Schools and the Future Summary

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Schools and the Future Summary

• (finally, a Powerpoint Presentation)
• (but for three hours???)
• (wheres the coffee?)

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Course organization (implicit)

• Contemporary topics
• Analytical approaches

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Topics

• Changing demography
• The new economy
• Technology
• Accountability
• Choice (private and public)

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Changing Demographics
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Questions on demographic trends

• What are the assumptions of demographic
  projections?
• What are the potential political and educational
  consequences of existing trends (and projections,
  if verified)?
• How does the rhetoric of educational politics use
  demography?

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More demographic issues

• Teacher v. student demographics
• What explains teacher demographics and the
  teacher shortage?
• Opportunity cost of teaching raised (good thing,
  for women)
• Social networks in recruiting teachers
• Gender roles
• History of feminization (Strober and Tyack 1980
  article in Signs).

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Residential segregation

• Are we moving towards hypersegregation in U.S.?
  (Massey and Denton)
• Globalization dividing us into capital, human
  capital, and labor? (Sandoe on Massey 96)
• Reorientation from race to poverty? (Lind)
• Jumps in logic in Massey and Dentons Chap. 6?
  (Wiley)
• Is education an answer to segregation? (Wiley)

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New Economy
I continue to believe, as many economists do,
that improvements in information technology have
already increased the efficiency and productivity
of the U.S. economy, with additional benefits to
come as both old and new companies adapt their
operations to make the most of the new
technologies. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Business
Week, 4/30/2001http//www.businessweek.com/magazi
ne/content/01_18/b3730032.htm
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Questions on the new economy

• What are the connections between education and
  the economy?
• What are the limits of those connectionse.g.,
  the confusing signals of employers (Taylor)?
• To what extent can schools predict and react to
  economic change, including the transformation of
  structure (Sandoe)?
• How does the rhetoric of educational politics use
  economics?

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Technology
The opportunity for innovative new educational
movements seems clear. Take the best course
material developed by universities and offer them
to everyone, no matter where they live, no matter
what time constraints they have. Let people learn
throughout their lives, learning when the need or
the desire arises rather than when it is
convenient for institution. And make the length
and style of the course be whatever is most
appropriate to the topic and the student. Let
some courses be a week long, others a year. Let
some require practice and experiment. Let others
be mostly reading and writing. Rigorously monitor
the quality of teaching make the quality of
instruction paramount. Hence the rise of distance
learning, or as I would prefer, distributed
learning. Donald A. Norman, http//www.jnd.org/
dn.mss/For-Profit_Universities.html
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Technology issues

• Russells (1999) no significant difference
  claim
• Cuban v. Negroponte (or Kongshem)
• How does the institutional aspects of school
  systems shape the use (or non-use or misuse) of
  technology?
• Technical problems and budgetary priorities
  (e.g., this year)
• Technical myths (e.g., photocopy v. printer
  costs)
• What fits into existing practices easily (or
  fits with pedagogical assumptions)?
• Buying (lag) v. Leasing (cost)
• What is high-touch?

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More technology issues

• What are the influences of technology on schools
  as institutions, and what are the limits of that
  influence?
• How does the rhetoric of educational politics use
  technology?
• Interdisciplinary work is tough (Wiley)

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Accountability

• (Feiffer Op-Art cartoon linking testing to real
  estate prices was here)

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Accountability issues

• What is the political context of accountability
  policies (history, structure, and consequences)?
• What are the institutional consequences?
• Reality is the pouring of resources into a D
  school. If you're in the middle, you get
  nothing. (Lind)
• Rules change every year (Wiley). That affects
  real estate values (Sweeney)
• Statistics as judgement Statistics shape our
  perceptions, and I look at accountability, how it
  dictates the freedom to teach or the lack
  thereof (Brimm).

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Choice
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Choice issues

• The residential segregation argument -- is it
  that applicable now? (Lind)
• School choice originally allowed white flight
  in the era of early desegregation in the 1950s
  (Taylor).
• At any given time, the school can dismiss the
  school for any reason, and the student comes back
  to the public schools without money (Brimm).
• Is there a history of paying private schools in
  special education? And for whose benefit?
  (Sandoe)
• Why do you want them to make the decision for
  you? (Sandoe)

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More choice issues

• More than just private choice public choice,
  vouchers, magnets, etc. Not always the affluent
  or gifted (Taylor).
• Community District 4 (Harlem) started as looking
  at the needs of kids and moved into choice.
  Pinellass motive was to get out from under the
  deseg. order. That's the flip side (Brimm).
• Success/failure
• Some were not successful (Taylor).
• There will be successes and failures (Sandoe).
• Bulkley describes how charter schools are not
  closed down for achievement (Ransbottom).
• Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all these
  reforms? (Lind)

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Main analytical approaches

• What explains change?
• How do ideas shape institutions?
• How do institutional habits shape practice?

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What explains change?

• Which issues commonly have functionalist
  explanations?
• Which commonly have conflict explanations?
• Which commonly have organizational explanations?

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The idea of school

• If you go outside of that accepted behavior,
  is this a school? (Snider)
• What kinds of ideas might administrators try to
  silence? (Ransbottom)
• Example Sex education is ...anatomically
  taught. But other kids would've seen open
  discussion as a green light. (Sandoe) Thats
  another institutional idea in schools, our
  children (political rhetoric as well as
  institutionalized language). (Ransbottom)
• Schools as institutions are like memes,
  self-perpetuating concepts/structures.
  (Ransbottom)

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The habits of organizations

• Definitions of success
• Cuban different definitions of success
  survival, fidelity, effectiveness (Taylor)
• Sarason success depends on point of view
  (Snider)
• Categories of change
• Cuban Difference between cyclical rhetoric and
  institutional developments (Sweeney)
• School as initiating agent (Brimm).
• Is Floridas A-plus plan a symbolic plan?
  (Snider)

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Habits of organizations, contd

• The process of change
• Sarason pessimistic on reform (Snider)
• Lack of time in schools
• Miscommunication
• Misunderstandings of school
• Schools are supposed to change schools, but the
  converse also happens. To me, its a
  collaborative effort towards adaptations
  (Sandoe).
• The folklore in schools everything changes in
  three years (Snider).

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Habits of organizations, contd

• What to do with success
• Theres a differeence between imitation and
  replication (e.g., people trying to imitate
  Langs promise of college scholarships without
  seeing what else went on) (Snider)
• Imitation implies perfection at the beginning
  (Sandoe).
• Sarason wants power relationships to change
  (Snider)
• Debate over TQM in class (Lind, Taylor, Sandoe)