Intro to Education Ch. 9 Quizlet

John Goodlad

- In his massive 1980s study, A Place Called School, John Goodlad confirmed these broad expectations of schools. He examined a wide range of documents defining the purposes of schooling for over 300 years of history. He and his colleague found four broad goals: 1) Academic, 2) Vocational, 3) Social and civic, and 4) Personal - asked parents, teachers, and students to rate the relative importance of these goals. The result: they listed all four as "very important!" (Not so helpful.) When pushed to select one top priority goal, approximately half the teachers and parents selected academics, while students spread their preferences fairly evenly among all four categories, with high school students giving a slight edge to vocational goals. It seems that no one wants to interpret the purpose of schools narrowly - It doesn't matter how many bills and how many policies you lay down from on high—when it comes right down to it, the individual school has an incredible capacity for rejecting it passively or taking it on and doing something about it."

John Taylor Gatto

- agrees with Paulo Freire, arguing that compulsory, government-run schooling has more to do with control than learning. Referring to them as more prisons than learning centers - a population deliberately dumbed down and rendered childlike in order that government and economic life can be managed with a minimum of hassle - U.S. school system ultimately intends to generate barely literate, conformist consumers without real knowledge or much capacity to get knowledge

educational voucher

A coupon issued by the government, representing money targeted for schools. In a voucher system, parents use educational vouchers to shop for a school. Schools receive part of all of their per-pupil funding from these vouchers. In theory good schools would thrive and poor ones would close for lack of students.

homeschooling

A growing trend (but a long time practice) of parents educating their children at home, for religious or philosophical reasons.

merit pay

A salary system that bases a teacher's pay on performance.

magnet schools

A specialized school open to all students in a district on a competitive or lottery basis. It provides a method of drawing children away from segregated neighborhood schools while affording unique educational specialties, such as science, math, and the performing arts.

value added

A statistical measure showing the contribution of teachers and schools towards growth in student achievement. Value-added measures are increasingly used to determine which teachers are rewarded and which teachers are replaced.

tenure

A system of employment in which teachers, having served a probationary period, acquire an expectancy of continued employment. The majority of states have tenure laws.

virtual schools

A type of distance education offered through the internet. Virtual schools provide asynchronous learning and may offer specialized courses not typically found in traditional schools.

on

Beyond the Five Characteristics: Early start: The earlier schools start working with children, the better children do. High-quality programs during the first three years of life include parent training, special screening services, and developmentally appropriate learning opportunities for children. Such programs are rare, but those that are in operation have significantly raised IQ points and have enhanced language skills. However, school-based activities shouldn't overshadow the developmental and learning benefits of unstructured play away from school and natural family interaction at home. Estimates suggest that every dollar spent in early intervention programs saves school districts $7 in special programs and services later __________.

deteriorates

Beyond the Five Characteristics: Focus on Reading and Math: When children can't read at grade level by the end of the first grade, they face a one-in-eight chance of ever catching up. Students who do not master basic math concepts also play catch-up throughout their school years. Effective schools identify and correct such deficiencies early, before student performance _____________________ .

performance

Beyond the Five Characteristics: Increased Learning Time: Though not an amazing insight, research tells us what we already suspect: More study results in more learning. Longer school days, longer school years, more efficient use of school time, and more graded homework are all proven methods of enhancing academic learning time and student ______________________ .

poor

Beyond the Five Characteristics: Parent Education and Support: Wealthy parents invest more time and money in their children, while poor families, often single-working-parent families, are stretched for time and resources. Schools and society need to close these gaps by taking a more active role in enriching the educational and social experiences poor children receive outside of school. If we don't, we risk creating or extending a two-tiered educational system, one for the wealthy, and a second-rate system for the ____________ .

life

Beyond the Five Characteristics: Parental Involvement: Learning is a cooperative venture, and a strong school-home partnership can build a more positive attitude toward academic achievement and social well-being. Such partnerships also build the trust needed for greater success. Not surprisingly, teachers' expectations for student success rise when parents become more engaged in school life. Technology can support school-home connection, although low-income and rural communities may have less digital access. Some schools use texting services, Twitter and/or other messaging platforms to engage families in school ________________ .

teachers

Beyond the Five Characteristics: Professional Development: Researcher Linda Darling-Hammond reports that the best way to improve school effectiveness is by investing in teacher training. Stronger teacher skills and qualifications lead to greater student learning. Conversely, students pay an academic price when they are taught by unqualified and uncertified ________________ .

size

Beyond the Five Characteristics: School Size: Some studies find that, when compared to those attending large schools, students in small schools learn more, are more likely to pass their courses, are less prone to resort to violence, and are more likely to attend college. Studies also show that disadvantaged students in small schools outperform their peers in larger schools. Many large schools respond to these findings by reorganizing themselves into smaller units, or schools within schools. But this may be a bit simplistic, because students in some very large schools also do very well. More research is needed to clarify the importance of school _______________ .

aide

Beyond the Five Characteristics: Smaller Classes: Although the research on class size is less powerful than the research on school size, some studies indicate that smaller classes are associated with increased student learning, especially in the earlier grades. Children in classes of 15 outperform students in classes of 25, even when the larger classes have a teacher's ________________ .

green schools

Schools recognized by the School Department of Education as offering healthier learning environment with clean air and water, nourishing and natural foods, nontoxic cleaners, and more outdoor activities. Academic performance often improves in green schools and absenteeism decreases.

