had sent the Irish to undermine Protestant churches. Ironically, it was the English who forced the Irish to become Catholic, and after England became protestant, most Irish remained Catholic. The hostility towards Irish resulted in the Common School never truly being “common” to all white children in the 19th century. Catholics were thus forced to establish their own system of independent parochial schools.

  • Africans
The ability to attend school created an important difference between enslaved Africans in Southern states, and freed Africans living in the northern states. Before the Civil War, slaves in the south were by law denied an education. Some slaves were given a limited education in skilled occupations, such as carpentry and mechanics. Despite these laws, by the time of the Civil War, 5% of the slaves had learned to read, sometimes at the risk of their very lives. The African American culture that emerged from slavery was primarily based on oral tradition. Although they came from different African cultures, slaves shared and African heritage, and the culture they created in the context of slavery. Slaves were forced to create their own modes of social interaction within the context of domination. The oral tradition developed from this context of domination reflected an obvious dislike and distrust of whites. Their songs often portrayed whites as the devil, and slaves as the chosen people.
Although freed Black represented only one percent of the population in the northern states, whites saw blacks as a threat to white racial purity. Interracial marriages were banned in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Discrimination and segregation were rampant in the north.
Freed blacks in the north were able to fight for educational opportunities, creating a culture of resistance to oppression, focused on literacy, political action, and judicial solutions. To protect their children from hostility and racism, blacks asked for a separate system of schools for their children. The Boston Schools Committee denied their request, but receiving help from private sources, the parents opened a segregated school. In 1806, the school committee opened a segregated school. By 1820, Blacks realized that segregated education was resulting in an inferior education for their children; the school committee appointed the worst teachers to their school, and the building was not being maintained. The school committee focused on building a new segregated school, and assuring that separate schools for black children were equal to those of whites.

   • Native Americans
Just as white protestant fears of Irish and blacks assured that the common school would never be common to all children, the desire for native American lands resulted in a segregated Indian school system. The creation of a segregated Native American School system was the result of Thomas McKinney’s belief that if Indians were isolated and properly educated, their cultural conversion would take place in a generation.
Jackson believed that the civilizing policies of Washington and Jefferson had failed to educate the tribes, and that they still refused to sell their ancestral lands. He directed the removal of Indians to lands west of the Mississippi, arguing the right of white settlers to Indian lands that were not being cultivated. Indians could only claim lands on which they have made improvements. The key to fulfilling the humanitarian goals of the removal would be education.
General Winfield Scott’s troops removed Indians from their homes, burning the houses and forcing the families into stockades. Troops and other outlaws stole the Indians’ cattle and other livestock. Once in Indian Territory, the Cherokee tribes established the tribal school systems.

Organizing the Common Schools
The American Teacher
Actualization of the common school dream involved three important steps. The first was to create a stable, inexpensive teaching force that would uphold in the classroom the moral ideals of the common school movement.

The Maternal Model of Instruction
This step involved dealing with the complex relationship between the struggle of women for education and careers, the development of concepts of republican motherhood and off women as symbols of charity, the inclusion of sex role differences in the organization of education, and the economic exploitation of women. The creation of this teaching force began with the pioneering efforts of women educators to establish the first teacher-training institutions. Common School reformers aided these efforts because they believed that if the schools were to teach a common moral and political philosophy, school organization had to become standardized. The function of women in the Common School system was to be moral, nurturing, and loving teachers.

The Evolution of the Bureaucratic Model
The supervision of schools became very important. In rural areas, school superintendent became major figures, riding from school to school, checking on the quality of instruction, and the adherence of teachers to a standard curriculum. In urban areas, city superintendent began to take over the functions of school committees in the supervision and evaluation of teachers and students. As larger schools replaced the one-room schoolhouse, two new roles began to appear, principal teacher and assistant teacher. The teaching functions of the principal teacher were slowly replaced with administrative duties. The emerging hierarchical system of supervision and administrative control made possible a uniform system of education.

Female Teachers
The subservient status of women was an important factor in creating this hierarchical system. Hierarchical organization required a division of duties and subordination to authority. The pattern that emerged form this period was for men to manage and women to teach. The Boston Board wrote, “Women are better teachers of young children, because of their child-rearing talents. They are endowed by nature with stronger parental impulses, and this makes the society of children delightful and turns duty into pleasure.”

McGuffey Readers and the Spirit of Capitalism
McGuffey’s readers contained numerous moral lessons designed to teach appropriate behavior in developing industrial society, with increasing concentrations of wealth and expanding social divisions between the rich and the poor. The readers justified the concentration of wealth by portraying the rich as the stewards of wealth for the poor. The treatment of economic issues in the McGuffey’s readers is premised in the Calvinist concept that wealth is an outward sign of salvation. Wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and poverty was a sign of God’s disapproval. Within this economic argument, for the poor to gain wealth they had be godly, and industrious, and for the rich to continue being rich, they had to use their wealth in a godly fashion, thus the popularity of charity.

Expanding the Social Role of Schools
In the late 19th century immigration from southern and eastern Europe, together with industrialization, urban sprawl created, or worsened a number of social problems. Crowded ghettoes, inadequate urban services, and a population primarily used to rural living contributed to unsanitary living conditions and the spread of disease. Americans also suffered from a sense of alienation, a breakdown in traditional forms of social control, increased crime, and poverty. The school was considered the logical institution to prevent these problems by providing social services, teaching new behaviors, and becoming community centers.

Social Welfare and the Schools
Nurses, health offices, and showers were added to schools in order to control the spread of disease. Special instructional programs were introduced to educate children about sanitary conditions. Americanization programs were offered as a means of assimilating new immigrant children into American life and preventing the spread of radical ideologies, such as Communism. Playgrounds were attached to schools to provide after-school-activities, hoping to reduce juvenile delinquency. To curb the sense of alienation by urban living, auditoriums and special facilities for adults were provided by schools to serve as centers for community activities. The expanded occurred at a time when racist laws, practices, and court rulings were supporting segregation, racism, and cultural genocide. Some whites believed that southern and Eastern Europeans were less intelligent than Western Europeans, and they were not ready to participate in a republican society. These were the same attitudes faced by Native Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans.

   • The Kindergarten Movement
Kindergartens had originally served the upper classes, but by the 1880’s they were considered a primary educational method of dealing with the problems of urban poverty. The concept of Kindergarten was introduced in the US by Karl Schurz and Elizabeth Peabody. The original kindergarten opened in Germany in 1840 by Freiedrich Froebel as a method of early childhood education that was to lead the child from a world concentrated on self to a society of children. It was conceived as a garden of children to be cultivated in the same manner as plants. Froebel advocated a model maternal teacher whose method would be passive and protective, not directive and interfering. The first kindergarten opened in St Louis. The superintendent of schools analyzed the distribution of children in the city according to the locality of “haunts of vice and inequity,” and decided that the only way to save slum children from corruption was to get them in school at an earlier age. Harris claimed that kindergartens were necessary because traditional socializing agencies like the family, church, and the community had collapsed. The curriculum was intended to redeem the slum child by teaching moral habits, cleanliness, politeness, obedience, and self-control. These social goals resulted in the Kindergarten losing its original emphasis on creative play and self-expression. The American Kindergarten stressed creating order and discipline.

   • The Play Movement
One major goal of the play movement was to reduce juvenile crime by providing parks and playgrounds. This approach to curing urban problems began in the 1880’s with the development of sandlots for children. A major result of this movement was that the school became responsible for after school activities of urban children. Once again, the goal was to provide a safe alternative for children, at a time when the home was seen as disappearing, and crime was increasing everywhere. The first reported school shower opened in a Boston school to prevent dirtiness and the spread of lice. Teachers objected to this new responsibility. Playground games and activities were organized by the schools to produce a sense of team spirit habits of cooperation, and willingness to follow the rules.

    • Summer School
Cambridge, Mass., as one of the first cities to propose a summer vacation school. In n1872, its school committee reported the need for summer school to prevent a time of idleness, often of crime, with many who are left to roam the streets. The superintendent saw summer school as an inexpensive form of police control, saying that if people taught summer schools cost too much, they needed to see how expensive reform school was.
The schools expanded their social functions and soon became involved in providing nurses and lunch programs. Much of this changes were the result of the settlement house movement, which sought to improve conditions among the urban poor.

    • Social Centers
The use of the school as a social center was viewed as a way of reestablishing within an urban context a sense of community. It was argued that by opening its doors a little wider and becoming a social center, the school could bring in neighborhood life and create the necessary spirit of democracy.
n Education and Assimilation of New Immigrants
In one sense, kindergarten, social centers, playgrounds, and the wider use of schools were also intended to handle the problems created by immigration from southern and Eastern Europe. They were part of an effort to Americanize immigrants. The term Americanize referred to a process of Deculturalization where immigrant cultures and languages were replaced by Anglo American culture. One response of schools to the immigrant populations was to offer adult night classes in English, citizenship, and naturalization.

The Changing American School
The Changing Classroom
The traditional school classroom was designed by CBJ Snyder: rows of desks bolted to the floor, and facing the blackboard; with 48 permanent desks for grades 1 – 4, 45 desks for grades 5 and 6, and 40 for grades 7 – 12. In New York City, elementary school sizes averaged 50 students, and the majority of classrooms were designed for little movement.

    • Herbart
      • Lesson Plans
The major contribution of the Herbartian movement was the class lesson plan suitable for any class size or organization. The lesson plan reflected a conceptualization of education that placed an emphasis on order and planning, which were necessary to fit the requirements of large classes. According to Herbart, the best method of instruction is to present material that is related to a previous interest of the student. Harbert’s lesson plan follows five steps; 1) preparation, 2) presentation, 3) comparison and abstraction, 4) generalization or definition, and 5) application.
According to Dewey, Herbart’s theory denies the existence of faculties and emphasizes the unique role of subject matter in the development of mental and moral abilities. According to him, education is neither a process of unfolding from within nor is it a training of faculties resident in mind itself. It is rather the formation of mind by setting up certain associations or connections of content by means of a subject matter presented from without. Education proceeds by instruction taken in a strictly literal sense, a building into the mind from without. That education is formative of mind is not questioned; but formation here has a technical meaning dependent upon the idea of something operating from without.
Herbart denies absolutely the existence of innate faculties. The mind is simply endowed with the power of producing various qualities in reaction to the various realities which act upon it.
Herbart's great service lay in taking the work of teaching out of the region of routine and accident. He brought it into the sphere of conscious method; it became a conscious business with a definite aim and procedure, instead of being a compound of casual inspiration and subservience to tradition. Moreover, everything in teaching and discipline could be specified, instead of our having to be content with vague and more or less mystic generalities about ultimate ideals and speculative spiritual symbols. He abolished the notion of ready-made faculties, which might be trained by exercise upon any sort of material, and made attention to concrete subject matter, to the content, all-important. Herbart undoubtedly has had a greater influence in bringing to the front questions connected with the material of study than any other educational philosopher. He stated problems of method from the standpoint of their connection with subject matter: method having to do with the manner and sequence of presenting new subject matter to insure its proper interaction with old.

