Among the objectives Chapter 11 seeks to achieve are these:
This chapter should demonstrate the supporting arguments for labor market education in public schools and analyze how well this education has served the population it has been intended to serve.
Students should be able to discuss how the rhetoric of advocates of differentiated education contrasts with the available data on the nature of the American workplace in the foreseeable future.
Another objective is to discuss whether a revised view of workforce education that focuses on traditionally liberal educational goals instead of preparation for the workplace is more supportable for educational and economic reasons.
Students should be able to consider the historical ideal of liberal education and how that ideal can be used to serve the interests of all students. Further, consider the potential of liberal education for embodying democratic ideals more thoroughly than a vocationalist or differentiated-curriculum approach does.
This chapter should explain how the four major themes of the contemporary reform movement have influenced the conduct of schooling in the United States.
Students should be able to identify who decides on and who benefits from the recommendations and policies of the contemporary reform movement.
Students should be able to evaluate the political-economic analysis presented in this chapter and discuss whether it captures the meaning of the contemporary reform movement.
Finally, this chapter should equip students to analyze the extent to which the contemporary reform movement can improve educational outcomes in the face of pervasive socioeconomic inequalities.