metric

Teacher and Reform: Another plan to bring accountability to teaching is merit pay: which bases a teacher's salary on performance. Merit pay certainly sounds fairer than seniority, but many merit pay systems base merit salary raises to a great extent on student test scores—a one-dimensional evaluation ____________ . History suggests that linking teacher pay to student performance may not work in the long term. Merit pay was first tried back in 1710 in England, with teacher salaries tied to student test results. You can probably predict the outcome: schools became all about test preparation. Historians David Tyack and Larry Cuban write: "The history of merit performance-based salary plans has been a merry-go-round" as districts initially embrace merit pay, only to drop it after a brief trial. Despite these failures, school officials keep "proposing merit pay again and again." Will it work this time? Will tenure disappear? Will skeptical teachers join the reform movement? It boils down to trust.

protect

Teacher and Reform: Older teachers or teachers with graduate credits are not necessarily the most skilled. Let's take tenure as an example. Historically, if you teach well for your first three years or so, you will earn tenure, a job protection that guarantees or enhances your continued employment. Tenure has proven essential to academic freedom by protecting teachers from arbitrary dismissal if they teach an inconvenient fact, discuss an unpopular idea, or have a personality conflict with an administrator. But tenure also has been used to ______________ incompetent teachers. If you have had such a teacher, you know how bad the experience can be.

crucial

Teacher and Reform: Students and School Reform: Too often, schools ignore students' social, emotional, psychological, and developmental needs. The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development warns that a quarter of adolescents do not have caring relationships with adults, guidance in facing often overwhelming biological and psychological changes, the security of belonging to constructive peer groups, and the perception of future opportunity. Students report that when they feel sad or depressed, they turn for help to friends (77 percent) or family (63 percent) first. Only 33 percent of the time do they seek out educators. Connection between students' life experiences and their school relationships is ________________ .

classroom

Teacher and Reform: Recently, the focus of teacher evaluation has started to shift toward classroom performance. Teacher evaluations and salaries were linked to student test scores. This approach is called value added: how much value each teacher added to the student's education. In theory, value-added metrics would objectively determine which teachers are rewarded (with extra pay, for example) and which teachers are replaced. But as we've already learned, theory often sounds better in the description than in the reality. Despite its popularity, dependence on student test scores to measure teacher effectiveness is fraught with problems. Many students don't test well, regardless of what they learned. Even if tests were perfect measures, test scores represent only one dimension of a person's education. Then again, teachers are not the only factor influencing student scores. Fortunately, some teacher unions, administrators, researchers, and politicians are working together to develop more comprehensive and equitable evaluation methods, e.g., combining videotaped samples of teaching with student test scores to assess teacher effectiveness. Other useful teacher evaluation data might include how class time is used, a nurturing and respectful classroom climate, and the quality of questions asked by both teacher and students. As one researcher put it: "Value-added scores don't seem to be measuring the quality and content of the work that students are doing in the _________________ .

schools

Teacher and Reform: Rethinking Reform: Charter Schools will Improve Education: Some charter schools are impressive and successful. But, charters are no panacea. For example, most families and students making the extra effort to attend charter school are already highly motivated—which may explain a big part of charter success. National research strips away much of charter schools' glamour, documenting that about 80 percent perform at a level comparable to or "significantly" weaker than local public schools. We do not believe that charter schools alone are likely to improve the nation's _______________ .

pay

Teacher and Reform: Rethinking Reform: Merit Pay Will Improve Teaching and Learning: Many states have adopted teacher evaluations and merit pay as the path to better schools, but research does not support the concept that merit pay leads to better student achievement. In fact, most teachers are drawn to teaching for reasons other than salary—which, of course, doesn't justify paying them poorly. Most teachers also prefer cooperating rather than competing with their colleagues. Later in the text, we will explore what truly motivates teachers and students (hint: it is not merit ________________ ).

attends

Teacher and Reform: Rethinking Reform: Private Schools Are Better Than Public Schools: This largely unchallenged assumption has prompted some state governments to increase private school enrollment through vouchers. Yet there is little evidence that students are better prepared academically or do better later in life because of a private school education. Parents' education, race, wealth, and other demographic factors are more predictive of academic and future success than the kind of school a child __________________ .

improved

Teacher and Reform: Rethinking Reform: Schools Are In Deep Decline: U.S. schools have not entered a new age of dramatic deterioration, despite the media headlines. For decades, the percentage of Page 273Americans earning a high school diploma has risen. While U.S. students—especially those who are poor and English language learners—lag behind many students in Asia in some subject areas, many U.S. schools are performing well on the world stage. Since 1995, the typical U.S. elementary and middle school student scores have ________________ .

insights

Teacher and Reform: Rethinking Reform: Test scores tell us which students, teachers, and schools are doing well. Are the scores on high-stakes standardized tests the measure of an education? We believe that this measure of a person's education is short-sighted. An education should also honor a student's unique gifts, talents, creativity, and _________________ .

culprit

Teacher and Reform: Rethinking Reform: Unions Protect Weak Teachers: Teacher unions fail when they protect incompetent teachers. But most unionized teachers are competent and work hard to promote student achievement. Teachers are not the only factor critical to student success. Some schools are in terrible shape, without basic facilities, instructional materials, or even adequate heat, plumbing, and insulation. In addition, students bring a myriad of dilemmas to school, including neglect; hunger; economic, medical, mental, and emotional problems; homelessness; and linguistic difficulties. It takes more than teachers to resolve these fundamental social problems. Most teachers are doing an admirable job, sometimes under difficult circumstances. While critics complain that teacher unions exist in some of the nation's weakest school districts, they also exist in the nation's strongest school districts. Many other nations that score high on international tests also have strong teacher unions. Finland, for example, trusts its unionized teachers to be at the center of education decision making, doesn't use standardized tests to evaluate teachers, and still comes out near the top of international testing scores.116 It is illogical to cast unions as the ________________ .

