University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Curriculum Proposal Form #3
New Course
Effective Term:
2107 (Fall 2010)
Subject Area - Course Number: EDFOUND 341
Cross-listing: POLISCI 341
(See Note #1 below)
Course Title: (Limited to 65 characters)
Urban Education: Issues and Policies
25-Character Abbreviation:
Urban Ed: Issues
Sponsor(s):
Amy Shuffelton, Susan Johnson
Department(s):
Educational Foundations, Political Science
College(s):
Interdisciplinary
Consultation took place:
NA
Programs Affected:
Yes (list departments and attach consultation sheet)
Departments:
Political Science, Educational Foundations, Urban Education sub-
major
Is paperwork complete for those programs? (Use "Form 2" for Catalog & Academic Report updates)
NA
Yes
Prerequisites:
will be at future meeting
none
Grade Basis:
Conventional Letter
S/NC or Pass/Fail
Course will be offered:
Part of Load
On Campus
Above Load
Off Campus - Location
College:
Education
Instructor:
Amy Shuffelton
Dept/Area(s): EDFOUND
Note: If the course is dual-listed, instructor must be a member of Grad Faculty.
Check if the Course is to Meet Any of the Following:
Technological Literacy Requirement
Diversity
Writing Requirement
General Education Option: Select one:
Note: For the Gen Ed option, the proposal should address how this course relates to specific core courses, meets the goals of General Education
in providing breadth, and incorporates scholarship in the appropriate field relating to women and gender.
Credit/Contact Hours: (per semester)
Total lab hours:
Number of credits:
0
3
Total lecture hours:
Total contact hours:
48
144
Can course be taken more than once for credit? (Repeatability)
No
Yes
If "Yes", answer the following questions:
No of times in major:
No of times in degree:
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No of credits in major:
No of credits in degree:
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Proposal Information: (Procedures can be found at http://acadaff.uww.edu/Handbook/Procedures-Form3.htm)
Course justification:
The need for qualified urban teachers and urban policy makers is self-evident. This particular course is necessary
for several reasons. For pre-service teachers, it provides an important academic grounding in the socio-economic
conditions that create the particular difficulties urban school systems face. As such, the course complements the
hands-on experience teachers gain in other courses, and it significantly expands their knowledge and understanding
of how student diversity impacts education. Many UW-Whitewater education students go on to work in urban
areas; more might if they were explicitly prepared to do so. Ultimately, this course plays a critical role in preparing
future teachers to work in the urban areas that desperately need them.
As a cross-listed course, Urban Education: Issues and Policies would also offer Political Science students an
opportunity to explore an important field of policy. It would serve as an elective for students interested in urban
policy, the role of schooling in urban policy-making, and education policy generally. At present, UW-Whitewater
has few (if any) courses that bring together future teachers and future policy professionals to study a subject of
mutual interest. Teachers and policy professionals both have a great deal to contribute to the making of healthy
urban areas, however; and both would benefit from collaboration. A further justification for this course is that it
would provide an opportunity for future professionals in different fields to work together and learn from one
another, an important professional skill.
We are calling this course Urban Education because “urban education” is the widely accepted name for a field
within educational and policy studies, but the course will consider issues of relevance to anyone teaching in a school
with large numbers of students of color, high poverty, and/or a significant immigrant population – the students
usually thought of as “urban” (ditto for policy students). The demographics of South-Eastern Wisconsin, like the rest
of the United States, are changing: a generation ago, poor and immigrant students of color were likely to be
clustered in urban areas (such as Milwaukee), but this is no longer entirely the case. “Urban issues” (meaning
poverty, social and cultural marginalization, and the difficulties these create for schools, families and communities)
are spreading into smaller towns, and teachers and policy makers who want to work in areas that are not
quintessentially “urban” (e.g. Beloit, Janesville, Delavan, Waukesha) will also find this course useful. Changing
demographics make it newly important for UW-Whitewater to offer this course.
Relationship to program assessment objectives:
This course, taken in combination with Urban Education: Field Experience as well as two other courses in related
subjects, enables pre-service teachers to complete the Urban Education Module. The fieldwork course (currently
offered as a workshop; we intend to establish it as a new course in the near future) provides in-the-classroom
experience that complements the academic knowledge they gain in this class. The module exists as a set of
electives, and therefore does NOT affect licensure requirements. It provides students serious about teaching diverse
students with better preparation in a number of the relevant Wisconsin Teaching Standards, especially WTS 3, 6 and
10 (relating to student diversity, communication, and community relations).
The course takes up some of the issues addressed in Educational Foundations 243: Education in a Pluralist Society,
but it treats race, poverty and immigration in an urban context. It is both narrower and deeper than Edfound 243
(which is a more general introduction to diversity in education). For students who want to learn more about
teaching diverse learners than a one-semester class can provide, this course provides a more intensive, scholarly
look at a subset of issues and the policies enacted to deal with them.