   • Dewey
John Dewey, the greatest educational philosopher of the period, explained the new social functions of the school to educators who gathered in 1902 for the Annual Convention of the National Education. He stated that education must provide a means for bringing people and their ideas and their beliefs together, in such ways as will lessen friction and instability, and introduce deeper sympathy and wider understanding. He argued that using schools as social centers would morally uplift the quality of urban living by replacing brothels, salons, and dance halls. He also believed schools to be potential clearinghouses of ideas that would interpret to the new urban industrial worker the meaning of his place in the modern world. The school as a social center, Dewey said, “must interpret to the worker the intellectual and social meaning of the work he is engaged; it must reveal its relations to the life and work of the world.

     • Pragmatism and Progressive Education
John Dewey developed methods of instruction that would demonstrate to the student the social value and the interdependence of society. Dewey hoped to achieve these objectives by developing the students’ social imagination through cooperative group activities. He defined social imagination as the “habit of mentally constructing some actual scene of human interaction.” He saw social imagination as the ability to relate isolated ideas to the actual conditions that have given them their original meaning. He believed that the product of education is merely information until acted on. Dewey wanted the students to view ethics in relation to real problems as opposed to abstract principles. The work that went on in the Laboratory School was designed to create social interaction among pupils that would foster efficient learning and good social habits, developing social imagination by learning to relate ideas inventions, and institutions. Activities were always associated with their studies. As a requirement of completing their projects, they also learned reading, writing, and math.

    • James and Thorndike
     • Stimulus-response learning
William James and Edward Thorndike were associated with the development of stimulus-response, or behavioral, concepts of learning. James considered the building of habits to be the most important function of education, because through controlled development of habit, social order could be maintained. James extended the concept of habit into the thought process. As he envisioned the mind, it contains a steady stream of consciousness, and when confronted with a choice, the individual selects an action out of that stream of thought. Of course, the individual is conditioned to attend to particular ideas in the stream of consciousness in particular situations. James believed that choices are determined by previous stimulus-response learning. Thorndike developed a pedagogical practice called connectionism. It refers to the connection, or relationship between stimulus and response. Thorndike argued that all changes in human intellect are the result of certain fundamental laws that affect these connections. In some ways, Thorndike simply justified traditional teaching by making it sound scientific. His major work, Educational Psychology, published in 1913, set the tone in education for decades. The classroom of bolted-down desks and large number of students was more conducive to Thorn dike’s stimulus-response, drill, reward, and measurement methods of instruction then the types of group activities and socialized instruction advocated by progressive educators.

Progressive Education
Child centered - equal opportunity to learn
All children need to be allowed to advance as far as their abilities allow them
Use of imagination and creativity to solve problems
Schools need to cooperate with the community, demonstrate leadership, and participate in educational research and experimentation

Traditional Education
Regimented by dictatorial teachers
Memorization of facts - Reliance on textbooks
Students are passive participants in the learning process
Students are not allowed to take charge of their education
Out of context - Unrelated to the students’ lives and realities

Education and Human Capital
A major argument used by Horace Mann to support the organization of the Common Schools system was that it would promote economic development. This justification became very important as vocational education and vocational guidance were introduced in large scale, and the development of human capital became the most important goal of schooling.

The High School
Traditionally, the high school was portrayed as an elite institution, serving only a small minority of students. Parental and student pressure forced high schools to become an institution that provided credentials and training for success in the job market. By the late 19th century, high schools began to adopt a differentiated curriculum to serve different vocational aspirations; a college preparatory curriculum, a general education curriculum, and vocational education programs. High schools also added activities such as clubs, student government, assemblies, organized athletics, and social events. The status of high schools was uncertain, until the Kalamazoo decision of 1874, which supported taxation for support of the high schools.

    • The Committee of Ten
In 1892, the NEA formed the Committee of Ten on Secondary Schools Studies. The Committee had to decide whether or not different courses of study should be offered to students ending their education at the high school level, and those planning to go on to college. The Committee of Ten recommended against any differences in the course of study for the two groups, eliminating the ghost of “class education.” The committee also created the framework for uniform requirements for admission to colleges.

    • The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education
In 1913, the NEA organized a commission whose report eventually established the basic framework of the modern high school. The report, known as Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education called for a broad program of various courses of studies. The Commission argued for the creation of the comprehensive high school, in which all students would come together. Using the rhetoric of social efficiency, the commission allowed for what it called the two components of democracy, specialization and unification. The specialized and differentiated curriculum of the comprehensive high school was to train each student to perform a task that would benefit society. To compensate for the separation caused by the differentiated curriculum, the commission proposed three remedies: The first one emphasized the need for teaching the mother tongue (English), and Social Studies, the second one called for social mingling through the organization and administration of the schools, and the last one called for participation in common activities, such as athletics, social events, an student government.

    • Vocational Education and Guidance
By emphasizing training for specific occupations in publicly supported institutions, vocational education represented a revolution in the role of schooling. Vocational education made the development of human capital through training an important part of the educational system. Vocational guidance became the institutional mechanism for matching students and educational programs with the needs of the labor market. Together, vocational education and vocational guidance assumed the function of promoting industrial efficiency through the proper selection and training of labor power. A recent history of vocational education argues that vocational education never fully succeeded training workers for industry. What vocational education accomplished was to make preparation for jobs the major function of American high schools.

   • The Junior High School
One of the major arguments for the establishment of the first junior high schools was that they would facilitate the vocational guidance of students and the differentiation of curriculum. One of the major debates about the junior high school was the degree of differentiation that should be undertaken with early adolescents. The commission concluded that the junior high school should be a period of vocational exploration, and pre-vocational counseling, and that differentiation based on vocational choice should be delayed until high schools.

   • Meaning of Equality of Opportunity
A major change occurred between the 19th and 20th centuries in the school’s role in providing equality of opportunity. In the early days of the common school movement, education was to provide equality of opportunity by giving everyone a common, or equal education, after which the social race would begin, with everyone competing for place in the social and economic structure. In the 20th century, the provision for equality of opportunity was made part of the school system through vocational guidance and differentiated curriculum. Students did not receive an equal, or common education, rather they received different educations based on individual differences.

Education and National Policy
The War on Poverty
During the 1960’s, when the Civil Rights and poverty were national concerns, the federal government made education part of a national campaign against poverty. The War on Poverty attempted to eliminate poverty through special educational programs. The War on Poverty encompassed three major areas of concern: Unemployed and delinquent youth, disadvantaged students for whom education did not provide equality of opportunity, and the cycle of poverty. Poverty among blacks as a set of interdependent causal factors. For instance, a poor education restricts employment opportunities, which causes a low standard of living, which leads to poor medical care, diet, housing, and education for the next generation (Michael Harrington’s The Other America – Poverty in the United States).
The expansion of the role of the federal government in education took place in a climate of strong public sentiment against public schools. Immediately after World War II, members of the radical right charged that schools had been infiltrated by Communists. Right wing groups demanded the removal of Anti-American literature from the schools, and the dismissal of left-leaning teachers. Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 (ESEA). The most important programs of the Economic Opportunity Act were the Job Corps and Head Start.
The most important part of the ESEA was Title I, which provided funds fore improved educational programs for children designated as educationally deprived.

The Civil Rights Movement
Civil Rights Act gave the federal government the responsibility to ensure that schools were not committing discriminatory acts against minority groups. In addition to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s was a grass roots protest against school segregation and discriminatory educational policies and practices. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated education was unconstitutional, but this landmark decision was forcefully enforced by federal officials and the courts.

    • School Desegregation
The desegregation of schools was the result of the struggle of Black and Latino communities for over 50 years. In 1946, a US District Court ruled in Mendez et al v. Westminster School District that segregation of Mexicans in California was illegal. The school desegregation was finally decided by the US Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. This decision did not bring immediate results because of resistance to the court-ordered desegregation. The frustration caused by the slow pace of school integration contributed to the growth of the massive Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s. The key legal issue on the struggle for desegregation was the interpretation of the 14th amendment to the Constitution by the Supreme Court.
And yet, according to Ed Hayward (Schools Becoming More Segregated), American schools are becoming even more segregated. “America's schoolhouses are filling with more and more black and Hispanic students, but the increase in diversity has been met with a sharp increase in segregation during the past decade, according to a Harvard University study."
The authors of the study said 30 years of school and race data and a see-saw battle for desegregation predict a future society where whites will have had little day-to-day interaction with members of other racial groups in school.
White children are growing up in a society that is going to become more than half minority, and they are almost totally isolated from those minorities,'' said Gary Orfield, a Harvard professor and co-director of The Civil Rights Project. ``These suburban kids are vastly unprepared for the future, in my judgment.''
In addition to historic patterns of housing discrimination, the study blames a decade of court decisions and federal retreat from desegregation work as the culprits responsible for reversing the gains that made schools in the South some of the most integrated in the nation by 1988.
There have also been stunning demographic changes - a 5.8 million jump in the number of blacks and Hispanics in schools and a 5.6 million decline in whites. Seventy percent of America's black students and more than 33 percent of Hispanic students attend predominantly minority schools, the study found. Large percentages of minorities attend schools in poor and distressed neighborhoods.
White students remain the most segregated of all, attending schools where less than 20 percent of the students are from all other racial and ethnic groups combined.
While America's suburbs have become more diverse, schools in these areas remain segregated as well, with minority groups settling in a few selected communities.
The findings are of little surprise to Jean McGuire, director of the Bay State's longest-running voluntary school desegregation program, Metco, which buses black and Hispanic city students to suburban schools. ``Get on a bus with a Metco kid and it hits you, how separate our communities are,'' said McGuire, who annually fights for state funding for the program that serves 3,350 students through 36 school districts. ``People have very strong feelings about color. Almost more than they do about class.''
Compared to the southern and the western regions, the racial breakdown of students in the Northeast remained relatively stable in the 1990s. For instance, 50.1 percent of black students were in schools with 90 to 100 percent minority enrollment in 1992. By 1999, that percentage was 50.9 percent, the study found.
The study does not contain any statistics on the Boston metropolitan area, though it noted that in 1999 Boston's 61,219 students broke down along racial lines as 48.8 percent black, 26.2 percent Hispanic, 15.6 percent white and 9 percent Asian. In 1999, in the face of a lawsuit and several court rulings, Boston abandoned race as a factor in its school assignment plan. But the change has done little to alter the racial balance struck in the district's 130 schools, said Jack Halloran, senior officer at the city's school assignment office. ``Frankly, it has not changed,'' said Halloran. ``It's the status quo. There were some schools that were predominantly minority or black before and there still are. There were schools with high populations of white students and there still are.''
While the new system placed an emphasis on a student's ``walk zone'', Halloran said 60 percent of the city's parents choose schools outside of their neighborhoods. Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said the state is trying to reach city and suburban students alike through its landmark 1993 Education Reform Law - which mandates statewide standards and measures students via the MCAS exam.
Yet a massive gap between the achievement of white students and their minority counterparts still exists. ``We haven't made the kind of progress I wish we had,'' said Driscoll. ``On the other hand, I see great hope in the schools I've visited in Lawrence and Holyoke. They have poverty, but they have large numbers of kids and some of these kids are achieving.''