for

Teacher and Reform: Rethinking Reform: We Must Train Workers to Successfully Compete In the World Economy: This goal brings us back to the central question we asked you at the beginning of this chapter: What is the purpose of schools? The current reform movement assumes a single, overarching purpose: to prepare workers to compete in a global economy. This is certainly a goal, but should it push aside all other goals? The many challenges facing our nation deserve schools' attention: the growing gap between the rich and the poor, a divided electorate, assimilating immigrants, overcoming racism and sexism ... the list can go on and on. And every item on the list forces us to find multifaceted answers to the question: What's a school ____________ ?

forums

Teacher and Reform: Students and School Reform: Statistics suggest that students drop out of school more from boredom than from academic failure. If students were engaged in education reform, what changes would they envision? Here's a sample of how middle and high school students throughout the United States and Canada answered that question: - Take me seriously. - Point me toward my goal. - Challenge me to think. - Make me feel important. - Nurture my self-respect. - Build on my interests. - Show me I can make a difference. - Tap my creativity. - Let me do it my way. - Bring out my best self Some schools where trust is strong do listen to students. In these rare schools, students participate in textbook selection, writing school behavior policies, and designing new school buildings. In some high schools, students participate in hiring the principal, teaching others how to use technology, mentoring younger children, researching their dream careers, and organizing school ___________ .

yet

Teacher and Reform: The Importance of Trust: Meaningful school governance, improvement, and reform depend on trust. Teachers in schools without trust naturally cling to job security (like tenure) for protection and are unlikely to try new strategies. If we expect teachers to help reform their schools, they need to feel safe and trusted. They must also be genuinely part of the process. Teachers in trusting schools thrive, and so do their students. The researchers found that student academic performance improves when trust is present in a school. You probably already know what a trusting school looks like. People respect one another, even when they disagree. Rude behavior is not tolerated. Teachers and parents listen carefully to each other, and they keep their word. Tenure is not used to protect weak teachers, and competent teachers are recognized for their talents. Educators willingly reach out to students, parents, and one another. Nothing is more important than the welfare and education of the students. We hear a great deal about school reform but too little about creating trust in schools. Clearly, if reform is going to work, teachers need to be trusted partners at the center of the effort. That isn't happening often enough, at least not _________ .

20

The Schools We Create: - In 1918, compulsory elementary school attendance finally became the law in all states, but even then only _____________ percent of teens aged 14 through 17 attended some form of high school—without necessarily graduating. - Polling suggests that most Americans give their local public schools an A or B grade. Good news. But less than 20 percent rate the rest of the nation's schools that highly. Bad news.

vouchers

The Schools We Create: Vouchers: An underlying belief of this model is that private schools are more effective than public ones—and that rewarding the former will force the latter to change their ways. vouchers appear to have little impact on student achievement while reducing funding to public schools. Nevertheless, many of the same forces promoting the charter school movement are also pushing for greater acceptance of _______________ .

de facto

The Schools We Create: Charter Schools: - By their nature, charter schools face some different economic and academic pressures than neighborhood public schools. - Most income comes from per-pupil funding, so charters must often find additional ways to pay for unique programs and goals. And, since it's easier to close under-performing charter schools, their leaders can be under intense pressure to meet academic goals - But poor test results are one source of pressure that can lead to serious malfeasance in charter schools. Sometimes it is just bad management - Children with severe disabilities seldom (rarely) attend charters, and are far more expensive for "traditional" schools to educate effectively—forcing them to bear a disproportionate cost at the expense of their other students. - Traditional schools must still pay fixed costs (maintenance, electricity, heat, bond service, administration) even as they lose funding when their students move to charter schools. - Civil rights advocates argue that charter schools increase racial and economic segregation in the nation's public schools. - The NAACP, the United States' oldest civil rights organization, called for a moratorium on privately managed charters because they lack transparency and accountability, expel too many children of color, and perpetuate _______________ segregation.

publically

The Schools We Create: Charter Schools: - In the early 1990s, Minnesota created the first charter school, launching an idea that mushroomed into more than 5,000 charters, teaching more than six percent of all public school students, with higher rates in many urban districts. - A charter school is a tax-supported public school with legal permission (called a charter or a contract) to operate an "alternative" school. - In effect, charter schools gain greater freedom to operate outside many normal public school regulations—but only for a fixed period. - A local or state school board issues the charter (usually for five years) with the right to renew if the school is successful. Most charter schools are __________________ funded and privately run, often by a for-profit corporation.

decisions

The Schools We Create: Charter Schools: - Nationwide, few charter schools have student transportation—a major barrier for less affluent families without the flexibility or means to get their children to schools outside the neighborhood. - Language barriers, family socioeconomic status, and parental social networks also affect charter school access. - Some charters offer teachers more freedom than the traditional neighborhood school, allowing educators to create their own standards and curriculum, establish rules for discipline, plan programs with colleagues, and even make budget ________________ .

