A)ignore them; they probably don’t matter. b)celebrate them by making more. This way Prof. Turner pays attention to me. c)ask my roommate what she thinks

a) ignore them; they probably don’t matter.b) celebrate them by making more. This way

Prof. Turner pays attention to me.c) ask my roommate what she thinks I should

do to get a good grade on this paper.d) ask Prof. Turner. He probably knows what

he meant. And because he’ll be the one to give me a grade, it behooves me to take his advice. He might, just might, also know something about writing in psychology.

If I don’t understand one or more of the comments Prof. Turner made on my paper, I should

Schools

• Current Context– History of Schooling– Curriculum: rigor or relevance– What makes a good school?

• School Organization– School and Class Size– Age Grouping: School transitions – Ability grouping: Tracking

• School Climate– School Violence– Post high school

Schools




Function of schools

Schools as a medium for…

• Education• Basic academics

• General “liberal” education

• (Elite) intellectual training

• Vocational training

• Preparation for adulthood• Family life

• Citizenship

• Employment and finance

• Social change

• Social control

The Rise of Schooling

Compulsory Compulsory education for education for adolescents is a adolescents is a recent advent in recent advent in AmericaAmerica

In other Western In other Western countries, a countries, a similar trend took similar trend took place.place.

Secondary Education Around the World

Secondary Education in Industrialized Countries

USA, Canada, Japan –

Comprehensive High School

European Countries: College Preparatory Vocational School Professional School

Some European countries have apprenticeship programs

Benefits and drawbacks to these different systems?

In Developing Countries…

Latin America – public secondary schools overcrowded and underfunded; private schools for wealthy

China and Japan – admission to university for highest performing students

Arab Countries of North Africa --- secular education system, influence of Islam is strong

Sub-Saharan Africa – lowest rates of literacy; enrollment varies across countries

India – colonial origins & British model; 50% of adolescents enrolled

Gender gap not prevalent; economic gap is.

Japan – nearly all graduate high school

China – less than 75% attend

Girls’ enrollment is rising as marriage age rises

Rates of enrollment low for girls

Less than 50% attend overall

Sharp differences by gender, class and rural-urban residence

International Comparison: Grade 8 Achievement Tests

Countries that perform the best?Countries that perform the best?

Lowest ranking of all Industrialized Countries?Lowest ranking of all Industrialized Countries?

Lowest performance?Lowest performance?

Industrialized Western Countries;Industrialized Western Countries;Japan, S. KoreaJapan, S. Korea

United StatesUnited States

Developing Countries in Africa, Developing Countries in Africa, Latin America and AsiaLatin America and Asia

Secondary School in America: Changes

19th CFor the wealthy,

esp. males;Broad liberal arts

1920Training for work and

citizenship; college prep,

vocational training

Mid-20th CExpanding

school population; curriculum expands to

include family life, arts

1980sBack to Basics

movement

What social and political factors mediated these What social and political factors mediated these changes in the school system?changes in the school system?

Origins of Compulsory Education in America

• Industrialization– Many families could make

ends meet without the labor of their adolescents

– Greater need for skilled and reliable (adult) workers

• Urbanization and Immigration– Rapid population growth led to

overcrowding, slums, crime– Compulsory secondary

education was a means of social control, to improve lives of poor and working classes

Schools




School Reform: What Should Schools Teach?

1970s Relevance

1980s Back to Basics: Math, science, reading

Early 1990s Critical/Higher-Order Thinking

Late 1990s Rigorous Academic Standards: Emphasize High Tech training

Today Standards-Based ReformNo Child Left Behind (2002)

School Reform:What Should Schools Teach?

• No Child Left Behind Act (2002)– Mandates that all states ensure that all students, regardless of

economic circumstances, achieve academic proficiency on standardized annual tests

– Schools that repeatedly fail face losing funding, being forced to close

• Addresses problem of social promotion• Advancing students regardless of their academic competence or

performance

• Introduces problem of teaching to the test for teachers who are under pressure to get kids to pass annual exams

School Reform: Education in Inner Cities

• Some have argued that low American academic achievement was concentrated among poor/minority youth in inner cities

• Why has school reform failed in urban schools? – Increasing concentration of poverty in certain inner-city

communities has led to a population of students with very grave academic and behavioral problems

– Urban school districts are burdened by administrative bureaucracies that impede reform

– Students report less sense of belonging to their schools– Erosion of job opportunities: Little incentive to remain in

school or put effort into academic pursuits

Schools




Characteristics of good schools

• Emphasis on intellectual activities– Challenging curriculum

• High quality teachers• Self-monitoring (meta-cognitive)• Community integration• Active learning

– Higher-order thinking

School Engagement

•Public vs. Private schooling–Worry of elitism–“Free-market” model of education

•Education vouchers

•Charter schools

Public Schools vs. Private Schools

• To encourage better schools and competition among schools for better students, parents given more choices of where to send their children

• Government-subsidized education vouchers – Used to “purchase” education at a

school of one’s choosing–private or public schools

• Charter schools– independent public schools that

operate as they wish

Public Schools vs. Private Schools

• Recent research has suggested that private schools aren’t necessarily more effective than public schools– Family background is more important influence on

achievement than school quality– True even for charter schools in urban areas, hoped to be

the solution to public school problems in the cities

• Exception is Catholic (private) school:– Climate is different from public schools– Strong community values promote social capital, give

students additional resources– Most private school students feel more safe than public

school students

Good schools, good parents

• Two crucial dimensions

Responsiveness Demandingness

• What do these look like in parenting?

