A100: Week 1 Welcome!. Questions for Today 1.What features affect the performance of the school system? 2.What does the United States system look like.

A100: Week 1

Welcome!

Questions for Today

1. What features affect the performance of the school system?

2. What does the United States system look like today?

3. What people, events, and ideas led to the school system we have today?

4. To what degree does schooling today represent a departure from the past, and where is history repeating itself?

Lecture: 4:10 – 4-55

Section: 5:00 – 6:05

Lecture: 6:10 – 6:05

A Question to Get Us Started

Say you went to another country and you wanted to understand the performance of its school system.

What features of the system would you want to know about and why?

9 Dimensions Shaping Schooling

• Funding – Fed, state, local, distribution

• Governance (federal, state, local) – who decides what

• Organizational form – From “one room schoolhouse” to “one best system” to what? (including charters, home schooling, etc.)

• Pedagogy – What is taught and how

• Politics and interest groups – Which groups are important?

• Teachers – Who teachers are, how they are trained

• Context and political economy

• Social and cultural norms

• Goals for schooling

Some Key Features of U.S. Education

American system highly decentralized…

No national tests No national curriculum States set content standards, districts set

curriculum – wide variation 50 states, 15,000 districts, 100,000 schools

Funding of schools reflects decentralized legacy

• Funding through local property taxes can lead to wide disparities across districts

• States finance suits lead to topping up

• Federal Title I money for high poverty districts

• Funding – 8.5% federal, 48% state, 44% local


Context is key – 4 systems in one

Urban schools – high dropout rates, low test scores, low morale, concentrated poverty

Middling schools (urban and suburban) – low test scores by int’l standards, mediocre standards, uninspired teaching, etc.

High quality suburban schools – strong by int’l standards, funding, social and cultural capital

Rural schools – special challenges, parochialism, distance, dropouts


Public schools dominate the market

90% of students attend public schools Public schools are free and governed by local, state, and

federal governments

Private schools are paid for by parents and largely free of regulations (vouchers, tuition tax credits)

Most private schools are Catholic 49% Catholic, 36% other religious, 16% non-affiliated

Home schooling – 2.9%, roughly equal to number in charter schools


Charter schools Granted freedom from usual bureaucratic

rules in return for meeting terms of charter Charter schools are public schools Subject to NCLB 4,295 charter schools (07-08) 40 states have charter schools 2.6% of total public schools students


Who Does What in American Education?

States Standards for curriculum content Student testing requirements Graduation requirements

Teacher preparation requirements Teacher licensing and certification Collective bargaining laws

Drawing of district boundaries Statewide financing Charter school requirements

Content

Teachers

Structure and

financing


Districts Curriculum choices Choices of textbooks Student discipline

Teacher hiring Teacher salaries and job requirements Teacher professional development

Budgets allocated to schools Financing through property taxes Construction and renovation decisions

Content

Teachers

Structure and

financing


Federal govt Sets expected rate of improvement under

NCLB (does not set content) Escalating consequences for those that don’t

meet AYP

Standards that states must meet for “qualified teachers” for NCLB funding

10% total funds Funding for high poverty schools since ’65 Under NCLB, funding for all public schools

Content

Teachers

Structure and

financing

The Org Chart Vision of Schooling:What’s Missing?

District

State

Federal

School

• No Child Left Behind and fed acctbility

• State funding• State standards• State teaching requirements

• Curriculum• District hiring and prof. development• Local funding

What’s not on the org chart that matters?

What’s not on the org chart that matters?

• Interest groups

• Textbook publishers, commercial vendors

• Teacher preparation institutions

• Social and cultural norms

• Student demographics and changing political economy

• Goals for schooling

Your Task for Section

In subgroups

Timeline: Who/what were the key people, events and ideas that have shaped the school system we have today?

For discussion

What are the most important drivers in understanding the nature of the school system today? What kinds of factors matter and why?

Sectioning (by last name)

William’s section – Larson G01

Erica’s section – Larson 214

Adrienne’s section – Larson G01

Anne’s section – Larson 615

If you don’t know what section you are in, come see me.

Be back, seated and ready to go by 6:10 – we will be restarting then!

New Topic: Cycles and Trends

Cycles and Trends

Cycles Like a pendulum swing Often when two or more competing values

cannot be reconciled

Trends Unidirectional over long periods of time Impervious to cycles

See Tyack and Cuban (1995), McFarland (1991), Schlesinger (1986)

What features of American schooling have cycled?

?

What features of American schooling have cycled?

Centralization and decentralization Control or autonomy

Back to basics or higher order skills

Student-centered or material-centered

Public and private purposes of education (or collective and individual)

Cycles 2.0: Spirals

Circling around but not resting in the same place.

Examples of spiral

Testing for sorting vs. testing for “all proficient”

What features of American schooling have trended?

?


Local to state to federal

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Year

Per

cent o

f Spen

din

g Fr

om E

ach S

ourc

e

Local

State

Federal

Figure 2: Percent of Education Spending That is Local, State and Federal, 1920-2000

Source: Digest of Education Statistics



Greater concern with equality

Brown v. Board

ESEA 1965

School finance suits (1970s)

State quality reforms (1980s and 1990s)

NCLB (2001)




Backlash – protection of privilege

Silent majority (1968)

Milliken v. Bradley (1974)

Property tax revolts (1978)

Renewed privatization of schooling (1970-present)





Declining trust in the professions

Contradictory Legacies of the 1960s

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1966-67 1971-73 1974-1977 1978-80 1981-1983 1983-86Pe

rce

nta

ge

Wit

h "

A G

rea

t D

ea

l o

f C

on

fid

en

ce

" in

Le

ad

ers

of

the

In

sti

tuti

on

Education

Figure 1: American Confidence in Major Institutions, 1966-1986

Medicine

Military

Organized Religion

Major Companies

Executive Branch

Congress

Source: Lipset and Schneider (1986)





Declining trust in the profession (1965-present)

Growth of alternate providers Charter schools Home schooling Deregulatory models of schooling (TFA et. al)

Predicting the Future: Differentiating Cycles from Trends

The Only Constant is Change:One Sketch of the Future

Trends Continued federal role Distrust of schools

Demands for accountability/results Many groups seeking control

Continued demise of “one best system” Continued rise of alternatives to traditional schooling

Cycles Testing out (or at least diminished) Personalization in Non-economic purpose rises (or economic redefined)

A100: Week 1 Welcome!. Questions for Today 1.What features affect the performance of the school system? 2.What does the United States system look like.

Documents

funding of schools

public schools public

education slide

public schools subject

schooling slide

total public schools

key features of

financing slide