illegally

The Schools We Create: Charter Schools: - Other charters place greater demands on teachers and have more structured operations. - Small class sizes and a high level of individualized instruction with students at risk of school failure place intense demands on teachers. - A Stanford University study found that about one in five charter schools offered a better education than local schools, while 37 percent were "significantly worse," and the rest offered a quality of education similar to traditional schools. - Other studies find similar results: As a group, charter schools are no more effective than public schools. Low-income students "would on average be more likely to score better in a public school than a charter school." - In Wisconsin, researchers found that attendance at charter schools had more negative impact on public school student test scores than poverty did. - Many charters struggle to find appropriate facilities, retain qualified teachers, and develop adequate technology or library resources. - After all, they also have fixed costs (maintenance, electricity, heat, rent, administration), and per-pupil funding may not cover it all. - This can create a vicious circle, since neighborhood schools simultaneously lose per-pupil funding to the charter school. - To make up the shortfalls, corporations and even some state governments are funneling more public and private money into charters. - This raises concerns about financial oversight, influence exerted by corporate and other donors—as well as incidents where charter dollars may be spent unwisely or ________________ .

rules

The Schools We Create: Charter Schools: A charter school typically: 1. Creates its own curriculum and structure 2. Cannot use admission tests 3. Builds a new school, converts an existing building, or creates a virtual school 4. Hires its own (often non-unionized) staff 5. Receives public funding based on the number of students enrolled 6. Accepts additional private funding 7. Solicits parents to enroll their children 8. Must be nonsectarian 9. Must demonstrate improvement in student performance 10. Can be closed if it does not meet expectations 11. Does not need to conform to most state education rules and regulations 12. Must follow government health, safety, and civil rights _____________

Shimon Waronker

The Schools We Create: Charter Schools: created the school to function like a trusting family, rather than an education factory. Teachers move up grade levels with the same children year after year, so relationships are long term. You might not expect Waronker to revitalize one of New York City's most violent junior high schools or create a radically different charter school. He grew up speaking Spanish in South America, became a U.S. Army intelligence officer, and is an observant Jew. Many doubted that a bearded white man in a traditional black suit and yarmulke could relate to poor minority students. But he succeeded at using globally researched practices that prepare students for today's collaborative world—replacing traditional U.S. schools, which Waronker believes are based on twentieth-century Prussian schools that strove to create docile subjects and workers.

Tom Watkins

The Schools We Create: Charter Schools: director of the Detroit Center for Charter Schools, describes three types of charter advocates: 1. reformers 2. zealots 3. entrepreneurs Reformers: want to expand public school options for parents and children, and promote a specific approach, such as student-centered learning. Zealots: tend to use a private school model, emphasize traditional, teacher-centered curriculum, and avoid teachers' unions. Entrepreneurs: believe schools operating like efficient businesses can teach students well, reward investors, and turn education into a profit center

transportation

The Schools We Create: Green Schools Green schools: offer healthier environments with clean air and water, nourishing and natural foods, nontoxic cleaners, and regular outdoor activities. Green schools are a focal point of the environmental movement, reducing teacher and student illness and sick days. They promote energy efficiency and sustainability through recycling, solar and wind energy, and alternative means of ____________________-.

neccessary

The Schools We Create: Full Service Schools for the Whole Child: Creating such full-service schools can be tough in low-income neighborhoods, where school buildings are often underfunded and left in disrepair. Programs like HCZ tackle the challenge anyway. These schools are open most of the day and 11 months a year, recognizing that children cannot learn if their families are in distress or if they come to school tired, hungry, or abused. "In communities where kids are failing in record numbers, you can't just do one thing," "We start with children at birth and stay with them until they graduate from college. ... In the end, you have to create a series of supports that really meet all of their needs." Unfortunately, full-service schools are rare. The concept challenges educators and communities to radically shift their notions of what a school can do. Whether public or charter, full-service schools are expensive, impressive, and ___________________ .

traditional

The Schools We Create: Home Schools: Critics point out that children learning in a physically isolated homeschool environment are also isolated from people with diverse beliefs and backgrounds. Such isolation could undermine the national cohesion goal for public schools to meld a single nation from people with differing backgrounds Homeschool advocates answer by citing how homeschooling's flexibility allows for volunteering, part-time employment, travel, and other non-traditional learning—with a wide range of social interaction with people of many backgrounds and ages he median annual income is between $75,000 and $80,000; over 80 percent of homeschool mothers do not work outside the home, and most homeschooling parents have a college degree Some critics also express concern about homeschoolers using religious-influenced curricula that disparage evolution. However, homeschooled children do quite well school achievement tests and earn higher GPAs in college than conventionally schooled students. Professors describe them as more self-directed and willing to take risks than the _________________ student.

year

The Schools We Create: Home Schools: Homeschooling is a paradoxical form of school choice: the decision to educate a child at home, rather than send her or him to a neighborhood or any other school. About three percent of the school-age population was homeschooled in the 2011-12 school ___________ .

approaches

The Schools We Create: Home Schools: Many misconceptions persist about homeschooling, such as most homeschooling families are religious fundamentalists. While there are religious reasons for homeschooling families, there are other reasons as well. Some families opt for homeschooling to resist gender inequity, age segregation, lack of individualized attention, drugs, bullying, and peer pressure in schools. While hundreds of thousands of families homeschool, educational approaches differ. Some families may use a fixed curriculum seven hours a day, a fixed curriculum two or three hours a day, no curriculum at all, online learning, classes or activities in a homeschooling group, classes or activities at a local high school or college, formal or informal service learning, or a combination of ________________ .

