Summary
Four Theoretical Frameworks (to help guide later discussions of policy)
- Competing values- values are cyclical with importance in US culture. They change and shift between order and individualism, democratic values, and economic values.
- Lowi's policy types- historical periods influence/dictate what type of policy is used/wanted at the time.
- Institutional choice- policy incorporates five different types of institutions (and can incorporate more than one to varying extents)- bureaucracy, legalization, professionalization, politics, and the market
- International convergence- our systems overtime become closer to those of international systems
Chapter 12 focused on going through time periods and showing how the four theoretical frameworks were applied, with a focus on the educational system. It started with the birth of the US as a country (young republic) where education wasn't a national focus to the rise of common schools in the mid 1800s where education and some form of compulsory education began to take form. The scientific sorting machine and searching for a new paradigm take us to present where issues of tracking at the school level and more bureaucratic at the national level begin and continue to take effect.
No Child Left Behind is discussed at a policy level and why it was allowed/passed into law and if it is in fact achieving its goals.
Reactions
I found it interesting that we started with Chapter 12 rather than Chapter 1 or another chapter close to the beginning of the book, but I appreciated the non-linear nature of reading the Fowler book. In going through history and seeing how educational policy has changed, it is almost amazing to me how legalized education has become. I see this contrast at the law school-- we were the first law school, starting with John Wythe teaching whatever he felt like to this highly rigid form of education. The founders did just find with poor apprenticeships with lawyers to be the leaders of a nation, yet we critique lack of experience for all leaders today. I get it; it just amazes me about how far we came. Did we move in the right direction?
Some quotes that stood out to me:
pg. 314- "Americans have long regarded education as a cure-all for whatever ails the nations"
In defense of NCLB (the quotes are, not necessarily me)
pg. 319- "represent the resolution of the education reform movements of the 1980s and 1990s"
320- "might have found it impossible to pull together the votes to pass an education reform law if 19 terrorists had not flown airplanes into the World Trade Center..."
320- "teeth or enforcement mechanisms"
321- "pay more attention to certain children than they have in the past"
325- "It is extremely difficult for people whose salaries are paid with public money and who operate schools and school systems using public money to sounds credible when they object to standards and assessments"
Chapter 3
Summary and Reactions
This chapter talked about the economy and demographics. What stood out to me was how the economy at the time greatly affects policy and school spending (no surprise there). In addition, I enjoyed reading about demographics within the country and how the suburbs are increasing, urban schools get less funding as poverty rates increases in urban and close suburban areas to city centers, and how diversity is increasing.
Long-range trends in regards to funding were in three ways: do more with less, do a lot more with a little more, and do a lot more with a lot less. This puts the burdens on the school systems and private industry to education children through the system. Chapter 12 said that many times education is seen as a cure-all for whatever ails the nation, but if there isn't an investment in education, how can it cure anything?
I was interested in the pro-con debate: should the schools teach all children a core curriculum? I initially thought yes, they absolutely should. When I thought about it more, I was thinking of a core curriculum like in a college setting, rather than a prescribed everyone do exactly the same thing in order to graduate. I do think there should be some commonalities across schools and classes, but there needs to be some flexibility for students as individuals and for the community that the school interacts with.
The draw back of going a bit out of order is what is assumed about everyone's background. Having the introduction of the four frameworks get you thinking about these lenses early on. You'll begin to see some of the points for synthesis as time goes on. The level of thinking will become addictive for you :-)
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