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
     • Jobs Corps
    • Head Start

Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965. This act provided funds for public schools for compensatory education. Compensatory education consisted of a variety of programs aimed at helping children compensate for the problems created by poverty and poor social environments. The most extensive of these program is Title I, which provides funds to schools to remedy academic achievement in students who are at or below the federal poverty level, and are underachieving in Reading, language, and/or math.

    • Title VII of the ESEA and Bilingual Education
This program provided funds to school to implement programs for English Learning Students. The program has been eliminated by the Bush administration, and replace with block grants to the school districts.
    • Multicultural Education

Education of Minorities
Native Americans
As African Americans were fighting against segregated schooling, Native Americans were attempting to regain control of the education of their children and restore their cultural heritage and languages. During the 1940’s and 50’s, federal Indian policy was directed at the termination of tribes and reservations. Termination policies attempted to break up tribal relations by relocating Indians to urban areas. These efforts met with strong resistance from Indians and white Civil Rights activists. In 1961, Indian delegates issued a Declaration of Indian Purpose, calling for the end of the termination policies. Indians also demanded greater self-determination. Condemning the termination policies, Kennedy advocated Indian participation in federal decisions affecting them. One of the results for self-determination resulted in the establishment of the Rough Rock Demonstration School in Arizona. Indian demands for more bilingual and bicultural programs were aided by the passage of the Title VII to the ESEA (Bilingual Education Act). Funds from this Act provided support for bilingual program in Navajo and English.
The Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act provided that, in local school districts receiving funds for the education of Indian students that did not have a school board having a majority of Indians, the district had to establish a separate local committee composed of parents of Indian students in the school. This committee was given authority over any Indian education program contracted with the federal government. Further protection was provided with the passage of the Native American Languages Act of 1990.

Asian Americans
• The Model Minority (From: "Interrogating Stereotypes: The Case of the Asian "Model Minority"
by Carlos J. Ovando)
Mainstream society has characterized Asian Americans as the “model minority”—smart, achievement-oriented, hardworking, respectful, and staunch believers in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps to achieve the American dream.
At first glance, the “model minority” stereotype comes across as a fine compliment to an entire people from Asia who now reside in the United States. Therein, however, lies the first problem, as the stereotype homogenizes the Asian American population, masking the diversity within Asian American communities due to social class, religion, language, ethnicity, migratory status, length of residence, and education. In her year-long ethnographic study of a high school, Stacey Lee, for example, discovered that Asian American students’ feelings about the “model minority” stereotype varied considerably according to which of four groups they defined themselves as belonging to—Asian-identified, Asian American-identified, Korean-identified, and Asian New Wavers. Asian-identified students were tradition-bound students who held tenaciously to ancestral sociocultural and linguistic norms and patterns and tended to conform more often to the “model minority” stereotype. Asian American-identified students saw themselves as bicultural. They tended to critique their cultural positionality along a traditional Asian and Western continuum. They also tended to question the “model minority” stereotype because it did not represent the diversity among Asian students. Not all Asian students, for example, do well academically (Lee, 1996, p. 67). Further, they felt that the stereotypes tended to polarize students along academic, social, and ethnic lines. Korean-identified students in Lee’s study tended to set themselves apart from other students of Asian origin, considering themselves superior both academically and socially. Very conscious of what it takes to make it in U.S. society, they tended to adapt to the academic, behavioral, and social patterns of their white peers in high school. Socially, for example, they tended to emphasize good appearance by purchasing designer clothes.
Asian New Wavers represented counter-cultural behavior patterns. They tended to present an unconventional persona (e.g., baggy pants, combat boots, dyed hair) and were more likely to smoke openly, skip classes, and listen to hip-hop music. In doing so they challenged the notion that all students of Asian ancestry are “model minorities.”

Mexican Americans
• The Struggle for Educational Equity

(From: The Hispanic Dropout project) Nearly one in five of our nation’s Latinos between the ages of 16 and 24 who ever enrolled in a United States school left school without either a high school diploma or an alternative certificate such as a GED, according to the most recently available data from the United States Census Bureau. If we consider all of this nation’s Latinos, including immigrants who never enrolled in U.S. schools, the Hispanic dropout rate reaches a staggering 30 percent. While accounting for just 56 percent of all U.S. immigrants, Hispanics account for nearly 90 percent of all immigrant dropouts.
While the dropout rate for other school-age populations has declined, more or less steadily, over the last 25 years, the overall Latino dropout rate started higher and has remained between 30 and 35 percent during that same time period. As a result, today’s dropout rate for Latinos is 2.5 times the rate for blacks and 3.5 times the rate for white nonHispanics. Moreover, of Latinos who have ever enrolled in U.S. schools, proportionately more of them seek alternative high school diplomas than do whites; that is, they may get high school diplomas, but even Latinos who get diplomas are more likely to leave school in order to do so.1 The situation is far more serious than any of these odds and rates suggest because they apply to a rapidly growing number of our nation’s students.
As with other students, the odds of school completion rise for Latinos with gains in factors such as family income and parent education. Nevertheless, reports and studies document that gaps in school completion rates between Latinos and non-Latino students remain even after controlling for the social class background of students, for their language proficiency, and for their immigrant status. Regardless of your position in society, if you are a Latinostudent, you are more likely to drop out of school and not earn a diploma than if you are a non-Hispanic American in a similar position.
According to the United States Census Bureau, Latinos are projected to become the largest ethnic minority in the United States by the early twenty-first century. If our country stays on its current path, the low rate of Latino school completion means that a large segment of the country’s soon-to-be largest minority group will be underprepared for employment, for making personal choices, and for engagement in civic life as is required for
this democracy to grow and adapt as the founders intended it to. Dropouts diminish our democracy, our society, and their own opportunities.
“Students...see dropping out as wrong; they see it as representing failure, a problem. This is of interest because it tells us that these Latino students (who are still in school) do not want to drop out. This counters the assumption of many who argue that Latinos are not really very interested in finishing school.” In Rodriguez, C. E. (1992). Student voices: High school students’ perspectives on the Latino dropout problem (pp. 89-90). (Report to the Latino Commission on Educational Reform). New York: Fordham University.
Dropping out is not a random act. According to some observers, school dropout is the logical outcome of the social forces that limit Latino's’ roles in society. Many Latino students live in the nation’s most economically distressed areas. They attend overcrowded schools in physical disrepair and with limited educational materials. They see the devastating effects of their elders’ limited employment opportunities and job ceilings. Hispanic students encounter stereotypes, personal prejudice, and social bias that is often part of larger anti-immigrant forces in this society. For many Latinos, the United States does not appear to be a society of opportunities. Not surprisingly—faced with evidence of lingering institutional bias against Latinos—these students figure: The American Dream is not for me. Why bother? And, of course, they drop out.
The Census reports that because of demographic growth there will be at least a million more elementary students— many of them Latino—in our schools by the end of the decade. Without quick and concerted intervention, technology, trade, and changing policy will increase the number of children, many of them Hispanic, growing in poverty. Without adequate funding that is effectively used—particularly in the high-poverty schools attended by many Latino children—classes will become even more overcrowded than we have witnessed recently, instructional materials will be increasingly out-of-date, and schools’ ability to attract and hold effective teachers will decrease.
Although connection between students and their teachers and role models is important, the number of minority college students entering teaching is declining. There are shortages of teachers with meaningful proficiency in more than English. The retirement of the large proportion of current teachers originally hired to teach the baby boomers will intensify attrition of the teachers with the most classroom experience. If the same proportion of Latino students is still dropping out tomorrow, America will have many more dropouts—at a time when education is crucial for employability.

* Mendez et al v. Westminster School District (1946). Segregation of Mexican American children was ruled unconstitutional in California.

* Delgado v. Bastrop Independent School District (1948). Segregation of Mexican American children was ruled to be illegal and discriminatory in Texas, because they were considered Caucasian.

* Rodriguez v. San Antonio Independent School District. On appeal, the US Supreme Court ruled that unequal funding of schools did not violate the 14th amendment.

* Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School District (1970). Mexican Americans were officially recognized by the federal courts as an identifiable dominated group in the public schools, because of their language, culture, religion, and Spanish surnames.

Educational Philosophy
Classical Western Philosophies
    • Idealism
Idealism is regarded as the oldest organized philosophy in the Western world, dating back to Plato and Socrates in ancient Greece. Idealism contends that the only true reality is ideas, because the world is always changing. Idealists believe that people should seek the truth, because the truth never changes. They maintain that nothing exists except ides in human minds, or in the mind of God.

   • Realism
Realism also dates back to the Greeks. Realism contends that there is a natural order to events, and that this order exists, whether or not we, as humans are aware of it. Realism maintains that reality, knowledge, and values exist independently of our mind. They believe that the physical world evolved naturally, without the need of a supernatural force. They argue that truth can be seen as we observe gather, and analyze information.

Contemporary Western Philosophies
   • Pragmatism
Unlike Idealism and Realism, Pragmatism is considered the first major educational philosophy developed in the United States. Pragmatism is an active philosophical perspective that assumes we will pursue the best possible means to achieve the most desirable solutions to current problems in our society. Pragmatists believe that we must look at our experiences in terms of cognitive, physical, and emotional development, and examine how these interact with each other. For Pragmatists, the use of the scientific method is a major component in solving real-life problems. They also believe that concepts must be tested through real experiences.

  • Existentialism
Existentialism is on of the newer philosophies. It is concerned with how experience, reality, and purpose are pivotal within the lived experience of a person. Existentialism has many and varied interpretations. Part of this variety may be due to its spread across several nations and cultures. Existentialism assumes we are best when we struggle against our nature. Mankind (forgive me, but "non-sexist" writing annoys me and I resist it) is best challenging itself to improve, yet knowing perfection is not possible. Religions present rules, yet the believers know they cannot live by all of those rules. The "sin-free" life is beyond human nature. Is that any less reason to try to be good, generous, caring, and compassionate? Perfectionism is considered unhealthy by psychiatrists for a reason( from: http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/.)

Plato and Idealism
Ultimate reality is spiritual rather than physical
The state is greater than the individual. The whole is greater than its parts
Academic disciplines: Literature, art, history, humanities
Teacher presides over the birth of ideas, as principles that need to be developed

Aristotle and Realism
Emphasis is on the physical world, matter is the ultimate reality, and the universe is permanent and enduring.
Change occurs in accordance to the permanent laws of nature
Humans know the truth to the degree they understand natural laws
The purpose of education is to enable the pupil to become an intellectually well-balanced person

Realism
Classic
   • Things exist in and of themselves, outside of the minds of those who observe them.
   • Absolute and unchanging truth that lies in the natural laws that govern the universe

Religious
   • Both matter and spirit have been created by God

Pragmatism
The biological and social nature of man
• Reality amounts to the interaction of humans with their environment.
The reality of change and adaptation
• Change is the most important characteristic of physical reality, and truth is relative
Humans, endowed with rationality, can understand reality by dealing with change.
Education focuses on applied knowledge, using ideas as instruments in problem solving
The relativity of values

Theories of Education
Perennialism
Perennialism views truth as constant and never changing. Perennialists believe it is our ability to reason that makes us different from animals.