agencies

The Schools We Create: Home Schools: Parents' most frequently stated reason for homeschooling their child (91 percent) is a concern about the environment of other schools. Government regulation of homeschool families varies widely by state. In 25 states, homeschool students don't undergo outside evaluation (like standardized testing); 14 states don't require specific subjects in a homeschool curriculum, and 11 don't even make homeschool families register with state or local education _______________ .

magnet

The Schools We Create: Magnet Schools: A magnet school attracts students by offering one or more special programs, such as math, music production, language immersion, science, technology, and/or other specialties. Some magnets are associated with local institutions like museums or industry. In theory, highly regarded programs draw students from near and far like a _____________.

students

The Schools We Create: Magnet Schools: In the 1960s and 1970s, the magnet idea gained additional momentum as a method to racially desegregate schools voluntarily. For example, an arts magnet school established in a predominantly African American neighborhood would draw interested white students from other neighborhoods or towns, and the result would be an integrated school. Once again, real life didn't always match the theory. While the schools integrated, many of the classrooms did not. Often, African American magnet school students were enrolled in the standard high school classes, while white students were enrolled in the magnet classes. As U.S. communities themselves grow more segregated by race and socioeconomic class, magnet schools are less able to integrate ________________ .

charter schools

The Schools We Create: Magnet Schools: Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet (part of Metro Nashville Public Schools) is the first U.S. high school with its own student-run record label. Relentless Music Group partners with Warner Music Nashville to produce original student songs, music videos, and more. Donors gave the school a recording studio, control room, and two editing suites. Demonstrating a magnet school's innovative possibilities, Pearl-Cohn students use audio engineering problems to learn Algebra. About 2.6 million students attend roughly 4,000 magnet schools today. Unfortunately, many suffer from underfunding, especially for essential services like student transportation (less glamourous than recording studios). Nevertheless, magnet schools tend to be more effective and racially integrated than public neighborhood or ____________________ .

parents

The Schools We Create: Vouchers: In the pre-voucher 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court constructed clear walls limiting the use of public funds to support religious education. In Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971): the Court established three criteria for using government funds in religious schools. The so-called Lemon test says that the funds (1) must have a secular purpose (2) must not primarily advance or prohibit religion (3) must not result in excessive government entanglement with religion. The wall separating church and state got lower in 2002, when a more conservative court revisited the issue. In a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris: that publicly funded vouchers could be used to send children to Cleveland's private religious schools. The majority argued that government-funded vouchers were not public monies going to support religious schools. Rather, the court interpreted vouchers as public funds going to _______________ . It is the parents who decided to spend the money at a religious school, not the government. Critics claimed that this was tortured reasoning and a flimsy attempt to paper over unconstitutional state funding of religious institutions. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist disagreed—stating that vouchers permit a "genuine choice among options public and private, secular and religious."

county

The Schools We Create: Open Enrollment: As with charter schools, some aspects of open enrollment look better on paper than they do in real life. Take geography, which plays a major role in a family's school choice options. For example, more than half of Minnesota's 5.5 million people live within about a 50-mile radius of Minneapolis-St. Paul. If you're a parent, your child can choose dozens of urban and suburban high schools across the metropolitan area (depending on your tolerance for traffic). But say you live 300 miles north in International Falls (population 6,300) on the Canadian border; your child's nearest "alternative" high schools (all rural) are 22, 69, and 101 miles away. Open enrollment (and other reforms) is beyond the reach of many rural families. When smaller school districts gain students through open enrollment, increased per-pupil funding can allow those districts to expand programs for both local and open enrollment students. Not all competition centers on academics, however. For example, some smaller districts in "first-ring" suburbs offer all-day kindergarten, free breakfast, and transportation to attract families who live in nearby, large, urban districts. As with charter schools, the evidence is mixed. A 10-year study of open enrollment in Mahoning County, Ohio (including the "rust belt" city of Youngstown) found that students who moved to a new district for open enrollment performed at similar levels as those remaining in the home district. However, open enrollment students performed, on average, slightly above their peers in the new district, even if they had lower scores when they arrived. Researchers determined that both effects were amplified for students who left Youngstown City Schools, the very lowest-performing district in the _____________ .

district

The Schools We Create: Open Enrollment: In 1988, Minnesota eliminated the requirement that students must attend the public school closest to their home. The state moved to open enrollment, which allows parents to send their student to any Minnesota public school with available space. In most cases, this means switching to another school in the same school district, or one in a neighboring district. Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and other states soon followed and introduced open enrollment legislation to increase school choice. In 2015, the only states without open enrollment were Maryland, North Carolina, and Indiana (outside of Indianapolis). However, several states only allow choice within the student's local school _______________ .

free

The Schools We Create: Virtual Schools: In 2004, hedge fund analyst and MIT graduate Salman Khan received an urgent SOS from his young cousin Nadia. She was struggling with math in her Louisiana school, and didn't want to be put in a lower math track. Khan understood and began tutoring Nadia by phone (successfully) from a thousand miles away. Soon word got around the family: free tutoring from Salman. Before long, 15 cousins were on the phone. To lighten the load, Kahn created a Web site with instructional YouTube videos. Eventually, he and some colleagues created Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org/), teaching 5,000 STEM courses and tutoring millions of students of all ages, at home, at school, and around the world—for ________________ . However, Khan Academy is an exception, rather than the rule. For instance, for-profit companies provide management, teacher training, curriculum, and assessment to about two-thirds of online charter schools. Like other charters, taxpayer, corporate, and philanthropic funding can make virtual schools profitable. At the same time, corporate support for online learning in traditional schools is growing rapidly. Millions of students and teachers use Google Apps, Skype, and other online tools in school. Facebook introduced a free student-directed learning system in partnership with the nonprofit Summit charter school network, while Amazon Inspire offers free instructional materials to teachers.