• What do these look like in school?

School Climate

• Includes….the kinds of interactions teachers and students have in the classroom, expectations of standards, methods used in the classroom….

Optimum School Climate

• Supportive teachers, involved with students, dedicated

• Firm but fair discipline

• High expectations for student performance and conduct

-Higher attendance-Higher achievement scores-Lower rates of delinquency

Engagement and Achievement

Engagement: Being psychologically committed to learning

Research indicates that more and more, students are “physically present but psychologically absent” (Steinberg, 1996, p. 67)

American High School Students’ School Engagement

Positive Impacts on Engagement

• Positive school climate

• Parents’ high expectations for achievement

• Parents’ involvement in their adolescent child’s education

• Parenting style: High demandingness and high responsiveness

Diversity of American Education

• Local and state level legislation and funding

• Results in diversity in curriculum, rules and requirements and resource disparity

• 1994 – “Goals 2000” est. by federal government toward national educational policy

• 2001 – “No Child Left Behind Act” passed provided federal funding for national testing, teacher training standards and evaluation

• Even still, only 5% of school funding is provided by the federal government

77% of Americans support national standards for academic performance (1997)

66% of Americans supported a national curriculum (1997)

Problems

• Lack of funding– especially in inner city schools

• Lack of focus– Ravitch (2000)

• Educational goals are too expansive• Different standards for different groups• Too much process, no content

Schools




School organization

Size– Size of school or size of class

• Which is more important?

– Less bureaucracy, more intimacy

– Stronger sense of connection

– Greater involvement in activities

School transitions– elementary secondary education

– Major differences between them?

The Organization of Schools: School Size

• Schools grew larger to offer a wider range of courses and services to students at decreased cost to taxpayers

• Student performance and interest in school improve when schools are more intimate – Schools within schools

Effective Schools: Size Matters

• Large schools – Offer diverse courses and extracurricular activities

• Small schools– Less diversity in offerings; students more likely to

participate in extracurricular activities

• Scholars agree: optimum school size for adolescents is?....

Between 500 – 1000 studentsBetween 500 – 1000 students

What size of school did you go to?

• Smaller school size encourages participation – Ideal size: Between 500 and 1,000 students

– In larger schools, students tend to be observers rather than participants

– Especially important for students whose grades are not very good to begin with

The Organization of Schools: School Size

The Organization of Schools: Class Size

• Classroom size– Research findings

misinterpreted by politicians who began emphasizing importance of small classes

– Does not affect scholastic achievement during adolescence, except in remedial courses

– Adolescents learn as much in classes of 40 students as in classes of 20 students

Insert photo from DAL

Scholars don’t agree: How do your experiences compare?

Effective Schools: Size Matters

• Some research claims direct negative relation between class size and academic performance

• Other scholars claim that typical variation (between 20 and 40 students) has little affect on achievement

• Small Class Size preferable for students with academic difficulties, more individual attention

Junior High, Middle School or Neither?

Plan Explanation

6-3-3 6 years elementary; 3 years junior high; 3 years high school

5-3-4 5 years elementary; 3 years middle school; 4 years high school

8-4 8 years elementary; 4 years high school

Which system did you attend? What were the benefits? Drawbacks? Which do you think is best, particularly with respect to transitions and adolescence.

Age Grouping and School Transitions

• Early 1900s– Two-school system– Elementary School (6 or 8 grades)– Secondary School (6 or 4 grades)

• Compulsory Secondary Education– Introduction of Junior Highs

• More recent years– Introduction of Middle Schools


• As children move into middle school or junior high– School grades and academic motivation drop

– Scores on standardized achievements tests do not decline

– Student motivation and changes in grading practices may be changing, not student knowledge

• Schools can combat these changes by reducing anonymity, hiring teachers with training in adolescent development, and strengthening ties between the school and community

Transition from Elementary School

In comparison to Elementary Schools, Jr. High Schools:

1. Place greater emphasis on teacher control and discipline.

2. Provide fewer opportunities for student decision-making, choice, and self-management.

3. Have teachers who spend more time controlling and less time teaching.

4. Have less personal and positive teacher-student relationships. Students perceive teachers less friendly, less supportive, and less caring.