Essentialism
Essentialism assumes that there is a core of common knowledge all students need to learn (Hirsch). This core of common knowledge needs to be transmitted to students in a methodical and orderly manner. This core of common knowledge and skills is crucial for students, so they can become productive members of society.

Progressivism
Progressivism is based on pragmatism and is the counterpoint of both Essentialism and Perennialism. Progressivism emphasizes educating the cognitive, social, physical, and moral aspects of the student, using what is called the whole person approach.

Social Reconstructivism
Social Reconstructivism has two major premises: 1) Society is in constant need of change, and 2) this social change involves the use of schools. This concept of change means involving people in making life better that it currently is. Social Reconstructivists believe that educators should be social activists, and that the school is an agent for change.

Critical Pedagogy

Progressivism
Education should be life itself, not just a preparation for living
  • Learning should be directly related to the experiences and interest of the child.

Schools must prepare students to function in a democratic society.
   • In order to teach democracy, the school itself must be democratic.

The teacher’s role is to advice and facilitate

Education is always in a process of development, a continuous reconstruction of experience.
    • Schools should promote students’ participation in all educational experiences.

Educators must modify methods and policies in response to new knowledge and changes in the environment.
   • Students are nor “receptacles, or buckets,” They learn best by doing.
   • Learning through problem solving, in cooperation should take precedence over direct instruction

Social Reconstructivism
A fusion of progressive pedagogy and Marxist ideology
Calls on teachers to become leaders of social change
Criticizes schools for being agents of “Social Reproduction”
Demands that teachers take charge of the curriculum

Critical Pedagogy
Stresses the link between knowledge and power
Designed to empower the powerless and transform existing social inequalities and injustices
Asserts that people are essentially “not free” in a world full of contradictions and asymmetries of power and privilege
Asserts that school structures and curricula tend to marginalize poor people and minorities, and to reproduce the inequalities of society through a hidden curriculum

Purposes of Education
Confirming Status
• Confirming social status means that education is used to maintain the already existing status of a person
Conferring Status
• Conferring social status means that education improves the social status of the individual

Purposes of Schools
Schools for Social Conservation
    • Recreate or reproduce society
    • Advance Moral goals

Schools for Social Change
    • Promote social change
    • Empower students
   • Promote equity

Purposes of the Curriculum
Curriculum for Social Conservation
   • Designed to make students productive members of society
Curriculum for Social Change
   • Breaking the culture of silence
   • Liberating education
   • Student/community empowerment
   • Problem-solving education

The School Curriculum
Stated curriculum
   • School buildings
   • Class schedules
   • Standardized testing
   • Course descriptions/syllabi

Hidden curriculum
    • Socialization
    • Extra-curricular activities

Null curriculum

Curriculum organization
Single Subject
Competency-Based Education
Project-Based
Activity/Child Centered
Core
Humanistic

Instruction
Long Range Goals
Specific Learning Objectives
Learning Styles
   • Field Dependent
   • Field Independent

Learning Modalities
   • Visual Modality
   • Auditory Modality
   • Kinesthetic Modality
   • Tactile Modality

Instruction
Instructional Objectives
Specific Learning Objectives
Learning Styles
Instructional Approaches
    • Mastery learning
    • Critical thinking skills
    • Individualized Learning

Instructional Approaches
Cooperative learning
Cooperative learning helps students learn in non-threatening environments. Cooperative learning discourages competition, so students do not become winners and losers.

Inquiry Method
The inquiry method focuses on students investigating problems. It requires students to take control of their own learning. Classroom teachers empower students to become active learners who define problems, hypothesize, test, and draw conclusions.

Teacher Directed Learning
This is the approach most students encounter in their school experience. The state/district determines the curriculum; the teacher develops lessons and units to implement this curriculum, and determines its delivery.

Use of Textbooks
Use of Computers and educational software

Tests and Measurements
Student Evaluation
    • Criterion-based tests
    • Normative tests (Standardized)

Teacher Evaluation
    • Administrative evaluations
    • Peer assessments

Federal Role in Education
Constitutional Amendments Affecting Education
The Constitution makes no mention of schools and education. However, three out of the 26 amendments are pertinent to educational governance

• First Amendment
Guarantees citizens freedom of speech, religion, and of the press, and the right to petition the government
n Tenth Amendment
Transfers responsibility for education to each of the states. Each state constitution has specific stipulations for the provision of education to its students.

• Fourteenth Amendment
Guarantees all citizens equal protection and due process. While states have the responsibility to educate children, they do not have the right to determine that one child should have a better opportunity to receive an education than another (Brown v. Board of Education).

Congress
Congress has no constitutional authority to compel schools to teach a specific curriculum, set mandatory teaching standards, or establish an examination structure.

President
The President does not have the constitutional power to control schools. However he has influence over education by mandating specific theories and /or policies as requisites for receiving federal funds through the Department of Education.

Department of Education
The Department of Education, established in 1867, has the responsibility of helping schools educate children. It funds programs such as school lunches, special education, and special programs through grants. This financial support was intended to help children learn without influencing what they learn (the curriculum), how they are taught (the methodology), or their evaluation (national testing standards).

Supreme Court
The educational role of the Supreme Court is much greater than the other branches because of its responsibility to interpret the Constitution.

States Role in Education
State Constitutions
State Legislature
State Boards of Education
    • State Board Membership
     • Textbook Selection
     • Frameworks and standards
State Superintendent of Schools

States Role in Education
State Department of Education
    • School Accreditation
      • CCTC
      • WASC
      • CCR
Commission on Teaching Credentialing
Governor
State Supreme Court

Local School Districts
Board of Education
Superintendent of Schools
District Office Staff
Principal
• School administrative staff
Teachers
School-Based Management

Local School Districts
Neighborhood Schools
Neighborhood schools encompass a specific geographic area within a community. School boundaries are determined by the local school district. Opponents arguments are: Since communities are de facto segregated, neighborhood schools in those communities are also segregated, 2) Neighborhoods differ socio-economically, and the quality of education the child receives often depends on which school he attends. However …

Choice
It is generally agreed that urban public schools and school systems need to radically change how they are governed. Proponents of school choice believe that empowering families with educational options will promote such a change, because it presupposes that schools will reform to increase their attractiveness. In fact, choice has been widely adopted; hardly a state in the United States does not have some type of choice plan, and hardly a major urban area does not have a limited choice plan. This digest presents an overview of different choice strategies by reviewing the experiences in several urban areas.

Statewide Choice: Minnesota
Plan Description
In 1988 Minnesota became the first state to enact statewide open enrollment for all students, making all public schools throughout the state open to any K-12th grade student, provided that the receiving school has room and the transfer does not harm racial integration efforts.
Students also have numerous other options. High school juniors and seniors can take courses at public or private higher education institutions for both high school and future higher education credit. The High School Graduation Incentive Program allows dropouts and students at risk of not graduating to attend public or private nonsectarian schools with special supportive programs. In addition, families are allowed to claim a tax deduction up to $1,000 for school expenses, including private school tuition. Other initiatives include the Diploma Opportunities for Adults, designed for students age 21 and over; education programs for pregnant and parenting minors; and Area Learning Centers, which offer personalized education programs for students age 12 to adult.
The Charter Schools Act permits teachers to create and operate new public schools on contract to the local school board. Charter schools, accountable to public authority and parents, offer innovative or alternative educational opportunities for students. Thirty-five charters are allowed in the state (Shokraii & Hanks, 1996).
Outcomes
Enrollment. In 1995, 15 percent of the state's 750,000 public school students participated in various school choice programs. Use of within-district choice was greater in urban areas; use of open enrollment was more likely in smaller districts and rural areas. Use by minority students is on the rise, with minority and low-income students well represented in "second chance" programs (Colopy & Tarr, 1994; Nathan, 1994).
Parent Information/Satisfaction. Parent information remains a key in determining the use of any choice alternative. However, the sole statutory responsibility for school choice information dissemination to parents resides with the local school districts, even though they might face a conflict of interest because of the threatened loss of students, and, therefore, funds. Other information sources exist, such as hot lines, but seem inadequate since a 1990 survey found that parents were aware of open enrollment but not of additional choice initiatives.
Parent satisfaction with charter schools is very high. Most liked their special curriculum features, small size, and environment. Major causes of dissatisfaction were a lack of school resources, transportation, inadequate space, school administration, and turmoil during the first year (Shokraii & Hanks, 1996).
Impact on School Districts. There is mixed evidence on the impact of open enrollment on program improvement in school districts, but it appears that there was little validity to the theory that choice prompts schools and districts to reform programming to meet the demands of families. Only some districts that lost a high number of students experienced teacher layoffs; cancellation of academic courses, extracurricular activities; and student support services; and school closings (Funkhouser & Colopy, 1994).
Equity. Minority youth comprise about 40 percent of charter school enrollments (Nathan, 1996). Open enrollment has stimulated a noticeable increase in the ethnic diversity of Minnesota public schools, and has fostered a more equitable distribution of educational resources at the local school level (Tenbusch, 1993).
Student Achievement. There is no conclusive data on the effects of open enrollment on academic achievement. However, students feel that their self-esteem, attitude, and attendance are greatly improved at their school of choice (Rubenstein, 1992). Certain charter schools are indicative of the improvements that open enrollment has promoted in Minnesota. The City Academy in St. Paul, for example, with a program for alienated young adults wishing to return to school, has graduated 54 percent of its students in three years (Shokraii & Hanks, 1996).

Citywide Choice: New York City
Plan Description
New York City, the largest public school system in the country, consists of 32 community school districts serving nearly 1.5 million highly diverse students. In 1992 then New York City Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez initiated a citywide choice plan.
Parents have the right to transfer their children to any New York City public school, provided space is available. Parents who want to take advantage of the interdistrict choice plan need to contact the Board of Education to obtain a copy of the Chancellor's Choice Regulation, and become familiar with the chosen school's procedures and requirements. They must then write a letter to the superintendent of that school's district to request a transfer. The time period for the superintendent's response is not specified. If a request is rejected, the parent has the right to appeal to the Chancellor. There is no guarantee that siblings will be transferred to the same school and, most importantly, transportation is not provided.
Fernandez' successors have been faced with difficulties more urgent than choice. Thus, there has been almost no publicity by the Board of Education or in the districts. In fact, the only detailed information on choice available to the public is contained in a special New York Newsday "pullout" section published in 1993 (Cookson & Lucks, 1995).
Community School District 4
Strategy. A well-known choice district is District 4, which lies in East Harlem, one of New York City's poorest neighborhoods, and which ranked last among school districts before choice was implemented. Beginning in 1976, teachers were given the autonomy to redesign and create new schools. The district now operates approximately 44 schools. The choice process starts in the fifth or sixth grade, when students move from elementary schools to one of the district's alternative schools. Parents receive an information booklet with descriptions of each program, and are invited to orientation sessions to obtain more information. Students are required to submit an application listing up to six selections.
Admissions. Admissions decisions are primarily made by the schools themselves, which have a high degree of control over their programs and admissions policies. There is one stipulation to the admissions criteria: schools may accept no more than 20 percent of their entering class from outside District 4's boundaries. The application consists of standardized test scores, teacher ratings of work habits, attendance records, and academic abilities; personal interviews are also conducted (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1992). In 1992, 60 percent of the applicants were enrolled in their first choice school.
Student Achievement. Before the creation of alternative schools, District 4 had the lowest reading scores of the 32 City districts. By 1988, 62.5 percent of the students were reading at or above grade level, raising the district ranking to 19. Student achievement in later years dropped off, however, and there were sharp disparities in achievement among various choice programs. Nevertheless, it is clear that District 4 has had a positive impact on student achievement in East Harlem (Carnegie Foundation, 1992). One indication is that placement of District 4's graduates into selective high schools met or exceeded the citywide rate for each of the most selective high schools in the City (Fliegel, 1993).

