Reform, of Schools

The call to reform K- 12 public schools has been an enduring movement in the United States since the 1850s, when Horace Mann helped establish common schools in Massachusetts. School reform is characterized by cycles of what educational historians have termed progress and regress. One day schools are the best vehicle for the nation\u27s overall progress toward a well-educated citizenry. In the next period, their failure is predicating the downfall of the nation\u27s future. Reform tends to occur when the public is convinced that schools are regressing and something must be done to fix them, but at the heart of such pessimism is an inherent progressive ideal that schools can be fixed and that fixing them will indeed lead to a better nation

Social capital

Like other forms of capital, such as financial capital, social capital refers to the available resources upon which an individual or a community can draw. In the case of social capital, the resources are formed by people\u27s networks and relationships. The two main theorists of social capital as applied to education are James Coleman and Robert Putnam. Coleman\u27s work stems from his 1966 report, which indicated that family background accounts for student achievement more than variations in schools do. His subsequent work comparing the greater success of private school students to that of public school students expanded the role of family background to include all the social resources available to a student. The greater success of students in religious private schools was attributable to the overlapping, cross-generational social networks provided by the partnerships among families, church, and school. Coleman defined these partnerships as social capital, which pertained to the norms, the social networks, and the relationships between adults and children that were of value for the child\u27s growing up. Social capital existed within the family but also outside the family, in the community. Within the family, social capital depended upon the strength of parents\u27 relationships with their children. Coleman f~mnd, for example, that even when controlling for parents\u27 socioeconomic status, dropout rates for high school students were lowest when there were two parents, only one sibling to share parental attention, and mothers who expected their children to attend college. Thus, a family\u27s social capital increases children\u27s socioeconomic success, or the children\u27s human capital. Outside of the family, social capital depends upon people\u27s sense of obligation and reciprocity, like quid pro quo, within a community

Grassroots Philanthropy on the Prairie

A group of teachers leads a community to band together to provide for the urgent needs of its least fortunate students

Jim Wallis

The Reverend Jim Wallis is the founder of Sojourners, a Christian community in Washington, D.C., as well as editor of a magazine of the same title that covers social justice issues. He is also the convener of Call to Renewal, a religious ecumenical organization committed to, according to their mission statement, overcoming poverty, dismantling racism, affirming life, and rebuilding family and community. A charismatic speaker and prolific writer about religion and politics, he is often hailed as the voice of the religious left

Religion and Education: Walking the Line in Public Schools

In recent years religion has moved out of the private sphere and into the public square. Whether it’s the invocation for God to bless America, the sudden interest in Islam, or the tale of Alabama Judge Roy Moore and the Ten Commandments, religion and its impact on our world have become less private and more public. Therefore, teachers who wish to involve their students with the world around them must also address religious topics in their classrooms

Common Schools Movement

The common schools movement was the effort to fund schools in every community with public dollars, and is thus heralded as the start of systematic public schooling in the United States. The movement was begun by Horace Mann, who was elected secretary of the newly founded Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. Mann and other reformers argued that schools were necessary to inculcate nonsectarian Christian moral values and to educate every citizen to participate in a democracy. This dual mission is sometimes known as the common school movement\u27s “Protestant-republican” ideology. The common schools movement advanced other progressive ideals popular at the time, and was adopted by other states throughout the rest of the 1800s. Schools were free, locally funded and governed, regulated to some degree by the state, and open to all White children

The New-England Primer

The New-England Primer was one of the first textbooks used in U.S. public schools. It cost two to four pence and was commonly found in colonial households. The first U.S. edition was most likely printed by Benjamin Harris of Boston before 1687, and it was reprinted consistently for the next 150 years. Although its authorship is unknown and its contents occasionally changed across editions, The New-England Primer always contained core elements used to teach literacy and Christian morals, explicitly embedding Protestant Christianity in the curriculum. The earliest existing version in print is the 1727 edition; others have been lost to time

Describing the Elephant: Preservice Teachers Talk about Spiritual Reasons for Becoming a Teacher

Given the need for high quality teachers in every classroom, it is important to understand what might contribute to the preparation and persistence of teachers. Two lines of literature in teacher education relate to such an understanding. One line of literature follows the circumstances of how people decide to become teachers. The other line explores the relationship between spirituality and teaching. This paper considers the intersection of those two lines; namely, what is the relationship, if any between why people enter the K-12 teaching field and the spirituality of teaching

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of three major branches of Christianity (the other two being Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) and is the majority religion in the United States. As of 2004, however, that majority edges just over 50%

Aging and Work in Canada: Firm Policies

Few Canadian firms have explicit policies dealing with the aging of their workforces, other than pension policies geared to a conventional retirement age. However, other firm policies have unanticipated consequences that apply differentially to older and younger workers. This paper reviews several relevant firm practices used in Canada, including pension and benefits practices, training policies and programs, and work and family practices. The most dramatic firm practice that has an impact on the older worker is restructuring through downsizing the workforce by means of retirement incentives and layoffs. We introduce the issue by considering available national-level Canadian data, and then consider five case studies representing different configurations of firm practices. These cases are: Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, NOVA Corporation, Slater Steels, Bell Canada, and the garment industry in Montreal. Both management and employee level data are presented. We argue the importance of organizational latitude in establishing firm-based policies that dramatically change the nature of the life course in Canada.aging workforce; firm policies