180

The Schools We Create: Virtual Schools: On average, annual online student achievement was equivalent to __________ fewer days of math learning and 72 fewer days in reading. While online charters have relatively high student-to-teacher ratios, they simultaneously have low student engagement, high student mobility, and limited live student-teacher contact. Most operate with no or very few tutors, teacher aides, instructional assistants, guidance counselors, and other support for students and their families. Synchronous teaching (with technologies like web conferencing, Skype, and phone calls) can replicate some in-person teaching interactions, but its potential remains largely untapped: "Students in a typical online charter school have less synchronous instructional time in a week than students in brick-and-mortar schools have in a day."

reform

The Schools We Create: Virtual Schools: provide access to a wealth of online learning from pre-school through to university, without brick-and-mortar costs like maintenance of buildings, playgrounds, parking lots, and the like. Virtual schools are now an important—and controversial—part of school _______________ .

difference

The Schools We Create: Vouchers: - functions as an admission ticket to any school. - In a voucher system, the government gives parents a certain amount of money (variable by state) which parents can use to "shop" for the best public or private school. - In effect, vouchers are public taxpayer money that parents use in any school they want. - The chosen school gets paid by turning in the student's voucher to a local or state government, and the government pays the money the voucher is worth. - In theory, good schools will attract many students, collect their vouchers, redeem them with the local government, and receive cash. - The theory goes, good schools will thrive, and perhaps even expand. Meanwhile, weak schools will have difficulty attracting "customers" and eventually go out of business. - Voucher-fueled competition would leverage tried-and-true market forces to reform schools, and once again the ideas of choice and competition will make a wonderful _________________ .

90

The Schools We Create: Vouchers: A major barrier for vouchers historically was that most private schools were and (and still are) religious schools. In 1990, Wisconsin lawmakers approved the first publicly financed voucher program. Students in Milwaukee (Wisconsin's largest city) could receive about $3,000 each to attend one of Milwaukee's few nonsectarian (and expensive) private schools. Since that didn't generate much movement, legislators amended the law in 1995 so students could also attend parochial schools—which generally have lower tuition rates. In general, vouchers offer too little financial support for elite and expensive private schools but enough to cover the modest cost of many parochial schools. Unsurprisingly, religious schools are the prime beneficiaries of vouchers, receiving upward of __________ percent of voucher students.

altogether

The Schools We Create: Vouchers: Despite the Zelman decision, some state constitutions still restrict public aid to private and religious institutions. Many states and school districts forego vouchers __________________ .

studies

The Schools We Create: Green Schools The U.S. Department of Education promotes this education reform by awarding a Green Ribbon to schools that do exemplary work in promoting environmental and sustainable education, use energy effectively, and create a healthy school climate. "Green" education doesn't necessarily mean retrofitting buildings or building new ones. For instance, Maryland joined the green school movement by requiring that all high school graduates be environmentally literate. Maryland schools have a great deal of independence in designing interdisciplinary programs to promote environmental understanding and action. Sustainability, smart growth, and the health of our natural world are now part of core subjects like science and social _________________ .

advertising

The Schools We Create: Public Schools as Profit Centers Business interests and wealthy individuals also influence the expansion of school reform that might become profitable. For example, Washington State voters soundly defeated a statewide initiative to establish public charter schools in 1996. They did so again in 2000. And again in 2004. But in 2012, a fourth public charter school initiative squeaked by with 50.69 percent of the vote. A small group of tech and retail billionaires spent more than six dollars per signature to get the 2012 initiative on the ballot, and millions on pro-charter ________________ .

school

The Schools We Create: Public Schools as Profit Centers More than $500 billion is spent every year on K-12 education in the United States. Overall, education accounts for nine percent of the gross domestic product. The growing number of charter schools under private management has contributed to substantial profits. However, charter school privatization hasn't led to better student achievement. Many unsuccessful for-profit schools close and investors lose their money. For now, outsourcing discrete school services to businesses is a lot less risky and more profitable than creating, operating, and being accountable for a privatized charter ___________ .

cards

The Schools We Create: Public Schools as Profit Centers This trend is called privatization: transferring a public service, like education or prisons, to a private, for-profit business. Even within traditional neighborhood schools, businesses have a big stake in textbooks, transportation services, equipment like smart boards, security apparatus and personnel, tutoring services, standardized tests (and scoring those tests), and even performing clerical tasks like writing report ____________ .

Ernest Boyer

The idea that the school must undertake to meet every need that some other agency is failing to meet, regardless of the suitability of the schoolroom to the task, is a preposterous delusion that in the end can wreck the educational system."17 Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of Americans believe that schools are responsible for the academic, behavioral, social, and emotional needs of all students.

privatization

The movement towards increased private sector for-profit involvement in the management of public agencies, including schools.