Magnet Schools
Strategy. There are currently more than 300 magnet high schools: academic and vocational magnets, and academic career magnets that combine academic and career curricula. Other schools center on special education or bilingual programs. Some have programs that focus on science and engineering, medicine, the performing arts, humanities, law, business, fashion, or other themes. Theme schools enhance student motivation and create identities that bring
The student body, faculty, and administration together. Magnets foster an increase in parent involvement and faculty morale.
Admissions procedures vary with the school; some admit students by special audition or test, others by review of academic records and student interest. Academic career magnets admit students half by school review and half by random assignment through lottery.
Equity. Magnet schools have the ability to provide educational benefits and reduce racial and ethnic segregation, depending upon the selection process employed. A critical variable in determining who applies to which schools is access to information through parent information centers; the more that parents are aware of their options, the harder they will pursue their option of choice.
The schools have sparked considerable controversy over their role in student "creaming." That is, the higher achieving students, with the most involved parents and the most resources, gain more information and have greater access to better quality magnet schools. Also, academic magnets select all their students, and academic career magnets select half of them; therefore, it is inevitable that weaker students will be placed in under funded, under resourced schools, and may suffer from having contact only with other low-achieving students.
The career magnets work to reduce racial and ethnic segregation through the lottery system. They have produced a system that is fairly equitable for three reasons: (1) the number of magnet schools is large, providing seats for many students; (2) the application system is relatively simple, even for disadvantaged students; and (3) the requirement that schools accept students on a random basis decreases the effects of creaming.
Enrollment and Achievement. Most of the interest is in academic magnets, indicating that students are interested in quality education, possibly with plans to pursue higher education. This also suggests that students are choosing schools to get away from comprehensive neighborhood schools. Magnet schools provide seats for over 60 percent of the City's high school students (Tokarska, 1992). Generally, student achievement depends on the school ethos, its organization, inspiring teachers and leaders, and the program plan. Since many magnets are still in the experimental phase, they do not offer conclusive evidence about the positive effects on academic achievement, although many have lowered dropout rates and raised reading scores.

Desegregation Plan: Massachusetts
Plan Description
In Massachusetts choice has primarily been a means to achieve racial and ethnic balance in schools. Experiments with choice grew out of efforts to attract whites into inner-city schools. In the mid-1970s, Massachusetts created magnet schools to promote desegregation, and though they did expand the school options, they left schools more racially imbalanced than before. The limited capacity created a number of disappointed applicants and drained much of the motivated staff, parents, resources, and funding away from neighborhood schools (Glenn, 1991). The selection process of magnets, primarily benefiting the more academically prepared, excluded a sizable minority population.
Acknowledging the negative effects of a choice system based solely on magnet schools, the state encouraged cities to experiment with other forms of choice. Some implemented controlled choice, which does not rely upon the market rationale of educational reform but offers a means to achieve racial and ethnic balance in schools. Automatic assignment based on a child's address was replaced by a system whereby the family selects a school after receiving information about options and counseling. Assignment is made based on family preferences, available capacities, and integration efforts. Controlled choice, intended to increase the participation of low-income and minority children while stimulating every school to be productive, has four objectives: (1) to offer all students in a community equal access to all public schools, regardless of geographical location; (2) to involve all parents in an informed decision making process; (3) to create pressure for all schools to improve, and eliminate enrollment based on residence; and
(4) Where necessary, to achieve racial desegregation of every school with a minimal amount of mandatory assignment. More than 25 percent of the state's public school students attend schools in communities that are actively encouraging choice (Glenn, 1991).

Cambridge
Strategy. Cambridge, one of the smallest urban districts in Massachusetts, has one of the most successful controlled choice programs in the nation. Its student population is about 50 percent white, 33 percent African American, 14 percent Hispanic, and 7 percent Asian (Thernstrom, 1991). Implemented in 1981, the plan resulted from grassroots efforts like community meetings, school mergers, and redrawn neighborhood lines. Students, who are provided with transportation, can choose any school in the system as long as the enrollment in every school, every grade, and every program, reflects a white-to-minority ratio that is within five percentage points at the proportional racial composition of Cambridge (Thernstrom, 1991).
The crux of the program is the Parent Information Center, which offers information in six different languages. The Center provides information about each school in the community, gets parents involved in school improvement, reaches out to language minority and poor families who may be neglected by the traditional system, and serves as a community center (Cookson, 1994). Cambridge has invested $65,000 in the Center (Carnegie Foundation, 1992).
Outcomes. Over 90 percent of all students have gained admission to a school of their choice (Cookson, 1994). In several grades, students outperform students nationally in reading, math, social studies, and science (Carnegie Foundation, 1992). Minority students have outperformed white students in math and reading citywide, and attendance rates have risen nine percent ( Cookson, 1994). All of Cambridge's magnet schools have achieved racial balance, but poor, immigrant; non-English-speaking students remain relatively isolated in one or two schools.
Though there still exist inequities in resources and staffing, which are counter to the goal of equity in controlled choice, there is an elaborate budgeting process to assure appropriate funding for each school.

Boston
Strategy. Controlled choice in Boston was implemented in 1989 on a pilot basis. Previously, the district had established a few magnet schools, such as Boston Latin, which required entrance examinations for admission. The magnets exacerbated the racial separation between schools because the more competitive schools were predominantly white. Forced busing spurred white flight out of the inner city and out of the city school system, changing the social class composition of the city.
Controlled choice divides the city into three geographical zones for the purposes of assignment of elementary and middle schools; high school choice is citywide. Families can choose an elementary or middle school in the zone where they live. Students are assigned random numbers and applicants are admitted in order of their number, although all assignments are made to ensure a racial balance in each school. Students whose choices are all filled are encouraged to make new selections based on what is available, with the aim of encouraging families to investigate unknown options and possibly discover some surprises. The goal for school improvement is not to eliminate the magnet schools, but, rather, to make all schools and programs roughly equal in terms of educational quality.
Outcomes. A majority of the students are accepted into their first choice schools (Glenn, 1991). Controlled choice has placed more emphasis on abolishing the traditional system of involuntarily placing poorer and minority students in least popular schools and it has tried to create pressure on the educational system to improve or close failing schools.
Critiques of the Plan
Some critics of controlled choice say that counselors often do not know which schools are filled, and therefore waste many parents' efforts to secure admission (Glenn, 1991). Thernstrom (1991), blaming limited space in schools of choice and the slow pace to improve all schools, asserts that desegregation causes many involuntary assignments, and that pressure is placed on parents to choose unpopular schools. Critics also feel that controls for race, ethnicity, and gender compromise choice, and do not give parents the right to really choose their children's schools. Conversely, controlled choice indirectly promotes educational improvements by putting pressure on poorer performing schools, which must either become acceptable or be shut down (Glenn, 1991).

Vouchers and Tax Credits
School vouchers, one of the most controversial forms of school choice, are cash certificates from public funds that enable students to attend any school of their choice, public or private. According to most teachers' unions and other public service organizations, vouchers would destroy the public school system because they remove funds from public schools and allow the best students to opt out of the public school system. Conversely, free-market conservatives support vouchers because they believe in the marketplace as a mechanism for reform and are committed to public policies that lessen the authority of the state. A key issue is church and state relations; most voucher plans could result in the expenditure of state money in private religious schools (Cookson, 1994).

Milwaukee Plan
Description. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, implemented the nation's first pilot voucher choice plan in September 1990.
The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), a limited intersectional voucher plan for the Milwaukee School District, entitles selected students to receive public monies to attend any nonsectarian private school of their choice. The program is specifically designed to allow low-income families access to private or alternative educational opportunities (Witte, 1994).
The cash value of the voucher is usually equivalent to the state per pupil expenditure on public schooling: roughly $4,400 per student in 1996-97 (Walsh, 1997). Eligible families have incomes not exceeding 1.75 times the national poverty rate, with children not previously enrolled in a private school. Legislation expanded the choice program to allow participation of up to 15,000 Milwaukee K-12 students in 1996-97, but a court challenge resulted in a decision overturning the expansion. The judge ruled it unconstitutional by the use of state funds to support religious institutions, and also reduced the size of the program, citing that the expansion would no longer make the program "experimental" (Walsh, 1997).
Outcomes. The MPCP has provided alternative educational opportunities for many low-income students while not creaming the best students from the MPS system (Witte, 1994). Student attrition has declined, although it remains a problem for both choice and MPS schools. Students who leave the choice program are more likely to have lower test scores, live farther away than continuing students, and express a lower degree of satisfaction (Witte, 1994).
Researchers studying outcomes in achievement since vouchers became available found that reading scores of low-income minority students were on average 3 to 6 percentage points higher, and math scores were 5 to 11 points higher than those of comparable public school students (cited in Lee & Foster, 1997).
Attitudes of choice parents regarding educational quality and instruction, and school administration, were much more positive than their evaluations of their children's previous public schools. Also, parent involvement in school activities was greater in choice schools than in most other Milwaukee public schools (Witte, 1994).

Other Voucher Plans
California currently has a mandatory intradistrict choice plan and a voluntary interdistrict plan, but voters rejected a proposed voucher plan in the November 1993 election. Governor Pete Wilson proposed a limited voucher plan calling for the state to pay a large portion of the educational costs of students from the worst California public schools to attend public, private, or religious schools of their choice. In November 1992, voters in Colorado rejected a full school choice ballot initiative that would have provided vouchers worth 50 percent of the existing per pupil expenditure to send children to a public, private, or religious school of their parents' choice. In 1995, Cleveland, Ohio, became the only city in the country to institute a state voucher pilot program that includes all schools, public, private, and religious. Low-income students receive twice the percentage of tuition costs than other students do. Initially, the plan was limited to students from grades K-3; one grade level is to be added each succeeding year, up to grade 8.

