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Eric.ed.gov – Beyond the Basics: Achieving a Liberal Education for All Children

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Citing Aristotle, Franklin and Einstein as proponents of a broad, liberal-arts education, Finn and Ravitch promote the need for liberal learning as preparatory to the civic life needed for a well-functioning democracy. Drawing together the work of a number of educators, the editors have organized this volume in two sections. Part I, Liberal Learning: Its Value and Future, includes three papers that advocate both for liberal learning, and for a common curriculum. Part II, Restoring Liberal Art to the K-12 Curriculum, features eleven explorations of how to expand liberal learning by improving accountability systems, teacher training and education delivery. Maintaining that their support of liberal learning is well-documented, the editors conclude the volume by noting four opposing trends: (1) Gradual extinction of liberal learning in higher education;… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Charter Schools as Nation Builders: Democracy Prep and Civic Education. Policy Brief 4

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This policy brief is the first in a series of in-depth case studies exploring how top-performing charter schools have incorporated civic learning in their school curriculum and school culture. This paper introduces Democracy Prep, a network of seven public charter schools with a civic mission at its core. Democracy Prep’s founder and superintendent is Seth Andrew, an energetic former teacher born and raised in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. Andrew’s passion for civic activism and academic rigor are at the center of Democracy Prep’s model. The network’s motto–“Work hard. Go to college. Change the world!”–couples the “no-excuses” charter school movement’s emphasis on student achievement with a decidedly civic focus. The fact that Democracy Prep is a charter school is crucial to its civic mission.… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – What Parents Want: Education Preferences and Trade-Offs. A National Survey of K-12 Parents

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This groundbreaking study finds that nearly all parents seek schools with a solid core curriculum in reading and math, an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, and the development in students of good study habits, strong critical thinking skills, and excellent verbal and written communication skills. But some parents also prefer specializations and emphases that are only possible in a system of school choice. “Pragmatists” (36 percent of K-12 parents) assign high value to schools that, “offer vocational classes or job-related programs.” Compared to the total parent population, Pragmatists have lower household incomes, are less likely themselves to have graduated from college, and are more likely to be parents of boys. “Jeffersonians” (24 percent) prefer a school that “emphasizes instruction in citizenship, democracy, and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Road to Equality in South African Education: A Qualitative Study

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: South Africa is currently experiencing a crisis in its educational systems that if not addressed, could threaten the stability of the newly established democracy. A lack of access to quality education and severe shortage of skilled trained educators is perpetuating vestiges of the old apartheid state in the nation. Approximately 6,000 students graduate from South Africa’s teacher training programs each year to meet the demand of over 12.1 million learners (Evoh, 2007). This study examines the current crisis facing the educational system of post-apartheid South Africa and more specifically how the LEAP (Langa Educational Assistance Program) school of Science and Maths could be used as a possible model for institutional educational change that may be applied on a national scale. Interviews were conducted during four independent sessions… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Investigation of Pre-Service Teachers’ Tolerance Tendencies and Democratic Tendencies

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The current study aims to investigate whether pre-service teachers’ tolerance tendencies and democratic tendencies vary significantly depending on gender and mother and father’s education level and the relationship between their tolerance tendencies and democratic tendencies. A total of 417 second-year students from the departments of Turkish teaching, social studies teaching, elementary school teacher training, pre-school teacher training, science teaching, elementary school math teaching, arts, music, psychological counselling and guidance, English teaching and German teaching participated in the current study. In the analysis of the collected data, frequencies, percentages, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskall Wallis test and correlation analysis were used. As a result of the analyses, the pre-service teachers’ tolerance tendencies were found to be very high. The female pre-service teachers’ tolerance tendencies were found to be… Continue Reading