Bureaucracy in Education

Federal government Department of education (No Child Left Behind)

State Department of Education (DESE)
Board of Education
Superintendent
Central Office Administrators Curriculum specialists, CFO
Building head principals
Assistant principals
Counselors
Building instructional specialists
Teachers
Students






Formal schooling
Education that is provided and regulated
by society

Ch12 Section 1
Advantages of formal education (aka
bureaucratic or factory model)

Tendency to specialize in subject areas
Age based classrooms
Efficiency
Educate more students for less money
Criticisms of Formal schooling
Children are not inorganic raw materials
made to be molded into factory products
Too rigid
Too standardized .b/c one-size does not
fit all
Not individualized


Your Opinions
List five things that are wrong with
Ursuline


List five things that are right or positive
about Ursuline
positive
Serviam
Uniforms
Interesting teachers
Pretty campus
Math lab
Advisement
Students are given
Autonomy
Friendly environment

Teach values
Strict
No one left behind if they
ask for help
Nice administrators
Classes are fun
Options with electives
complaints
No discipline
No options for classes
teachers dont care
Bad food
Lame teachers
Arent flexible
Laptops
Little academic emphasis

Inflexibility
Too much busy work
Little discussion ALL ppt
We get little respect
Unhappy teachers
Costs a lot
Too many movies

Educational success
and its obstacles
parents


teachers


students
School reforms
Democratic reforms in the
classroom
Open classroom
A non-bureaucratic
approach to
education based on
democracy, flexibility
and noncompetitive
learning.
Enhances and
reinforces creativity

Montessori philosophy
every child helps decides
his-or her approach to
learning.


Cooperative
learning
Pg 391

Instructional method that
relies on cooperation
among students

Students learn together
and teach together
Integrative curriculum
Pg 391

an approach to
education based on
student-teacher
cooperation

Open Classroom experiment
1. Pick a topic in sociology (in this chapter)

2. Decide how you want to
(a) gain more knowledge about the topic and
(b) demonstrate your knowledge

1. Get it approved by ME then Begin the
process

Must have proof of work done
Topics must be connected to Sociology
Demonstration ideas
Make a skit that exemplifies an idea or
sociological concept
Create poem that demonstrates idea
Draw or illustrate ideas that typify a
concept
Write a story that uses sociological
concepts




Create a collage that exemplifies an idea
or sociological concept
Break down a story (from Am. Lit, for
example) explain how it relates to
concepts in sociology
Assessment based on
Scope

The area covered by a
given activity or
subject
Depth

How deep you go into
the content you cover
the complexity of
the topic
Back To Basics Movement
pg 393
Gov. report A Nation at Risk
Stated that Gov. report A Nation at Risk

Stated that Americans were deficient in
education and therefore were at risk of
being taken over (economically) by world-
wide competitors

Back to Basics Movement
prompted Schools to return back to teaching
the basics
Example:
4-years math
4-years science
4 years reading/writing
4 years of social studies

School Choice Movement
Voucher system
pg 393
A system by which public funds may be
used to support tuition (payment) to a
school of your choice

Charter schools
pg 394

Publicly funded schools that operate like
private schools by public school teachers
and administrators


Magnet schools
pg 394
Public schools that focus on particular
disciplines or areas fine arts, science,
technology, etc

For profit schools
Pg 394

Schools that are operated by private
companies on government funds.

Educational Tracking (398)
The European model of education
Schools place students in tracked
programs according to their academic
ability.
Examples:
College-bound track
Service industry track
Carpentry track
Technical service track
Nursing track
Business track




School
School desegregation
The achievement of racial balance in the
classroom

Multicultural education
An education curriculum that emphasizes
differences among gender, ethnic, and racial
categories
Compensatory
education

Specific curricular programs designed to
overcome a deficiency
ex. head start

Pros and cons of
educational reform
Using as graph, indicate (at least) one advantage and (at least)
disadvantage of each educational reform movement

Voucher system
Charter schools
Magnet schools
For profit schools
Tracking
School desegregation
Multicultural education
Compensatory education

Sociological perspectives

(1) Functionalists perspective
emphasizes the positive functions of the educational system

(2) Conflict perspective
emphasizes the inequities and negative aspects of the educational
system

(3) Symbolic interactionism
emphasizes how culture transmits attitudes and values




Section 2

Functionalist
on education
Schools serve a purpose; they create a
common identity for all students

Manifest functions intended results
Latent functions unintended consequences

Page 400
Conflict perspective
Popular conceptions about education are not necessarily true
Theories
Meritocracy
A society in which social status is based on
ability and achievement

Competition
A system in which rewards are based on
relative performance

If one is rewarded for ACT scores, does
this mean American education is a
meritocracy?

Or are some at a disadvantage?



Educational equality

An attempt to produce the same results for
lower-class and minority children as it
does for other children
Intelligence
Cognitive ability
Capacity for thinking abstractly

Cultural bias
unfair measurement of the cognitive
abilities of people in some social
categories
http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligence
ChitlingTestShort.html


School desegregation
The attempt to achieve a racial balance in
the classroom


Compensatory
education
Specific curricular programs designed to
overcome educational deficiency

Symbolic
interactionism

We dont know how to learn, we learn how
we know


Hidden curriculum
The non-academic agenda that teaches
discipline, order, cooperativeness, and
conformity

a hidden agenda is also present in textbooks
Espousing patriotism, civic duty and responsibility

Self-fulfilling prophecy
A prediction about oneself that results in
behavior that makes the prediction come
true