Edison Schools and Privatization of Education
Support for the idea that private management of public schools would be a magic bullet for turning around lagging achievement; this is how Edison Schools Inc. gained a foothold in the public education "market." Edison offered an attractive package of educational services--longer school days and years, an emphasis on technology, well-regarded packaged curricula (such as the "Success for All" reading program) and a stated commitment to professional development. Even in the absence of a track record, Edison’s appeal and the assumption that private management would be superior to public helped the company secure many enthusiastic and hopeful clients.
More than seven years after the first school opened its doors under Edison's management, the company has amassed a revealing track record. Edison Schools Inc. can boast of some successes, but it must also account for a substantial number of schools that have significantly lagged behind comparable public schools.
Although Edison is one of the most established providers of school management services, there have been few external evaluations of student achievement in its schools. Until recently, the company’s promotional claims and self-assessments have largely gone unscrutinized, with the exception of a handful of external evaluations of a few Edison schools that found a mixed or negative record. Edison has produced several reports that purport to show progress in raising student achievement in the schools it operates. But according to a 2002 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, Edison’s reports have lacked a necessary component of a program effectiveness study—data on comparable students who are not in its program.* In other words, unless you compare students in Edison schools to similar students in non-Edison schools, you cannot determine whether the Edison program is more, less, or just as effective in raising achievement. The AFT's reports include data on comparable students.
In this update on student achievement in Edison Schools, the AFT compares student performance on state assessments in 2000-01 (the most recent data publicly available) in each Edison-run school to other comparable schools in the state—generally those schools with the same grade levels and similar populations of low-income students. These comparisons include 80 Edison-run schools and approximately 3,500 comparison schools.
The average math and reading score of each Edison school is ranked among the comparison schools (usually 40 schools including the Edison school), and the rank is then converted into a decile scale ranging from "1" (lowest possible) to "10" (highest possible). By definition, the average rank of other public schools in the comparison is always a "5.5." Averaged across all states, the typical Edison school performed below average—even the company’s longer-running schools.
* First-year schools, those opened during 2000-01, averaged rankings of "3.6" in math and "3.5" in reading, well below the "5.5" average for other schools in the comparison group.
* The typical Edison school improved modestly after poor first-year student achievement, but not enough to reach average in its peer group. Schools opened before 1998-99 had an average rank of "4.3" (on a scale of 10) in both math and reading—still below the "5.5" average for other schools in the comparison group.
* Only in Colorado did the majority of Edison schools rank above average among similar schools.
* The majority of Edison schools ranked below average on student achievement in California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
* Edison schools in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas ranked about average when student achievement was matched with comparable schools.
Predominantly African-American schools managed by Edison ranked well below average compared to other public schools in their comparison group (e.g., schools chosen without regard for ethnicity that serve the same grades, take the same tests and have a similar proportion of low-income students). No convincing evidence indicates these schools were improving at a faster rate than other public schools (a claim made by Edison) in their peer group.
The current outlook for Edison’s prospects appears mixed. The company has struggled to raise student achievement in many of the schools it runs. Complaints from school districts where Edison has operated schools have garnered the company unflattering attention. And Edison has lost contracts to operate scores of schools it once managed, including 30 of 64 schools in districts that contracted with Edison in the company’s first four years of operation. Nevertheless, Edison is still the largest private manager of public schools in the United States. Moreover, it recently announced plans to explore ventures in the United Kingdom, and several states have approved the company as a provider of supplemental educational services to schools deemed low-performing under provisions of the federal reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—known as the No Child Left Behind Act, which became law in January 2002.
In light of Edison’s ongoing presence in the education and business arenas, it remains crucial that school districts, parents, and the public have access to external evaluations of Edison’s track record to compare against company claims. To date, this AFT report, as well as other external evaluations, indicates that, when it comes to Edison, the magic bullet of private management of public schools is not hitting its target. This is not an excuse or justification for poor performance in traditional public schools, where it exists. It is to say, that, in most cases, the private companies are doing even worse. It is our hope that this report will contribute to an understanding of the effects of privately managed public schools and other efforts to strengthen student achievement in American schools.
* As this report went to press, Edison Schools Inc. issued a press release in advance of the publication of its Fifth Annual Report on School Performance. The release claims that the as yet unpublished report includes data about student achievement both in Edison schools and in comparable schools “in the locales where Edison is working.”

Home Instruction
Home instruction, like private schools is part of the US educational history. Teachers and the courts agree that the home is the first school children experience. Thus, home schooling may meet state department of Education regulations as long as instruction is carried on in good faith. In all states, except Iowa and Michigan, parents are not required to be certified teachers, however, they must teach the state-mandated curriculum, and obey compulsory educational laws. Proponents argue that family philosophy, theology, and/or values can be articulated, and children can learn at their own rate.

Charter Schools
The Charter Schools Act permits teachers to create and operate new public schools on contract to the local school board. Charter schools, accountable to public authority and parents, offer innovative or alternative educational opportunities for students. Thirty-five charters are allowed in the state.

Religious and Private Schools
Religious and private schools have always been part of the US, and are protected by the tenth and fourteenth amendments. Today, issues such as vouchers, tax credits, and other incentives seek to encourage religious private schools. Private schools have traditionally taught only less than ten percent of the students in this country, enrollment has increased from 7.3 in 1920 to more than 13%. The enrollment is charismatic and fundamentalist Christian schools has increased significantly, accounting for most of the gains.

School Consolidation
Educators disagree on the most effective size for a school. Consolidation allows several rural school systems to join together to make a larger school district.

School Deconsolidation
Large urban schools often go through deconsolidation

Education and the Legal System
Dual Court Systems
    • State Courts
      • Civil Courts (Municipal, or Superior Courts)
      • Appeals Courts
      • State Supreme Court
    • Federal Courts
      • District Courts
      • Circuit Courts of Appeals
      • U.S. Supreme Court

Legal Liabilities
Teacher Malpractice
In the case of teacher malpractice, graduates allege that their classroom teachers did not teach them well enough for them to get a job.

• Hoffman v. Board of Education
A student tested on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test at age 5, scored below the national average. The school placed him in a special education class. He remained there until he graduated for High School. When he retook the intelligence test at age 18, he learned that his IQ was actually above the national average. As a consequence, he would lose his federal assistance for the disabled. He recognized that the school system had not educated in a manner that gave him any life alternatives. He did not have enough education to get a job, or go to college. The New York Supreme Court ruled that the school system was not liable for the error that led to his situation.

• Tort Liability and Negligence
A tort is a civil wrong. Tort law concerns individuals who have suffered physical or verbal harm because of the action of another. The concept of tort law comes from old English law. By tradition, if you were injured, you could take the individual who harmed you to court. In other words you could sue. In England it was assumed you could not sue the government or the King. This legal tradition was brought to the US. However, most states allow citizens to sue the government today. This means classroom teachers, administrators, and others, as employees of the school, may be sued by students or their parents.
Tort law only applies in cases in which a person has been injured because of an individual’s negligence. Negligence is a legal term that describes a wrong caused unintentionally. Three criteria must be satisfied for negligence to occur:
* There must a duty to exercise care
* There must be a breach of that care
* There must be proximate cause between the breach of duty and the resultant injury.

Strict Liability
Courts apply a standard of strict liability. They are less willing to accept reasonable precautions as a defense.

Parental Consent
Some school people think that by having signed parental consent; the consent form will release them from legal responsibilities. A signed parental consent does not cancel the parents’ right to sue the classroom teacher, or the school over questions of negligence.

Liability Insurance
Most teachers’ unions carry liability insurance for their members.

Religion and Public Schools
Secularism/Separation of Church and State
Church-State separation is a constitutional method of guaranteeing religious freedom. This means that state supported schools are not allowed to advance any specific theology or religion. Christian Fundamentalists argue that classrooms are teaching secular humanism. They decry that children are being taught to be responsible for their own decisions and actions, rather than to rely on the will of God.

    • Engel v. Vitale (1962)
In this case, the school board of New York argued that a morning prayer used in its public schools was religiously neutral and non-denominational, thus it offended no religious group. The board argued that the prayer should be allowed, since the students were not required to participate. The US Supreme Court ruled that the prayer was unconstitutional. Free speech was not the issue. The court found that the school board, as a government agency had no right to be involved in religion at all.

    • Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1922)
The Oregon state legislature passed the Compulsory /Education Act. This act required all parents to send their children to public school. The Supreme Court ruled that parents have the right tom send their children to either public or private school.

    • Wisconsin v. Yoder
In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin’s constitutional requirement of educating Amish children past the eight grade was less important than preserving their religious liberty. It reaffirmed the concept that parents have the ultimate responsibility for educating their children.

    • School District of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963)
A Pennsylvania school district allowed classroom teachers to read ten verses of the Bible each morning as part of opening exercises. Children were not required to attend morning exercises if they were offended. The US Supreme Court ruled that the Bible could be read in classrooms where children were learning great literary works, or in class on comparative religion, but not as an opening exercise in public schools.

    • Lee v. Weisman (1992)
A Rabbi in Rhode Island delivered a prayer at a public middle school graduation. In this case, the US Supreme Court ruled that prayers at public school graduations were unconstitutional. The court ruled that children should not be compelled to participate in a religious exercise in order to graduate.

    • Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education
In 1986 Christian Fundamentalists sued the Hawkins County School Board, in Tennessee for suspending their children from school. The parents did not want their children influenced by what they considered Anti-Christian beliefs in Mac Beth, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Rumpelstiltskin. The District Court ruled in favor of the fundamentalists, because Hawkins County School Board could not show why the three books were essential to prepare children for citizenship. In 1987, the district court’s decision was overturned by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals; ruling that the state’s interest in educating its children far outweighed the children’s freedom to exercise their religion. The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, in effect agreeing with the Sixth Circuit Court.

    • Lemon v. Kurtzman
Based on this case, public finds can be distributed to private schools if:
1. Excessive entanglement between church and state does not occur.
2. The assistance is only used for secular purposes.
3. The specific assistance does not help, or hinder religion.
The Supreme Court ruled that federal funds may be given to schools if children are able to maintain their constitutional rights.

Teachers’ Rights and Responsibilities
Academic Freedom
There are three kinds of academic freedoms:

    • Inside the Classroom
Teachers do not have unlimited license to say or teach anything they wish. Issues of freedom of speech inside the classroom relate to students, teaching methods, and curriculum.

    • Inside the School
      • Pickering v. Board of Education
In 1967, an Illinois teacher, Mr. Pickering, wrote a letter to the city newspaper, complaining that the superintendent was trying to stop teachers from criticizing a local bond issue, and criticized the manner in which the board was allocating funds. The teacher was fired by the school board for writing the letter. The US Supreme court ruled that Mr. Pickering had specific rights guaranteed by the first amendment. The fact that he was a teacher under contract to the school board did not give the school board the power to remove those rights. The court ordered Mr. Pickering to be reinstated.

    • Outside the School
      • Russo v. Central School District (1973)
In New York, a high school teacher who sold religious books after school, was dismissed because she would not take part in the daily flag salute. The Supreme Court upheld a Circuit Court ruling that as a citizen, the teacher was allowed to express her freedom of conscience.