Acculturation

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: This is a nation of immigrants, and schools still have a major obligation to integrate immigrant children into U.S. culture. Some states—Arizona and Massachusetts, for example—passed laws requiring that schools only use English when teaching non-English speaking students. Acculturation is essential, so schools should teach students to adopt our language and values quickly so that they can navigate successfully in our culture.

open enrollment

The practice of permitting students to attend the school of their choice within their school system. It is sometimes associated with magnet schools and desegregation efforts.

climate

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 1: Strong Leadership: Researchers say that students make significant achievement gains in schools in which leaders: 1. Articulate a clear school mission 2. Are a visible presence in classrooms, hallways, and elsewhere 3. Hold high expectations for teachers and students 4. Spend a major portion of the day working with teachers to improve instruction 5. Are actively involved in diagnosing instructional problems 6. Create a positive school ______________

fail

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 1: Strong Leadership: When Robert Mastruzzi started working at Kennedy High in the Bronx, there was no school. Workers built walls around him as he sat in an unfinished office and contemplated the challenge of opening a new school—while being a principal for the first time ever. During his years as principal of John F. Kennedy, Mastruzzi's leadership style has been collaborative, actively seeking faculty participation. He wants and expects his staff to participate in decision making. He encourages them to try new things, and use their right to __________ . For example, one teacher organized a school rock concert but failed to have precautionary plans in place (800 adolescents showed up, many high or inebriated). Mastruzzi realized that the teacher learned from the experience, and let her try again. The second concert was a great success. "He sees failure as an opportunity for change," the teacher said. Other teachers describe him with superlatives, such as "he is the lifeblood of this organism" and "the greatest human being I have ever known."

vague

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 2: A Clear School Mission: In effective schools, even extremely busy principals somehow find time to develop and communicate a vision of what that school should be. Successful leaders clearly articulate the school's mission, and stress change, innovation, and improvement. In contrast, less effective principals are _____________ about their goals and focus on maintaining the status quo. They make such comments as, "We have a good school and a good faculty, and I want to keep it that way."

school

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 3: A Safe and Orderly Climate: Before students can learn or teachers can teach, schools must be safe. Despite horrific headlines about school shootings, today's classrooms and hallways are safer than they have been in years. Between 1992 and 2014, total school victimization rates for students ages 12-18 declined 82 percent. between 1992 and 2014, victimization of students ages 12-18 away from school dropped 86 percent. Most teachers and students report feeling safe in school. There are notable exceptions; for example, LGBTQA students are three times more likely than their peers to feel unsafe in _____________ .

tension

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 3: A Safe and Orderly Climate: Despite popular beliefs, metal detectors and school guards don't create a safe learning environment. Safe schools focus on academic achievement, the school mission, family and community involvement, and creating an environment of respect for teachers, students, and staff. Student problems are identified early, before they deteriorate into violence. School psychologists, special education programs, family social workers, and school-wide programs increase communication and reduce school ___________________ .

contention

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 4: Monitoring Student Progress Effective schools carefully monitor student progress with: 1. Norm-referenced tests comparing individual students with others in a nationwide norm group (e.g., the Stanford, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, or the SAT). 2. Objective-referenced tests measuring whether a student has mastered a designated body of knowledge (e.g., state assessment tests). 3. Teachers asking students to track their own progress in reaching course objectives—so they assume more responsibility for their own learning. These important measures of student learning are often overlooked. 4. Homework, which increases student achievement scores from the 50th to the 60th percentile. When teachers grade and comment on homework, achievement jumps to nearly the 80th percentile. (How much homework to assign and what constitutes the most effective homework tasks continue to be points of _________________ .

benefits

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 5: High Expectations: In effective schools, educators hold high expectations that students can learn, and teachers translate those expectations into their behavior inside and outside the classroom. They set objectives, work toward mastery of those objectives, spend more time on instruction, and actively monitor student progress. They are convinced that students can succeed. Equally key is whether students believe that high expectations are real—rather than lip service. If students don't know the expectations, or trust their integrity, the expectations are unlikely to work. Unfortunately, there is substantial disconnect between expectation beliefs in schools. Only 25 percent of students believe their secondary school holds high expectations for them, compared to 39 percent of teachers—but more than half of principals. We need to do a better job of communicating these expectations to students and making certain that these expectations truly challenge students. There is also evidence that when teachers hold high expectations for their own performance, the entire school _________________ .

achievement

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 5: High Expectations: The teachers were excited. After eight months of work, a group of their gifted students received extraordinary scores on a test predicting intellectual achievement during the coming year—just as the teachers hoped and expected. But there was a catch—the teachers had been duped as part of a research project. The students identified as "gifted" had been selected completely at random. Nevertheless, these students showed significantly greater total IQ gains than a control group of children not identified as gifted. Without realizing it, the teachers created a self-fulfilling prophecy. This famous experiment by researchers Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson seemed to show that students learn as much—or as little—as teachers expect. While Rosenthal and Jacobson's 1968 methodology is often criticized, there is now extensive evidence showing that high teacher expectations do, in fact, produce high student achievement—and low expectations produce low _______________________ .

male

What Makes Schools Effective: Factor 5: High Expectations: When we recognize the incredible power of expectations, it's essential to examine how teacher, staff, and administrators' judgments (conscious or unconscious) shape expectations. For example, good-looking, well-dressed students fit a certain stereotype, so educators (and others) tend to think those students are smarter than their less attractive peers. Often, ___________ students are thought (thus, expected) to be brighter in math, science, and technology, and girls are viewed (and expected) to do better in language skills. Students of color are sometimes perceived as less capable or intelligent—and hampered by lower expectations. One or two student "errors" can also influence expectations. Poor performance on a single standardized test (perhaps due to illness, stress at home, or an "off" day) can lead teachers to inaccurately belittle a student's ability for months or years to come. Even casual comments in the teachers' lounge can shape the expectations of other teachers throughout the school. When teachers hold low expectations for students, they often treat these students differently, in unconscious and subtle ways. Typically, they offer such students: - Fewer opportunities to respond in class - Less praise - Less challenging work - Fewer nonverbal signs of acknowledgment (eye contact, smiles, positive regard)

Work Readiness.