• Classroom environment in middle school/junior high is different than elementary school– Teachers hold different beliefs about students– Teachers also hold different beliefs about their own teaching abilities– Developmental mismatch between what adolescents need and what they

get from teachers

• Junior high school students in more personal, less departmentalized schools do better in school than their peers in larger and more anonymous schools

• No uniform effects on all students during transitions (individual differences)

Schools and Adolescent Development

Low SES students– Rates of academic

progress during the school year are equal to high SES students

– Scores decline in the summer

• Summer school may reduce widening of achievement gap between affluent and poor students

Schools and Adolescent Development

• Most schools are not structured to promote psychosocial development

• For most adolescents, school is the main setting for socializing

• Grouping kids according to abilities• Advanced, regular, remedial classes• Advantages?• Disadvantages?• Ability – or stereotype?

• What is with the gender bias in math/science??

• Alternative: mainstreaming• Which do you favor?

Social Organization of Schools: Tracking


• Proponents argue that ability-grouping allows teachers to design class lessons that are more finely tuned to students’ abilities

• Critics argue tracking leads to problems– Students who are placed in the remedial track generally

receive a poorer quality education, not just a different education

– Socialize only with peers from same track– Difficult to change tracks once in place, especially for

minority students


• Sex and gender differences– Girls score higher on math tests in elementary school, yet are

less likely to be placed in high math track • Gifted students–score 130 or higher on IQ test• Learning disabled students

– Actual academic performance less than expected from IQ tests, no emotional explanation for discrepancy

– Assumed to have neurological problems• Mainstreaming of gifted and learning disabled students

into regular classrooms– Big-Fish-Little-Pond effect for gifted students– Problematic for learning disabled students

School organization

Desegregation vs. Segregation– Minority effect– De facto segregation– Becoming color-blind

The Organization of Schools: Ethnic Composition

• Landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings legally ended segregation of schools (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 1954; 1955)

• How does desegregation affect school achievement? Research findings mixed: – Desegregation has little impact on achievement levels of

either minority or white adolescents– Minority youngster’s self-esteem is higher when they attend

schools in which they are in the majority– African Americans who attend desegregated schools more

likely to graduate and continue education in college

Ethnic Differences in High School Dropout Rates

Ethnic Differences: Achievement

• What explains these differences?• Some differences are intertwined with issues

of social class, parenting practices, friends’ influences

• Systemic prejudice and discrimination

Schools




Violence in schools

• 50 years ago– Gum, back talk, making noise

• Today’s schools– Rape, robbery, shootings, assault– 1 of 4 students victims of violence– 1/3 boys carry weapon

• Problem specific to schools?– 20 students in 50 million killed at school– Hundreds more children killed at home

Violence in the School

• The past decade has seen numerous highly publicized murders in schools

• Yet, in recent years, there is an overall decline in violence in U.S. schools

• Widespread perception that U.S. have become more dangerous in the past decade

-Security practices in schools – e.g., metal detectors-Federal funding for violence prevention programs

-Research on bullying

School Violence

• One in four American high school students has been the victim of violence in or around school– Violence more common in overcrowded schools in poor

urban neighborhoods– Asian Americans targeted because of perceived teacher

preference toward these students– Zero-tolerance policies

• Lethal school violence– Widely publicized but rare, school shootings declined since

1990s– Increase in number of school-shooting related deaths because

of automatic weapons– Impossible to predict which students will commit these acts

The Climate of the Classroom

• How teachers interact with students, use class time, and the expectations they hold for students all influence learning and academic achievement

• Students achieve more when attending schools that are responsive and demanding, where teachers are supportive but in control

• Similar to the authoritative family environment

Beyond High School: The College Bound

• 1900– 4% 18-21 year olds

in college

• Today– 75% of high-school

graduates enroll in college (two-thirds do so immediately after high school)

College Attendance Through the Years

Characteristics of College Students

Recent high school grads that enter college?Recent high school grads that enter college?

Female Undergraduate population? Female Undergraduate population?

White students?White students?

60%60%

66.6%66.6%

56%56%

Asian Americans who enter college? Asian Americans who enter college?

60%60% Black students?Black students? 55%55%

Latino Students?Latino Students? 33.3%33.3%

Beyond High School: The College Bound

• College in the United States relative to other countries– More diverse and accessible– Wider variety of liberal arts, technical, vocational,

preprofessional schools• Rates of graduation lag far behind rates of enrollment

– Only 50% of all students who enroll in a 4-year college complete their degree within 6 years

Beyond High School: The Non-College-Bound

• Secondary schools are geared almost exclusively toward college-bound youngsters, even though one third of adolescents do not go on to college

• Rise in minimum-wage service jobs means less chance of making decent living without college experience

• Critics argue we should ease transition to adult world of work for those not interested in college by providing apprenticeship and advanced skilled job training

Documents

A)ignore them; they probably don’t matter. b)celebrate them by making more. This way Prof. Turner pays attention to me. c)ask my roommate what she thinks