POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE

AND

EDUCATION AND NATIONAL POLICY

Your task is to research the current politics of knowledge and the relationship of education and national policy in the mid to late 20^th century.

1. You will need to seek information from at least 3 sources, BEGINNING with Chapters 14, 15, & 17 of The American School 1642-2000 (Fifth Edition) by Joel Spring on reserve in the library. Take thorough notes about the issues that affected the development and content of schools during this period.

2. After gaining an overview of the issues from Spring, choose one idea to focus on as you pursue your next 2 sources. For example, you might want to learn more about the origins of ESEA, the National Defense Education Act, the War on Poverty, the reasons and uses of Sesame Street, the affect of the religious right on public education, the history of special education, etc.

3. You will keep an annotated bibliography of your sources.

4. Once you have enough information, create a time-line of the time period you research. Include events pertaining to education, politics, the economy, and society.

5. Next, create a poster that provides a visual representation of the overview from the chapters in Spring’s book AND the particular topic you investigated. You could use a concept map for the overview. Revisit the Visual Organizers text for ideas about how to represent the other information you researched. Also include on the poster significant world and national events of the time period.

6. Then, prepare an oral presentation of approximately 15 minutes. Connect the information you researched to the functions of schooling that education in this time period served. Prepare an outline of your talk to be handed in.

7. Finally, write three assessment questions (and their answers) that could be used to assess your peers’ understanding of the information you will be presenting.

8. On Monday of Week 8, you will hand in

· An annotated bibliography

· Your notes from three sources

· The timeline

· The poster

· The outline of your talk

· Three assessment questions with answers

9. You need to be prepared to give your presentation to the whole class though

only one person will be selected randomly to actually give the talk.