Sociology 3901: Take-home exam three
Due in my office (Cina 203) by noon on Wednesday, December 19 (just slip it under the door if I'm not there)

Answer four (4) of the following questions. Your answers should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than six pages total.

1. How did school segregation develop as such a major problem in the United States? What was the strategy pursued by the NAACP to get the Supreme Court to overturn its Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that authorized "separate but equal" facilities for black Americans? And what are the social forces and court decisions leading to what Kozol and Gary Orfield term the resegregation of American education? Do you agree or diagree with Congressman John Lewis (quoted at length in Kozol's epilogue) when he says (p. 316) that desegregation is one of those things that are good and right unto themselves? Share your thinking about this.

2. Latinos have done marginally better than black Americans in some ways (NAEP scores) and marginally worse in others (graduation rates), but overall there seems to be a consensus that even in the aftermath of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, blacks and Latinos have not been educated as effectively as white and Asian Americans. What do you think are the major factors in that learning gap? Cite course materials in support of your arguments.

3. The Thernstroms argue that family culture is an important part of the learning gap; your instructor suggests that it may have more to do with overloaded single parents, particularly in the black community. What does Kozol think about this? Consider the evidence and implications of those two different lines of reasoning.

4. The No Child Left Behind Act is predicated on the idea that that standardized tests are an important part of creating national policies that can reduce the education gap between blacks and Chicanos, as compared with white and Asian students. What seem to be the shortcomings of the No Child Left Behind Act in this regard, and do you see any way to fix them? What are the obstacles?

5. Your instructor argues for the importance of careful evaluation research as the basis for determining the programs that can be most effective for the schools in general and for "high risk" students in particular. How do you see that issue? What have we learned so far from careful evaluation of educational programs, including preschool programs? What are the likely downsides in implementing an evaluation-tested program like Success for All?

6. Since the 1960s we've had a whole series of presidents who wanted to be known as "the education president" and who have presided over a long succession of educational reforms, including Title I and Headstart in the 1960s and most recently, President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program (co-sponsor, Senator Edward Kennedy). Draw on course materials to document why it's been so hard to truly reform our nation's schooling in a way that gets results.

7. A point on which liberal and conservative school reformers might agree would be the importance of upgrading teacher quality in our school system. Why are teachers in 2007 perhaps less qualified (at least as measured by their scores on standardized tests) than teachers in the 1950s? Why is it so difficult to insure the best possible teachers, particularly in inner cities? How does Teach for America try to respond to that challenge?

8. Another of the sticking points in the argument between liberals and conservatives is the need for additional investment in the school system. Build the best case you can for each side of this argument.

9. It is one thing to improve a school--challenging but certainly possible. But it gets a lot more complicated if we begin to think in terms of improving the whole school system in a city, or the education system in a whole state, or the national education system. Write about some of the complications of reforming systems and evaluate the efforts efforts we have considered at the city and national levels.