      • Board of Education v. James (1972)
A teacher who wore an armband to school was fired by the local school board. The Supreme Court upheld the teacher’s right to his ownbeliefs.

Teachers’ Rights and Responsibilities
Teacher Contracts
    • Terms of Employment
Your contract outlines the terms of your employment, your teaching assignment, competency test you may have to pass, other duties, and your salary. The school board is your legal employer, not the individual school.

    • Tenure
Tenure is a legal concept defined at the state level. Tenure is conferred on teachers after a probationary period to protect them from arbitrary dismissal. Tenure is not absolute. Teachers may be fired for cause, or because of funding.
     • Due process
If a tenured teacher is fired, the law guarantees due process. Due process requires the school district to be fair in their relations, even during the dismissal period. Due process requires schools to submit extensive documentation or evidence to establish its case.
      • Probationary period
One of the requirements for tenure is a probationary period of two to three years. Probationary teachers may be dismissed at any time before the probationary period ends, without any explanations from their districts.

    • Unions and Teachers’ Rights and Responsibilities
      • Strikes
Some states permit teachers to strike; others usually obtain an injunction to force teachers to remain in the classroom. Some states punish teachers financially (New York).

    • Drug-Free Workplace Act

Students’ Rights and Responsibilities
Free Speech
    • Tinker v. Des Moines ISD (1969)
During the height of the Vietnam War, male students in Des Moines, Iowa, chose to wear armbands to demonstrate their opposition to the war. The school district wrote policy that threatened to suspend any student who wore the bands. The parents of students wearing the bands sue the district. The US Supreme court ruled that the students were citizens of the US, free to express their political views, as long as they did not disrupt the learning environment. Since the district could not prove that wearing the armbands was disruptive, the Court ruled that the students’ constitutional freedom to express must be allowed.

    • Hazelwood SD v. Kuhlmeier (1988)
Several students at Hazelwood East High School in Missouri had written articles for the student newspaper in which they outlined the sex lives of students they had interviewed. The principal prevented the publication of the articles because of poor writing, and the students sued. The US Supreme Court ruled that the principal had the constitutional right to remove the articles because the newspaper was part of the curriculum. The newspaper existed only for the purpose of teaching and learning; it was not a public forum. The court ruled that schools could develop policies that regulated students’ newspapers and obscene literature.

    • Bethel SD No. 403 v. Fraser (1986)
In this case the US Supreme Court ruled that a student who had used socially unacceptable words and sexual innuendos at a school function was not protected by the first amendment. In fact, the court ruled that schools, as instruments of the state, could not fulfill their duty to teach children manners and civility if they allowed students to use offensive speech.

Residency
Residency is a controversial issue in states like California, Florida, and Texas. In California, nativists and other anti-immigrant groups secured the passage of Proposition 187.

    • Plyer v. Doe (1982)
In Texas, children of undocumented workers were told it was against state law for them to attend public school. The US Supreme Court overturned the Texas law, stating that it forced undue hardship on children because of issues over which they had no control. The court stated that children couldn’t be punished because their parents illegally moved to the USD. The court further stated that the Texas law was creating a social sub-class.

    • Proposition 187
In November 1994, after a bitter, divisive, and racially charged political campaign, California voters approved Proposition 187, also known as the “Save Our State” initiative by its supporters, and as the Anti-immigration initiative by its opponents. Proposition 187 promised to end public education, medical care, and social services for undocumented workers and their families. The political fallout of California’s Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigrant initiative, was largely responsible for Governor Pete Wilson’s sweeping re-election victory over Kathleen Brown, and contributed to the political and social climate that paved the way for the successful campaigns against affirmative action (Proposition 209), and bilingual education (Proposition 227) in the state. Proposition 187 stated:
The People of California find and declare as follows: That they have suffered and are suffering economic hardship caused by the presence of illegal aliens in this state. That they have suffered and are suffering personal injury and damage caused by the criminal conduct of illegal aliens in this state. That they have a right to the protection of their government from any person or persons entering this country unlawfully. Therefore, the People of California declare their intention to provide for cooperation between their agencies of state and local government with the federal government, and to establish a system of required notification by and between such agencies to prevent illegal aliens in the United States from receiving benefits or public services in the State of California.

Student Privacy
    • Buckley Amendment (1974)
The Buckley Amendment of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act states that individuals 18 years of age or older have the right to see their school records, and that parents have the right to see the records of their children. It also guarantees the right to challenge information found in the files and ask that it be corrected.

Students’ Rights and Responsibilities
Search and Seizure
    • Fourth Amendment
Declares that there should exist a probable cause for police to search your premises. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated…

    • New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985)
The US Supreme Court asserted that the limits of reasonable cause include the constitutional right of students not to be strip-searched, touched by trained police dogs, or be part of a general search in which school officials do not have evidence of a specific crime.

Verbal Abuse and Sexual Discrimination
Verbal abuse is illegal. Sexual discrimination is illegal.

Discipline
Disciplinary problems are defined differently among school districts. Teachers disagree on what constitutes a discipline problem. A discipline problem occurs when students engage in behavior that disrupts the learning environment.

    • Spanking
Spanking is not allowed in public schools in California. It constitutes physical abuse, and teachers can be dismissed for engaging in this kind of disciplinary technique.

    • Suspension/ Expulsion and Due Process
Suspension is the forced removal of a student from the classroom from a short time, such as several days. Expulsion is the forced removal of a student for a long period of time, such as a semester or a school year. In either case, removal cannot happen without the advice of the superintendent and the school’s legal authorities. Since education is a guaranteed right, students cannot be forcibly removed for the school without due process.

      • Wood v. Strickland
A school board expelled several girls because they had spiked the punch at a school-sponsored party. The US Supreme Court reversed the expulsions because the board did not followed due process.

      • Goss v. Lopez
The US Supreme Court ruled that students couldn’t be removed from school if they have not been given a chance to explain their side of the story. In this case, the board met privately, and then informed several students that they had been suspended. The court restated that students couldn’t be removed for school without due process.

Students’ Rights and Responsibilities
Children with Special Needs
    • Diana v. State Board of Education (1970)
Studies have shown that children who grow up in Hispanic or Asian homes, having different cultural norms, normally score lower on tests developed for Euro-American children. In Diana v. State Board of Education the plaintiffs argued that many children received a poorer education because of labeling imposed on them, and because of their placement in special education classes. The case was settled out of court, with a legal agreement that children whose primary language is not English should be tested in their primary language. All children in special education classes were required to be retested, and all the school districts in California had to explain to the court how children wrongfully placed would mainstreamed.

    • Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania had school codes that could exclude trainable mentally retarded children. In an out of court settlement, Pennsylvania agreed to provide an appropriate educational program for these children. Teachers and administrators were required to learn that education is more than just the acquisition of academic knowledge, and school for theses children began prior to the age of five.

    • Mills v. Board of Education of District of Columbia (1972)
The Pennsylvania case only applied to trainable mentally retarded children. This case set a principle that required schools to expand their curriculum for all children.

    • Education for all Handicapped Children Act
This historic act, passed in 1975, established the basic tenet that children with disabilities have the same constitutional rights as all other children. It mandated that their education must be conducted in the least-restrictive environment, in which their constitutional rights, such as due process can be guaranteed, and their learning assessment can be conducted fairly by the school. Each child, after individual analysis, should be removed from the regular classroom only if his/her disabilities are of such magnitude as to require special classrooms, or separate schools. The act also provided for early intervention services for infants and toddlers, and for pre-school students.

    • Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
The Education for all Handicapped Children was reauthorized as the Individuals with disabilities Act. The changes expanded the definitions of disabilities, recognizing AIDS as a disability, for example.
      • Least Restrictive Environment
      • Individualized Education Programs

Financing Schools
Purposes of Budget at Local Level
    • Educational Objectives
    • School Needs
    • Prioritizing Funds
    • School Boards

State Revenues
    • Income taxes
    • State Sales Tax
    • Other Taxes
    • The Taxpayer Revolution

Financing Schools - Revenues
State Aid to Schools
    • Grants
    • Weighted student plan

Local Revenues
    • Property taxes
      • Personal property
      • Real estate property
    • Bonds

Financing Schools - Revenues
Federal Assistance to Schools
   • Morrill Act (1862) A&M Colleges
This act gave 30,000 acres of land per US senator to each state, for the purpose of developing and building agricultural and mechanical colleges (A and M). These people’s colleges were revolutionary because the typical college in those days taught only the classics.

   • Smith Lever Act (1914)
This act focused federal resources on pre-professional education of teachers. It was designed to help students become secondary teachers in agriculture and home economics.

    • Smith-Hughes Act (1917)
This act helps states establish vocational education programs in secondary schools. This program was not successful.

    • National School Lunch Act (1946)
At the end of World War II, the federal government expressed concern that children were not eating nutritiously.

    • National Defense Education Act (1957)
This act was passed when the US and the Soviet Union were involved in the space race and the Cold War. The NDEA sought to improve the teaching of Math and science in schools, give loans for college education, develop vocational programs, improve audio-visual techniques, and improve the teaching of foreign languages.

    • Public Law 94-142 (1975)
Grants money to states to establish educational programs for children with disabilities at all levels of pre-college education.

    • Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 (ESEA)
      • Title I
      • OELA

Financing Schools
Expenditures
    • Teachers’ salaries
    • Fringe benefits
    • Curriculum
    • Buildings and physical facilities
    • Administration
    • Support staff

State Supreme Courts and School Funding
Serrano v. Priest (1971)
The California State Supreme Court found the difference in financial support between wealthy and poor districts to be too high. Specifically, it found wealthy districts did not burden their taxpayers with high taxes, yet they were able to spend twice as much as poor districts. Poor districts taxed their citizens to a greater extent, yet they were only able to give their students a minimum education. The court ruled that California’s method for financing schools was unconstitutional.

San Antonio ISD v. Rodriguez (1973)
In this instance, the US Supreme Court reviewed a Texas court’s decision, and found that educational funding was the constitutional responsibility of the states. Further, the court declared the use of property taxes as revenue source for schools.

Rose v. Council for Better Education (1989)
The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that children in rural Kentucky did not have an equal opportunity to receive the same quality education as children in larger, urban communities. The court gave the legislature two years to equalize educational funding. Tossing out the property tax as the method for funding schools, the court gave the legislature the responsibility of raising sales taxes, corporate taxes, and local taxes. The court also ordered that students at risk be identified for special education programs, and that elementary school pupils be grouped according to their progress in the curriculum, rather than by age.