In the Political Science department, this course would be an elective.
The Urban Education module has been developed and piloted as a workshop class, and it has generated sufficient
student interest to convince the Department of Educational Foundations that a regularly offered course would be
worthwhile.
Budgetary impact:
Staffing: For the foreseeable future, the course would be taught by Amy Shuffelton, Assistant Professor in
Educational Foundations, as part of course load. Professor Shuffelton has the requisite background and
has been teaching this course as a workshop for several semesters. As qualified staff exists, this course
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would not require additional staffing. There are several other faculty members in the Department of
Educational Foundations also qualified to teach this course, should that prove necessary.
Library, service and supply: the UWW library already has an excellent education collection, which would
suffice for the needs of this course. Bibliography is attached and notes books already available at
Anderson Library. All current books are available within the UW Library System. Additional materials
(current books, audiovisual material, etc.) could be bought with regular Department library funds, which
at present are rarely used up. No additional expenses are predicted.
Campus Resource Units: No impact
No Laboratory or Studio space required. One regular classroom is the only space needed.
In sum, no budgetary impact
Course description: (50 word limit)
This course introduces students to important issues and policies that influence urban schools. It provides a deeper
understanding of the difficulties schools, parents, children and teachers face in making American schools a truly
equitable institution. The course is suitable for future teachers and policy professionals interested in the social,
political and economic factors that shape urban schooling
If dual listed, list graduate level requirements for the following:
1. Content (e.g., What are additional presentation/project requirements?)
2. Intensity (e.g., How are the processes and standards of evaluation different for graduates and
undergraduates? )
3. Self-Directed (e.g., How are research expectations differ for graduates and undergraduates?)
Course objectives and tentative course syllabus:
See attached syllabus. Note: this course will be offered in hybrid format, with hours to be allocated as
follows:
22.5 class hours (one class meeting weekly)
22.5 hours speakers, films, podcasts and related online assignments
10 hours exams
24 hours final paper research and writing
60 hours reading, listening to media, watching films (approximately 4 hours per week)
5 hours brief writing assignments
This course will meet the requirements for Diversity Credit. Urban schools predominantly serve
American minority students, and the course content is 100% focused on urban schooling. Course
readings relate to the educational needs and experiences of African American, Latino and other immigrant
students. Careful study of urban education is an ideal site for students to gain an understanding that
American society has been and continues to be shaped by the interaction of diverse groups, as well as
understanding of how group differences are expressed, including cultural practices as well as differences
in power or access. Readings, films and other course material to be included in EDFOUND
341/POLISCI 341 encourages students to consider cultural modes of schooling, and assumptions about
education, likely to be quite different from those they grew up with. It also encourages students to reflect
on their own perspectives on education, and how those relate to the perspectives of urban minority
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students and parents. The course also involves fieldtrips and guest speakers that lay the groundwork for
later experience working with diverse people, in diverse environments. (More extensive experience with
students is included in a complementary workshop, offered separately.)
Bibliography: (Key or essential references only. Normally the bibliography should be no more than one or two
pages in length.) See attachment
Notes:
1. Contact the Registrar's Office (x1570) for available course numbers. A list of subject areas can be found at
http://acadaff.uww.edu\Handbook\SubjectAreas.htm
2. The 15 and 25 character abbreviations may be edited for consistency and clarity.
3. Please submit electronically when approved at the college level - signature sheet to follow in hard copy.
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Our conceptual framework, The Teacher is a
teacher preparation program at UW-Whitewater
rationale to our operation. It also provides
candidate performance, faculty scholarship and
education program is committed to reflection upon
for pupils; to constructivism in that all learners
information and technology literacy; to diversity;
Therefore, all syllabi pertaining to courses required
Reflective Facilitator, is the underlying structure in our
that gives conceptual meanings through an articulated
direction for our licensure programs, courses, teaching,
service, and unit accountability. In short, our teacher
practice; to facilitation of creative learning experiences
must take an active role in their own learning; to
and to inquiry (research/scholarship) and assessment.
for licensure reflect commitment to these
Urban Education: Issues and Policies
Edfound/Polisci 341
Instructor: Amy Shuffelton
Office: Winther 6043 Phone: x5431 email: shuffela@uww.edu
This course introduces students to important issues and policies that influence urban schools. It provides a deeper
understanding of the difficulties schools, parents, children and teachers face in making American schools a truly
equitable institution. The course is suitable for future teachers and policy professionals interested in the social,
political and economic factors that shape urban schooling.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
This course is designed to introduce students to important issues and policies that influence urban schools.
