Final Project Education and Inequality Enrollment at New York City’s K-12 schools is surging, and there is more demand for public education than ever. Meanwhile, the city’s fiscal crisis has put the Department of Education’s budget on the chopping block, with drastic reductions proposed — cutting programs, eliminating extracurriculars, and threatening laying off teachers. With more students registering for classes and its operating budget slashed, the DOE’s future is in jeopardy. But this morning, the Daily News reported that an anonymous donor has just bequeathed $1 billion dollars to the DOE, with the sole stipulation that the funds be used for the development of a new experimental high school. This is enough money to fund the high school’s construction and cover its entire operating budget for the next 20 years. Imagine you’ve been hired by the DOE to chair the commission that will design the new school. Chancellor Meisha Porter wants your advice on every aspect of the school from its physical layout, to entrance requirements, to employment practices, to curriculum and pedagogy. You’ve been given complete and total leeway, and Porter tells you she’s interested in experimenting with new and innovative ways of learning. Your task is to prepare a preliminary report, which will be submitted to the chancellor and the mayor for review. Keep in mind, money is no obstacle, so you can be as inventive as you want, but make sure to include explanations for all of your decisions. Here are some of the items you may wish to cover. These are just suggestions, you are not required (or expected) to include every one. Siting Mayor De Blasio has given you permission to locate the school wherever you want — even if it means exercising eminent domain and knocking down existing buildings. The only requirement is that it must be somewhere within the five boroughs. Where is the ideal location for the new school? (You may wish to consider the following: Location of existing schools, neighborhood need, public transportation access, proximity of culture and other amenities) Physical Layout Schools come in all shapes and sizes. What will the school look like? How will the building be organized? Will the building include a performing arts center, student meeting spaces, a gym, or any other specialized facilities? You may wish to enclose a map. Curriculum Will teachers be issued standardized textbooks, or will they have the freedom to implement their own lesson plans? Will course offerings consist mainly of “pre-professional” programs, or a broader liberal arts curriculum? Will there be any required courses, or will students be allowed to take whatever they want? Employment Practices Will the school provide teachers with job security and tenure protections? How will teachers be compensated? How will teachers be evaluated and promoted? What position will the school take with regard to academic unions? Will the school include students and faculty in academic governance? Pedagogy What would a “typical” class session look like at your new school? Which pedagogical techniques and teaching styles will your teachers use? Will the classes consist primarily of lecture or discussion? Will you arrange the seats in convention rows or in some other formation? What kind of instructional technology will be made available? What philosophy of education will you adopt? Will the courses even take place in traditional classrooms? Evaluation Will students be evaluated with letter grades, written assessments, or some other way? Will tests be administered, and if so what will they measure? Entrance and Degree Requirements What will be the criteria for admissions? Will there be any entrance requirements at all? Likewise, how will you determine who is allowed to graduate? Equity How will your school confront the various dimensions of inequality covered in this class (race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, geography, etc)? What kinds of programs or initiatives will it use to empower disadvantaged students and strive toward equality? ************************************************************** Other Stuff Please submit minimum 5 pages, double spaced, with a 12 point font and one inch margins. The upload field is under “Assignments” on Blackboard. This assignment is due by midnight on Tuesday May 17. No outside research is required for this assignment. You can draw exclusively upon your textbooks, and, if relevant, your own observations of the education system. If you choose to quote directly from any source, be sure to use quotations and proper citation format. Even if you don’t quote directly, all sources must be carefully documented.
Reading 2: Getting Started: Understanding Education Through Sociological Theory
Social ClassReading 5: Social Reproduction
Reading 11: A Broader and Bolder Approach Uses Education to Break the Cycle of PovertyPedro A. Noguera
Reading 27: Growing Economic Inequality
Reading 28. The Rules of the Game and the Uncertain Transmission of Advantage:
RaceReading 30: Explaining Racial Variations in Education
Reading 34: Only Here for a Day: Social Integration of Minority Students at a Majority White High School
Reading 35. The Challenge of Diverse Public Schools GeographyReading 12:Good Schools, Rich Schools; Bad Schools, Poor Schools
Reading 35:The Challenge of Diverse Public Schools: Why America’s Public Schools Are So Unequal
Reading 29: The Geography of Inequality: Why Separate Means Unequal in American Public Schools
Gender
Reading 7. Chilly Classrooms for Female Undergraduate Students: A Question of Method?
Reading 32: Gender and Education
Reading 45: Inexcusable Absence: Who Are the Out-of-School Girls—and What Can Be Done to Get Them in School?
Sexual OrientationReading 17. “Why Can’t We Learn About This?”: Sexual Minority Students Navigate the Official and Hidden Curricular Spaces of High School
Reading 31: “Rednecks,” “Rutters,” and ’Rithmetic: Social Class, Masculinity, and Schooling in a Rural Context
Role conflict
Reading 21. The Status of Teaching as a Profession
Reading 22. Perils and Promises: Middle-Class Parental Involvement in Urban Schools
Reading 23. Make Students Part of the Solution, Not the Problem
Pedagogy and Curriculum
Reading 24. Monuments Between Covers: The Politics of Textbooks 8
Reading 25. The Changing Face of War in Textbooks: Depictions of World War II and Vietnam, 1970–2009
Reading 26. Facts or Critical Thinking Skills? What NAEP Results Say
Higher Education
Reading 39. The Unintended Decentering of Teaching and Learning Reading
40. Beyond the One-Size-Fits-All College Degree Reading
41. The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower
Solutions
Reading 48. Deschooling Society Reading
Reading 49. How Schools Really Matter
Reading 50. Can Schooling Contribute to a More Just Society?