Englewood Independent School District v. Kirby (1989)
The Texas Supreme Court overturned the state’s method of funding schools. It concluded that the funding methods were “inherently unequal.” The court ruled that wealthy districts must share their resources with poor districts, which educate large numbers of Latino students.
On May 28, 1993, the legislature passed a multi-option plan for reforming school finance. Under the plan, each school district would help to equalize funding through one of five methods: (1) merging its tax base with a poorer district, (2) sending money to the state to help pay for students in poorer districts, (3) contracting to educate students in other districts, (4) consolidating voluntarily with one or more other districts, or (5) transferring some of its commercial taxable property to another district's tax rolls. If a district did not choose one of these options, the state would order the transfer of taxable property; if this measure failed to reduce the district's property wealth to $280,000 per student, the state would force a consolidation. This plan was signed into law by Governor Richards on May 31, 1993, and was accepted by Judge McCown. The action guaranteed that schools would receive funding for the 1993-94 academic year. Many poorer school districts still challenged the constitutionality of the new law, however, and Judge McCown set September 1, 1993, as the deadline for them to file their complaints. In January 1995 the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the options plan was constitutional but that the legislature still needed to work on equalizing and improving school facilities throughout the state.

Abbott v. Burke (1990)
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that wealthy districts should help fund poorer districts to the point of equity.

Equal Educational Opportunity
Fourteen state Supreme Courts have ruled on educational funding.

Beyond the Classroom
Poverty
Since the mid-1970’s, both absolute and relative poverty have consistently increased. While 16.2% of all children under 18 live in poverty today, 36.7% of children of parents under 24 live in poverty, and 24.7% of all female-headed families live in poverty.
In 1997, the number and poverty rate of the Hispanic population was 8.3 million and 21.2 percent. For Whites, it was 24.4 million and 11.0 percent; for African Americans, it was 9.1 million and 22.1 percent; and for Asians and Pacific Islanders, it was 1.5 million and 14.0 percent. The poverty rate for Hispanics did not differ statistically from the rate for African Americans.
- For Hispanic families, the number and percentage who were poor in 1997 was 1.7 million and 24.7 percent; for White families, 5.0 million and 8.4 percent; for African American families, 2.0 million and 23.6 percent; and for Asian and Pacific Islander families, 244,000 and 10.2 percent.
The poverty rate for Hispanics did not differ statistically from the rate for African Americans.
Income
- In 1997, the median income of households maintained by a person of Hispanic origin, who may be of any race, was $26,628; White households, $38,972; African Americans, $25,050; and Asians and Pacific Islanders, $45,249.
- Between 1996 and 1997, real per capita income of Hispanics and Whites increased to $10,773 and $20,425, respectively. African Americans had a per capita income of $12,351 in 1997, while that of Asians and Pacific Islanders was $18,226. The latter two were statistically unchanged from the previous year.

• Poverty Line
It is the minimum amount of money the US government estimates an average family with two children needs to exist.
* Poverty line by family size (1995)
* Family of two $12,207
* Family of three $14,269
* Family of four $17,960

Illiteracy
A National study by the US Department of Education found that 41 to 44 percent of all adults couldn’t perform at the lowest literacy levels, compared to 4 to 8 percent who performed at the highest levels. It also found that 70% of people in prison operate at the lowest levels of literacy.

Homelessness
Homelessness can be caused by a variety of problems. The main cause is unaffordable housing for the poor. Secondary causes include mental illness, physical illnesses, substance abuse, lack of incentives to work, poor work ethics, and, like most social issues, lack of a decent education. The National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty reports that over 3 million men, women, and children were homeless over the past year – about 30% of them chronically and the others temporarily. In many cases people are in and out of the homeless system, which includes shelters, hospitals, the streets, and prisons. These chronic users of the system utilize up to 90% of the nations resources devoted to the problem.
On top of the 3 million who were homeless or marginally homeless there are an additional 5 million poor people that spend over half of their incomes on housing, leaving them on the verge of homelessness. A missed paycheck, a health crisis, or an unpaid bill can easily push poor families over the edge into homelessness.
A minority of the homeless population is capable but unwilling to work – they may realize the minimal wages they would receive if they could find work. It would be irresponsible if we did not consider that some of these people may be inherently lazy, or substance abuse has made them so. In these cases the there is little help the system can offer that will bring about positive social results. There is often a gray line between those who are mentally ill, substance abusers, and other disabled homeless. Therefore it is not easy to classify them in to benefit categories or to understand their labor capabilities.
Moreover, there is no one comprehensive system to manage the myriad of services for the homeless, their benefits, and their reintegration in to society. Even though documenting peoples’ lives in detail verges on an invasion of privacy, if US taxpayers need to foot the bill, which they ultimately do, there is no alternative but to build an efficient system with subjective inputs, in order to provide benefits and opportunities based on need.
Most people, including the homeless, are not inherently lazy. But the US economic system does not adequately support those at the lowest skill levels, even if they are willing to work – leading to unemployment and millions of “working poor”. Incomes for the poorest Americans have not nearly kept pace with rising housing costs. Therefore, millions of hard workers are shut out of the private housing market. Job training, education, trade schools, and other systemic economic incentives and welfare disincentives should be applied with whatever funds are available from foundation or government sources. This will raise income levels overall and make housing more affordable. This, coupled with the benefits poor and homeless receive like Supplemental Security Income (SSI), food stamps, and TANF (welfare), should lower the overall future level of homelessness.
The cost of homelessness can be quite high, particularly for those with chronic illnesses. Because they have no regular place to stay, people who are homeless use a variety of public systems in an inefficient and costly way. Preventing a homeless episode, or ensuring a speedy transition into stable permanent housing can result in a significant overall cost savings. Hospitals, prisons, lost opportunity, and emergency shelters are all very inefficient.
According to a U.S. Conference of Mayors the homeless population is diverse: · 20% work. · 22% are mentally disabled. · 11% are veterans. · 34% are drug or alcohol dependent.
Homelessness can often cause or be caused by serious health problems. Illnesses that are closely associated with poverty include tuberculosis, AIDS, malnutrition, and severe dental problems. Other health problems in society such alcoholism, mental illnesses, and physical disabilities are even more debilitating for the homeless, since they may have no shelter or money to manage the problem. People without shelter are likely to get frostbite, get infections, or be victims of violence, even in public shelters. They are also more likely to cohabitate with drug addicts, alcoholics, and/or others with disease. Each year millions of homeless people in the United States need important health care services but most do not have health insurance or cash to pay for medical care. Finding health care is an enormous challenge for the homeless.
One of the most dramatic findings to emerge from the 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC) is the tremendous growth in the number and variety of homeless assistance programs during the late 1980s and early 1990s. There is now a virtual industry of homeless assistance programs, and initial analyses of NSHAPC data provide a first glimpse at this system of programs: in February 1996, about 40,000 programs across the country received an estimated 3 million service contacts in 21,000 service locations. Housing programs are the most common type of program (40 percent of the total), followed by food programs (33 percent), and health programs (7 percent). Other types of programs account for the remaining 20 percent of homeless assistance programs. About one-half of homeless assistance programs are located in central cities, another one-third is in rural areas, and the remaining 19 percent are in suburban/urban fringe communities.

Runaways
Runaways are usually middle school children who have decided they no longer want to live with their parents. They leave home for a number of reasons, like child abuse, alcoholism, pregnancy, and poverty. Some are children who have been pushed out of the hose by a parent. We don’t know the number of runaways. We know that they tend to move to the urban centers, and engage in prostitution, drug abuse, and begging.

AIDS
AIDS is the leading killer of people between the ages of 25 and 44. Because the disease can be acquired by adolescents, its impact has yet to be determined. Since 1981, 441,000 Americans under 26 have contracted AIDS, More than 25,000 of these people have died. In 1993, for every 100,000 people, 35 died of AIDS, compared with 32 who died from accidents. The Centers for Disease Control report that more than 60,000 AIDS cases are discovered every month in the US.

Teen Pregnancy
The average adolescent mother is white, and in her late teens. Childbearing among teenage girls is not an epidemic. In fact, the birth rate is lower that it was in the 1950’s, and significantly lower than it was in the 19th century. For every 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 19, there were 90 births in 1955, 68 births in 1970, and 51 births in 1996.
The average marrying age of a girl in the 1960’s was 20.
Most of the teens having babies in the 1970’s were married.
In the 1980’s, 55% of the girls between 15 and 19 having babies were not married.
In the 1990’s, that number had risen to 68%

• Sex Education

Teen Suicide
It is estimated that as many as 5,000 adolescents take their lives every year. Native American adolescents kill themselves at a rate ten times greater than white teenagers, and white teenagers commit suicide five times more often than black teenagers.

Juvenile Violence and Crime
Juvenile Justice System
Traditionally, most communities are flexible with children in trouble. Schools use special support services designed to counsel students. Community centers also help troubled children under 18 years of age. When children continue committing crimes, or commit serious offenses, they are taken into custody and charged with an offense. At that time, adolescents are classified as juvenile delinquents, and if convicted, place in detention facilities, such as jails.

    • Juvenile Delinquents
Juvenile delinquents are people under the age of 18 who commit a crime or statutory offense. They are not often charged as adults. Juvenile delinquency proceedings differ from criminal proceedings. The courts make repeated attempts to help adolescents succeed.

    • Delinquent Children
The US Department of Justice reports that more than 30% of all crimes in this country are committed by children 17 or younger. More than 11% of all arrests for crimes were children 14 or younger. Almost 20% of all delinquent children are charged with violent crimes, while more than 30% are charged with property crimes.

Gangs
Violence Prevention Strategies
School Culture
Classroom Culture

The School and the Family
“Traditional” Families
    • Families with one wage-earner
    • Families with two wage-earner
Non-Traditional Families
    • Single parent families
    • Children of divorce
    • Latchkey children

The School and the Family
Invisible “Families”
Family Violence
Gangs and Violence in the Classroom
Child Abuse
Chemical and Substance Abuse

Wk	Topic	Assignment
1	Introduction/overview of the Course BCAP Process Student Teaching Process Defining the Teaching Profession	Orientation Form Student Teaching Evaluation Kohl: Ten Minutes a Day
2	The Teaching Profession The American School	Schultz: Ch 28, 34, 35, and 37 Giroux: Teacher Education & Democratic Schooling In-class reflection paper
3	Social/Cultural Foundations The American School	Schultz: Ch 9, 10, 11, and 12 Dewey: Progressive Education
4	Social/Cultural Foundations Educational Philosophies Educational Theories	Schultz: Ch 15, 16, 17, and 25 Plato: Allegory of the Cave In-class reflection paper
5	Purposes of Schools Purposes of Curriculum Curriculum and Instruction	Schultz: Ch 2, 7, 8, and 13 Apple: Reproduction, Contestation, and Curriculum
6	Organization of Schools Role of Federal, State, and Local Entities	Schultz: Ch 14, 26, 27, and 29 Illich: Deschooling Society In-class reflection paper
7	Organization of Schools Students Rights and Responsibilities Public-School Board Meeting Paper	Schultz: Ch 4. 6. 9, and 33 Darling-Hammond: Restructuring Schools for Students Success
8	Organization of Schools Funding Education	Schultz: Ch 22, 23, 24, and 31 Kozol: Savage Inequalities/Amazing Grace In-class reflection paper
9	The School Community Schools and the Child Observation and Participation Report	Schultz: Ch 1, 3, 5, and 21 Lareau: The Importance of Cultural Capital
10	Educational Reforms Effective Classrooms Newspaper File	Schultz: Ch 38, 39, and 40 Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed