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SAC Syllabus

By jccohen
January 11, 2015 - 13:41
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Education 266: Schools in American Cities

Course Syllabus

Spring 2015

                                                                                                                                               

Jody Cohen

Bryn Mawr/Haverford Education Program

Office:  Bettwys-Y-Coed 303

Phone: 610-526-5214 (office), 215-106-6832 (cell)

Jccohen@brynmawr.edu

 

The course

An elective offered through the Education Program that also meets a requirement for Cities and Sociology majors, this course is designed for students to investigate the issues, challenges and possibilities of urban schooling. The purpose of the course is to create a community of learners who will conduct inquiry into both theory and practice to build an understanding of critical issues in urban education. Through readings, writings, field experiences and discussions, participants will address a range of factors that create the conditions for teaching/learning and reform in city schools.

 

In the first section of the course, we address socioeconomic, legal, and cultural issues in terms of their impact on urban education. The second part of the course examines students’ and teachers’ identities and perspectives and issues of curriculum and pedagogy in urban settings, especially in contested terrains such as language and literacy and mathematics. In the final stretch of the course, we investigate current topics in reform in urban schools and districts. Since we are located right outside Philadelphia, a key site for urban school reform, the course utilizes Philadelphia as an illustrative “case”; we consider recent initiatives and pay particular attention to the city’s current reform effort. Via course texts, we look at case studies of other cities as well. Field placements in school settings and conversations with urban educators and students offer us opportunities to explore the relationship of macro-conditions to particular people, places, and programs. Students engage in a Praxis field placement, which provides us with practice-based experiences to extend and deepen our knowledge. The Praxis dimension of the course ensures that we grapple with real issues, using these to inform and revise theory, and that we use our resources to address felt needs in the field.

 

Class requirements

The course is demanding in terms of reading, writing, and participation. As a Praxis course, it is limited to 25 students. Priority goes to students in the Education Program and to Sociology and Cities majors.  Students also complete a Praxis field experience in an urban education setting. We are fortunate to be working with Kelly Strunk at the Praxis Office: kstrunk@brynmawr.edu, Civic Engagement Office, by appointment.

 

Attendance and preparation:  This course will involve students as critical readers and writers of texts, active participants in class discussions, and participants in urban schools and other education-related settings.  Your presence and active engagement are essential.  If you must miss a class, please email me ahead of time if possible. Missing more than 3 classes may impact your grade; excellent attendance and participation may enhance your grade.

Lateness/Extensions:  If there is a reason that you cannot complete an assignment by the due date, speak to me about an extension BEFORE that date.

Posting on serendip:  You’ll be posting weekly on serendip by Mon. at 5.  Please be aware that serendip is a public site.  Also, you’ll always have the option to post privately, so that only our class will be able to view your post.  We’ll discuss this further in class.

Special Accommodations: Students who think they may need accommodations in this course because of the impact of a learning difference are encouraged to meet with the course instructor early in the semester.  Students who attend Bryn Mawr should also contact Access Services Coordinator Deborah Alder at dalder@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7351 as soon as possible, to verify their eligibility for reasonable accommodations.  Haverford Students should contact Patty Rawlings at the Office of Disabilities Services, prawling@haverford.edu or 610-896-1290.  

Assignments:

All course writings referring to your field placement must use pseudonyms for schools, programs, and all participants. All sources must be cited completely and properly, usingAPA, MLA, or Chicago style guidelines. (For instruction in citation style, pleaseconsult www.brynmawr.edu/Library/Docs/citation.shtml)

 

1. Field-based writings: These will provide a series of opportunities for you to examine what’s going on in your field site in the context of our readings and discussions. You will share some of these with your blog group on our serendip site; make sure to use pseudonyms for all places and people and to tag the PRIVATE setting when you post.

 

(a) Field log: You will keep a field log that includes entries for each time you enter your field site. Remember to use pseudonyms for places and people in order to preserve confidentiality. We will discuss a variety of ways to use your field log to document what you are learning. Field logs will provide a source for all field-based work.

(b) Vignette from the field: Select an incident from your field log that illustrates a key theme emerging in your field experience. Write this up as a focused narrative; then frame the narrative with interpretive commentary.

(c) Letter to your site teacher(s) about what you’re learning from your experience in their classroom and your ongoing questions and ideas about your work at the site. Please format your letter appropriately and write it to your site teacher as your audience, since you will email or deliver these letters to your placement teacher(s).

(d) Your evolving question or focus: What question or issue seems most central to the school/classroom/student(s)? What information and impressions do you already have pertaining to this question? What kinds of knowledge would further your inquiry?

(e) Final field paper: First, you will collect data in the context of your field experience for this class. This will involve keeping a weekly log and gathering relevant site documents (to be discussed in class). Then, as your final paper for this class you will write an extended (approx. 8-10 page) paper in which you integrate what you have observed and learned in your experience with teachers and students in an urban education setting with relevant readings and discussions of critical contextual and educational issues.

(f) Your final portfolio should include 3 selections from your field log.

 

2. Posts to blog group via our serendip site: In class we will form journal groups of 4-5 people; you will post weekly to your group in response to prompts about the readings and/or your Praxis experience (see focus for these posts under relevant dates).  You should read your group’s posts prior to class, and you’ll often have time in class to discuss issues raised in your posts.

 

3. Issue Analysis (5-7 pages): Use our readings and discussions to locate and analyze a “core issue” in urban education. For example, what is the so-called ‘achievement gap’ and how should educators address this? What are the dimensions and implications of the issue? How do legalities and funding impact this issue? Do you detect significant differences in the ways this issue get discussed and defined across our readings? In the news? What questions and perspectives seem to you most useful in terms of addressing this issue in urban education? Draw on our readings, field experiences if relevant, and any other sources that inform your analysis.  Please post to serendip and email to jccohen@brynmawr.edu.

 

4. Using the medium of film to re-view urban education (approx. 5 pages): Select one or more film(s) that feature representations of urban education [including I am a Promise, Hard Times at Douglass High, Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, First Person, Freedom Writers, Lean on Me, The Wire, Season IV (choose scenes from one or more episodes), Waiting for Superman, The Lottery, American Promise, Precious, Take the Lead, The Education of Michelle Rhee] and use the film(s) to examine students’ perspectives, teachers and teaching, or issues in school reform. How do our readings and/or your placement experiences inform your viewing of the film, and conversely, how does your viewing of the film inform your reading of texts and/or of your placement experience? You may choose to focus on one or several scenes, in which case you should specify your narrowed focus. Additionally, please include specific references to all sources—filmic, textual, and experiential.  The films owned by the library will be on reserve at Canaday.  Please post to serendip and email to jccohen@brynmawr.edu.

 

 

5. Strategies for Change (5-7 pages): During the course, we’ve considered the challenges of urban education at multiple levels, from the contextual issues of poverty, racism and public policy to the classroom-based issues of students’ and teachers’ experiences. Bearing in mind these challenges as well as the directions for change suggested by our readings, discussions and experiences, write a paper in which you propose a map for change; discuss your rationale for the strategies you recommend. You may focus at any level (e.g. the classroom, school, district, city, state or more broadly still), but wherever you focus, keep in mind the importance of linking levels in any ultimate plan for change.  Please post to serendip and email to jccohen@brynmawr.edu.

 

 

Assigned Texts (available at Bryn Mawr Bookstore and on reserve at Canaday):

  • Crawford-Garrett, Katherine. (2013) Teach for America and the Struggle for Urban School Reform: Searching for Agency in an Era of Standardization
  • William Ayers, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Greg Michie and Pedro Noguera (eds). (2008). City Kids, City Schools: More reports from the front row
  • Kirp, David. (2013) Improbable Scholars

 

All other assigned readings will be available via our serendip site.

Bring each day’s readings to class with you so that you can use them in our discussions (this includes articles printed from serendip and/or notes taken from the readings if you choose not to print out articles. It is very important that you annotate as you read and come to class ready to discuss).

 

Class Meetings and Assignments

All assignments are due on the day they are listed.

 

Week 1

Tuesday, January 20:Introduction and current / local Context

  • Orienting to the course
  • Philadelphia as a case study

 

Thursday, Jan. 22: What is urban education?

Reading due:

  • Milner, “But What is Urban Education?” (password-protected file)
  • City Schools and the American Dream (Noguera), chap. 1
  • Praxis introduction

 

Week 2

  • Post #1 to your group’s blog on our serendip site by Mon. at 5 pm: Locate a quote or specific issue from the readings for Tuesday that you want to think more about, and write a response. Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

 

Tuesday, Jan. 27:  Overview:  Key issues

Reading due:     

 

Thursday, Jan. 29:

Reading due:

  • City Kids, City Schools (Ayers, et al.)
    • 25: Education in our dying cities (Boggs)
    • 28: Education and the New Urban Workforce in a Global City (Lipman)
    • 30: Little House in the ‘Hood (Williams)

 

Week 3

  • Post #2 to your group’s blog on our serendip site by Mon. at 5 pm: Locate a quote or specific issue from the reading that you want to think more about, and write a 1 response. Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

 

Tuesday, February 3:  School funding/equity

Reading due:

 

Thurs., Feb. 5: The (so-called) “achievement gap”

Reading Due:

  • Urban Schools, Public Will (Fruchter), Chapter 2: The Achievement Gap and the Culture of Schooling
  • “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt” (Ladson-Billings)
  • “Burden of Acting Neither White nor Black: Asian American Identities and Achievement in Urban Schools” (Lew)

 

Week 4

 Tues., Feb. 10:

Praxis orientation

 Post #4 to your group’s blog on our serendip site by Wed. at 5 pm: Locate a quote or specific issue from the reading that you want to think more about, and write a 1 response. Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

Thursday, Feb. 12: Race, discipline, “disability”

Reading due:

  • City Kids, City Schools (Ayers, et al.), 31: Race War: Policing, Incarceration, and the Containment of Black Youth (Kitwana)
  • “Being Down:” Challenging Violence in Urban Schools (Casella), Chapter 3: The Screening Committee and the Prison Track
  • The Trouble with Black Boys (Noguera), Chapter 7: Schools, Prisons, and Social Implications of Punishment
  • “The Intersection of Race, Culture, Language and Disability” (Blanchett et. al)

 

Week 5:  Pedagogy and curriculum

** Post #5 to your group’s blog on our serendip site by Mon. at 5 pm: Locate a quote or specific issue from the reading that you want to think more about, and write a response. Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

Tuesday, Feb. 17:  

Reading Due:

  • “Proximal Processes in Urban Classrooms” (Wallace and Chhuon)
  • “Creating Environments of Success and Resilience” (Bondy)
  • Tough Fronts, (Dance), Chapter 4: Social Capital, Cultural Capital and Caring Teachers

 

Thursday, Feb. 19:

Reading due:

  • So Much Reform, So Little Change (Payne), Chapter 4: Teaching Black Children
  • City Kids, City Schools (Ayers, et al), 18: Practicing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings)

 

Week 6:  Pedagogy and curriculum cont.

  • Post #6 to serendip site by Mon. at 5 pm: Select an excerpt from your field notes that highlights a question, concern, or idea you have about your site, and add some context and commentary. Remember to make your post private use pseudonyms for the school and everyone involved! Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

Tuesday, Feb. 24:

  • City Kids, City Schools (Ayers, et al), 22: “Coming From the School of Hard Knocks” (Morell & Duncan-Andrade)
  • “Beyond Print: Roaming the Known” (Strolin-Smith)
  • “Modeling with Cultural Data Sets” (Lee)
  • “I ain’t writin’ nutting’…” (Ladson-Billings)

 

Thursday, Feb. 26:

  • “Calculus as a Catalyst” (Werkema & Case)
  • “Transactions of Mathematical Knowledge in the Algebra Project” (Davis et. al)

 

Week 7

Tues., March 3: Multicultural and Multilingual Approaches

Reading due:

  • “Linguistic Diversity in Multicultural Classrooms” (Nieto)
  • “Family is Here” (Lee and Hawkins)
  • “A Bilingual Neighborhood Club” (Ceballo)

Recommended:

  •  “Asian American Ethnic Options” (Chhuon and Hudley) 

 

Thurs., March 5: Student and Teacher Narratives

Reading due:

  • City Kids, City Schools (Ayers, et al).
  • Part I: City Kids Introduction (Ayers)
  • 2: Holler if You Hear Me (Michie)
  • 5: From the Pact (Davis)
  • Part II: City Teachers Introduction (Michie)
  • 9: Building Community from Chaos (Christensen)
  • 10: Mr. B (Ayers)
  • 12: Are Those Real? (Lubliner)
  • 13: The Curie 12: A Case for Teacher Activism (Hogan)

 

** Writing Due: Issue Analysis on Friday, March 6 by 5 pm:  Please post on serendip and email to me at jccohen@brynmawr.edu.

Spring break!

 

Week 8

  • Post #7 to your group’s blog on our serendip site by Mon. at 5 pm: Locate a quote or specific issue from the reading that you want to think more about, and write a response. Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

 

Tues., March 17: Reform strategies:  What’s possible

Reading due:

  • Improbable Scholars (Kirp), Introduction and chaps. 1-2

 

Thursday, March 19:

Reading due:

  • Improbable Scholars, chaps. 3-5

 

Week 9:  Reform

  • Post #8 to your group’s blog on our serendip site by Mon. at 5 pm: Locate a quote or specific issue from the reading that you want to think more about, and write a response. Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

 

Tuesday, March 24:

Reading due:

  • Improbable Scholars, chaps. 6-9

 

Thursday, March 26: Reform strategies, citywide

Reading due:

  • “Schools that Work” (Thernstrom and Thernstrom)
  • “What it Takes to Make a Student” (Tough), The New York Times Magazin

 

Week 10:

  • Post #9 to your group’s blog on our serendip site by Mon. at 5 pm: Write a webby post responding to the current news issues we're reading and talking about. Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

 

Tues., March 31: Reform Strategies

Reading due:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/rahm-emanuels-record-on-schools-proves-a-defining-point-for-chicago-runoff.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150305_Hite__money_not_enough_-_Philly_schools_must_change.html

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150327_SRC_proposes__2_89_billion_budget.html

  • City Kids, City Schools (Ayers, et al), 19: A Mexican American student resists Subtractive Schooling
  • “Rules of Engagement: Building a College-Going Culture in an Urban School” (McKillip et. al)
  •  “Social and Cultural Capital in an Urban Latino School Community” (Monkman et. al)

 

Thurs., April 2:  Panel of educators!

 

Week 11

  • Post #10 to our serendip site by Mon. at 5: Vignette from the field (see Field Paper Assignments). Remember to use pseudonyms! Come ready to discuss your group’s posts in class.

 

Tues. April 7: Reform Strategies – Teacher Quality Teacher Perspectives on Accountability and Curriculum

Reading due:

  • Teach for America and the Struggle for Urban School Reform (Crawford-Garrett)
    • Chapter 1: Problematizing the American School Narrative
    • Chapter 2: Teach for American and Privatization
    • Chapter 3: Confronting Factory-Style Education

 

Thursday, April 9: Reading Due:

  • Teach for America and the Struggle for Urban School Reform (Crawford-Garrett)
  • Chapter 4: Managing Student Achievement In and Out of School
  • Chapter 5: Negotiating Knowledge and Practice in the Elementary Classroom 

 

Week 12

 ** Writing due: Film Paper due Sunday, April 12 by 5 pm; please post on serendip and email to me.

Tuesday, April 14: Reform strategies - Teacher education

Readings Due:

  • Teach for America and the Struggle for Urban School Reform (Crawford-Garrett):
    • Chapter 6: The Transformative Potential of the Methods Classroom
  • A Blog Dialogue between Diane Ravitch and Wendy Kopp:
      • “How and how not to improve the schools” (Ravitch)
      • “In defense of Optimism” (Kopp)
      • “Teacher Quality” (Au)

 

Thursday, April 16: Reform Strategies – Schools, parents and communities

Reading due:

  • Teach for America and the Struggle for Urban School Reform (Crawford-Garrett):
    • Chapter 7: Conclusion
  • “Visions of Teachers Leaving No More Children Behind” (Duncan-Andrade)

 

 

Week 13

 

  • Writing due: Field research question or focus (see Field Paper Assignments) due Sun. April 17 by 5 pm, posted on serendip.

 

Tuesday, April 21:  Reform strategies – Schools, parents, communities

Reading Due:

  • City Kids, City Schools (Ayers, et al.), 23: Transforming the Role of Parents in Urban Schools (Hurtig)
  •  “Parental Involvement in Children’s Education” (Shuang Ji & Koblinsky)

 

 Thursday, April 23:  The Role of Students at the Center of Reform

Reading Due:

 

  • Writing Due: Strategies for Change due on a 'rolling deadline' anytime until Friday, May 1, by 5 pm; please post on serendip and email to me.

 

Week 14: Praxis

Tues., April 28

  • Praxis panels

 

Thursday, April 30

  • Praxis panels and Closing

 

DUE: The final field work (which includes final paper and select field assignments) and final portfolio are to be posted to serendip for the final date for seniors and then for all; to be discussed.