Class #12:
Equal Schooling
Discussion Questions for Class on October 5, 2009
Related Readings:
Kozol, Savage Inequalities, Chubb and Moe, "Root of
the problem", Tough, "A teachable moment"
These writing assignments are meant to help you think about the readings and to prepare you for class discussions. For that reason, when you write a response it is important that you give your opinions and that you relate your thoughts to the reading. Remember that these are exam questions and that they are graded as such. You ought to write them as though you are writing questions on a midterm or a final exam.
Respond to one of the following questions by writing a response on the class Discussion Board on Blackboard at least one hour before class on the date the question is listed. Put your name in the text of the question and give the question number as listed below. Without these I can't tell who wrote the question or what you are responding to. You then have until Midnight on the following Sunday of that week to revise your response if you wish to do so and to submit it for grading. To submit your responses, send them via email to milofsky@bucknell.edu.
Your final version of this question is due by midnight, Sunday, October 11.
12-1. Both Kozol and Chubb and Moe think that public schooling is deeply flawed. Explain their explanations for the flaws of schooling and tell how their diagnoses fit into the ideologies of helping given in Chapter Two of Hunter and Milofsky.
12-2. Kozol tells us that there is a crisis in public education. What is a crisis? Does a crisis imply that change is imminent, and if so are public schools as described by Kozol in crisis? This echoes the earlier question about whether social services are in crisis. Can the institution be in crisis if they keep functioning and the only symptom of difficulty is that kids do not learn, are not safe, and buildings are falling down?
12-3. Let us assume that Kozol's description of the New York public schools is accurate. What recommendatons with respect to change would we expect to hear from liberals, conservatives, and radicals and where would you place, first, Kozol and, second, Chubband Moe.
12-4. Kozol believes schooling must be public and that all children must be in the same system. He is quite explicit about the existence of economic inequality between the city and the suburbs. He also makes some comments about private education and people creating separate communities to provide education. Summarize what he has to say about privileged education and separate education. Why does he object? As a beneficiary of privileged education, what do you think of his objections?
12-5. Does the account of New Orleans schools by Tough support or clash with the perspective given by Chubb and Moe?
Chubb and Moe tell us that the centralized bureaucracy of public schools is a fundamental problem that causes public education to fail. Why might that be the case? Is it that bureaucracy, one it is developed and gains its own inertia becomes insensitive to local needs and to efforts by people lower in the hierarchy to produce changes that respond to their client populations? Or is the problem that school bureaucracies are so large that they simply are too unwieldy to operate efficiently. New Orleans schools were wiped out by Katrina and the system had to start over from scratch. Are they different and if so how?