Title: Education and Equality of Opportunity
1Education and Equality of Opportunity
2Equal Opportunity?
- Equal opportunity does not mean that everyone
will have the same income and equal status. - Only that each person has the same starting
line
3School Models for Equality of Opportunity
- Common School Model
- Sorting Machine Model
- High Stakes Testing Model
4The Common School Model
5Common School Model
- Insures that everything is on equal footing by
placing rich and poor in the same school - Does this hold true in the real world?
6The Sorting Machine Model
7Sorting-Machine Model
- Attempts to overcome family background by testing
and examining student and placing them into areas - Competition takes place within the schools
- Tested in Middle School
- Nature v. Nurture?(intelligence test or biased
testing)
8High-Stakes Testing
9High-Stakes Testing
- High stakes test are given for each course in the
core classes - All test will select a right position and test
scores will show employers qualifications
10Education, Gender, and Income
- There is a close relation to income and education
but also in social factors - P.46,47,48,and 49 show mens earnings outweigh
womens earning on the same levels of education - Although higher education generally means higher
income, equality depends on equality of
opportunity in the labor market
11Education, Race, and Income
- White non-Hispanic earnings are highest accept in
advanced degrees - If we want to achieve equal opportunity we need
to remove gender and race bias in the labor
market - What steps have been taken to do this, and what
else could we do?
12Cultural Capital Child-Rearing and Equality of
Opportunity
- Cultural Capital- the economic value of a persons
behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge - Middle class family childrens parents involve
their children in many activities that help them
to have things such as better punctuation and
increase their chances of getting a higher class
job - working class childrens parents let the child
do things without much intervention
13Cultural Capital Preschool and Equality of
Opportunity
- What is troubling about the following facts?
- Strong factors of childrens math scores
- Owning a home computer
- Exposure to performing arts
- Preschool
- Weak factors
- educational expectations of family
- Frequency of reading
- Number of tapes, records, or CDs
- Sports and clubs
- Arts and Crafts activates
- Strong factors of childrens reading scores are
- Frequency of reading (includes parent reading to
child) - Having a home computer
- Exposure to performing arts
- Preschool
- Weak factors
- educational expectations of family
14Schooling Why are the Rich Getting Richer and
the Poor Getting Poorer?
- High educated, high paid jobs that need to remain
in America do but companies moving overseas
because labor is cheaper results in less work for
lower educated, lower paying jobs
15Shopping for a Public School Education, Social
Class, and School Districts
- Schools in high income areas have high college
attendance rates but housing and cost of living
is also much higher making it hard for middle and
lower class to enter into them - On the U.S. Department of Education web-site they
have a guide to finding a good school for your
child in the areas around you - http//www.ed.gov/parents/schools/find/choose/inde
x.html
16Central City Schools
- Poor academic performances in central city
schools are because of - Large enrollments
- High rate of teacher absenteeism
- Safety problems
- High discipline rates
- Transferring schools
- Single parent homes
- At least 3 hours of TV a day
- High rates of teen-age pregnancy
- Exposure to crime
17Social Class and At-Risk Students
- At-Risk Student- identification of a potential
academic problem - Factors that go into at-risk students(the more
factors they have the more likely to drop out) - Lowest socioeconomic status
- Changing schools two or more times between grade
1-8 - Average grade of C or lower in grades 6-8
- Being in a single parent household during grade 8
- Having one or more siblings who did not complete
high school - Being held back one ore more times from grades 1
to 8 greatest factor if they will drop out or
not
18Tracking and Ability Grouping
- Tracking- separates students into different
curricula such as college preparatory,
vocational, and general. - Ability- places students in classes according to
their abilities this is mainly the United States
grouping method - Higher incomehigher ability
19Should Tracking and Ability Grouping be Abolished?
- Yes
- Allows high achievers to progress faster
- No
- Fosters social inequality
20Social Reproduction
- Social reproduction- schools play a role in
maintaining differences in social class - Ex. Low income families live in a low income
neighborhood with poor schooling therefore
receive lower education and end up living back in
low income areas.
21Conclusion/Discussion
- Can schools provide equality of opportunity?
- If no, what can be changed?