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: "If you want to get a good job, you better get a good education!" The nation's economic well-being depends on an educated workforce that can compete in the global economy. Tens of thousands of U.S. jobs go unfilled because people don't have the skills to perform those jobs well enough. Our nation can't survive generations of unemployed or underemployed citizens.

Global Knowledge

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: As many other countries do, our schools advance a U.S. view of history, values, self-interests, and culture. Students learn little about the history, geography, language, and culture of other countries—or of our own cultural diversity. For students to thrive in our ever-more-connected world, today's schools must create multilingual global citizens who thrive by knowing and appreciating wider horizons of cultures, histories, and values.

Social Mobility

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: For decades, U.S. public schools provided a ladder out of poverty and illiteracy, fulfilling the "American Dream." Now, people who are citizens of many other nations are able to advance themselves through education more successfully than Americans. One reason is that a college degree has become "the new high school diploma," necessary for good-paying jobs and economic mobility in the twenty-first century.5 But these degrees are out of the financial reach of many Americans. We must change this, make college more accessible, and give K-12 students the vocational skills to move forward even if they don't attend college.

Service Learning

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: In 1992, Maryland began requiring students to perform community service before they could get their high school diploma.9 All schools should use service learning to connect students with the larger community and develop their personal responsibility for improving society.10 More than half of students in grades 6 through 12 already do service learning, but we must reduce gender, race, and other factors that reduce participation.

Academic Curiosity

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: Not enough students have internal motivation to learn. We need to create self-directed students and citizens. We can't predict what tomorrow will demand, so to maintain our creativity, innovation and inventiveness, schools need emphasize curiosity over learning a fixed body of information.

Academic Competitiveness

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: Our students need to rank first in the world on international tests of science, math, and technology. U.S. students currently rank lower than too many other countries, and we certainly do not want to fall behind rapidly emerging economies like China and India. Being the best country on earth means being a world leader on international tests.

Civic Loyalty and Responsibility

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: Our students should be citizens first, with deep love of country and firm understanding of their civic obligations. We must teach them to value our country and its democracy enough to die in their defense. They must learn to engage in the larger community by volunteering, voting, participating in politics, respecting different opinions, and enduring the uncomfortable compromise inherent in a democracy.

Social Change

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: Our world is far from ideal, and school is a perfect tool for making the needed repairs. For example, Baltimore school students organized a photo exhibit of their decaying school buildings. While lobbying for increased construction and repair funds, they gave state legislators a guided tour via their photos, exposing broken heaters, moldy walls, library shelves without books, cockroaches, a stairwell filled with garbage, and broken windows.2 Students must face society's critical challenges, and as adults become social change agents.

Ethical Personal Development

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: Schools should focus on making students more honest, ethical, kind, and compassionate. The disturbing degree of white-collar crime, business and political corruption, and cheating in and beyond school speaks to the need of stronger ethics in our nation. This includes each of us learning to make responsible decisions in our daily lives, like avoiding products made by exploited children overseas.8 Being an ethical person is the most important goal any school can have.

Artistic Creativity

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: Schools should promote creativity in the arts and develop each student's skills and talents. New York City's High School of Music & Art and High School of Performing Arts have done this since 1936 and 1947, respectively.4 Honing artistic skills, preparing for performances, and presenting work to the public all teach students real-life applications of math, literature, science, and interpersonal skills.

Child Care

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: Since a large majority of U.S. parents now work for pay—most of them outside of the family home—schools should be a caretaker for their children, or our entire society will be in jeopardy. We should simply accept that "school isn't actually about efficient teaching; it's about free all-day babysitting while parents work." Schools also function to delay the day when young people enter the workforce and compete with their elders for jobs. We should embrace these societal benefits, and stop pretending that a school's top priority is academic advancement.

Empowering the Powerless

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: There's a big difference between schools and education. Radical educator Paulo Freire argued that schools often miseducate, working to control and oppress people, while true education liberates.7 We must help disadvantaged peoples learn to read, act collectively, and improve their living conditions, even if it means taking on current social norms. We should also educate privileged students to be allies with the dispossessed and build a better, more equitable society.

Academic Basics

Why Do Schools Exist: School Goals: Too many students graduate or drop out of school without basic literacy and numeracy skills. Old-time schools succeeded by focusing on the "three Rs" (reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic). We need to make sure every student learns to master math, and to speak, read, and write English proficiently. Let's return to tradition, rather than continue the waves of disruptive and unproven "reform."

teacher expectations

may vary based on gender, class, racial and ethnic, background of students. As a result, these students may be taught differently and their academic performance suffers.

full-service schools

schools that provide a network of social services from nutrition and health care to parental education and transportation, all designed to support the comprehensive educational needs of children.

Acculturation

the acquisition of the dominant culture's norms by a member of the non dominant culture. The non dominant culture usually loses its own culture, language, and sometimes religion in this process.

academic freedom

the opportunity for teachers and students to learn, teach, study, research, and question without censorship, coercion, or external political and other restrictive influences.