Critical Issues in US Education

Catalog description

All levels of public education in the United States today have become the focus for often competing political, economic, social and cultural visions of how and why we should educate the nation’s youth. This course offers students the opportunity to become knowledgeable about critical issues in American education and the controversies surrounding them, while considering the historical, political, sociological and economic dimensions of each. Among the issues the course will address are a) the purpose of public education in a democracy; b) the private/public split in education, with a focus on home schooling, charters, parochial, and private K-20 schools; c) who determines the school curriculum; d) mayoral control, the value of high-stakes testing, and outcomes based approaches to education; e) the way public K-20 public schools are funded; f) technology’s impact on education with a focus on online education; g) the role of unions and tenure in schools and in the teaching profession; h) the challenge to public schools of poverty, diversity, and equity and i) sexuality, gender and sex education. Starting Spring 2018 Satisfies Pathways Flexible Core US Experience in Its Diversity requirement.