It aims to provide a deeper understanding of the difficulties schools, parents, children and teachers face in making
American schools a truly equitable institution. The course is suitable for future teachers as well as others interested
in the policies, practices, and underlying social, political and economic factors that shape urban schooling.
This course will start with the presumption that American schools are not equitable. Substantial research
supports this, and course readings present and examine some of it. The question then becomes: Why aren’t they?
Smart, well-meaning, energetic people have been trying for years to make schools more equitable – and yet it
remains true that socioeconomically disadvantaged, Black, Latino, and other groups of students do less well than
their middle class white peers. (The course will critically examine the evidence of this, too.) Course readings and
other assignments focus on explanations of inequality, including policy efforts over the years to close the
“achievement gap”, including Title I, Head Start, Affirmative Action, No Child Left Behind, and more.
One set of answers focuses on money and its distribution. A second set focuses on culture. Running
through both sets of claims are arguments about marginalization, and the ongoing effects of America’s history of
racial discrimination. This course asks students to look at texts, films, podcasts, and other media that make
significant and compelling arguments about these issues. The first half of the course is generally dedicated to
exploring policy issues from a social scientific perspective. In the later half of the class, we will take a closer look at
the real lives of urban students, in order to better consider how urban educational policy affects real schoolchildren
and their families.
COURSE FORMAT
This is a hybrid course that meets one time weekly, with the second meeting replaced by a variety of
activities, including films, campus speakers, online assignments, and independent reading and writing.
The University expects that as a 3 credit course, Urban Education will take approximately 144 hours of students’
time. This is allotted as follows:
22.5 class hours (one class meeting weekly)
22.5 hours speakers, films, podcasts and related online assignments
10 hours exams
24 hours final paper research and writing
60 hours reading, listening to media, watching films (approximately 4 hours per week)
5 hours brief writing assignments
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COURSE READINGS
4 books will be available for purchase at the University Bookstore:
Class and Schools, Richard Rothstein
Children as Pawns, Timothy Hacsi
The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
Holler if you Hear Me, Gregory Michie
Other readings will be made available electronically.
GRADE SCHEMA
This course is graded using the new +/- system. Grading as follows:
A = 94-100
A- = 90-93
B+ = 87-89
B= 84-86
B- = 80-83
C+ = 77-79
C= 74-76
C- = 70-73
D+ = 67-69
D = 64-66
D - = 60-63
F – 59 and below
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING
1.
Exams: There will be two exams in this course: a midterm and a final exam. These exams will be takehome, open-book exams that test students’ comprehension of the course readings and issues discussed in
class, as well as students’ ability to think critically about them. They consist of a mix of short answer and
longer essay questions.
Each exam is worth 20 % of the final grade. (Total: 40%)
2.
Participation has two facets, both counting towards your grade.
1) You are expected to come to all classes with assignments completed, prepared to discuss. If,
as sometimes happens, you need to miss a class, you can make up the absence by handing in a
400-600 word response to that week’s reading and/or other media. This is due by a week after the
missed class and may not be turned in late.
2) In place of one class each week, a variety of activities are assigned. These include guest speakers,
films, podcasts, and independent readings. Written assignments will be attached to these
activities.
Participation: 30% of final grade
Final Research Paper: This assignment is designed to provide students with the opportunity to explore an area of
interest to that is related to our study of urban education. Undergraduate students are to write a 1200-1600 word
(typed) essay that explores a carefully posed research question on an educational issue. Students will be required to
find either one outside resource book (and read the entire book) or three outside resource articles from academic
journals or chapters from edited collections AND use two of the readings for class in their exploration of this
question.
If you have a topic in mind, please suggest it. If you don’t, please ask – your instructor
has a lot of ideas. This assignment is to be completed in stages, as follows.
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1.
Choose a question and find sources. Proposal due week 7
2. Read the sources and write an annotated bibliography. For the purposes of
this paper, an annotated bibliography will consist of a summary of each source,
with analysis. Your summary should a) state the main point of the source and b)
show what major evidence or arguments it uses to support this point. Your
analysis should a) comment on strengths and/or weaknesses of the book or article
under consideration and b) explain how the book or article contributes to your
project. Annotated bibliography due week 10
3. Draft paper. This is to be a complete, polished draft, which you will submit
to your instructor, who will pair you up with a classmate for peer review. It can
(and probably should) incorporate your annotated bibliography, but paragraphs
need to be carefully linked so that the paper reads as a single continuous text that
makes a coherent argument. Due week 13
4. Peer review. Your instructor will provide you with explicit instructions when
it is time to carry this out. Due week 14.
5.
Final draft.
Research paper: 30%
Please note: University Policies Regarding Academic Misconduct, Student Religious Beliefs, and Absences:
The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is dedicated to a safe, supportive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. It is the responsibility of all undergraduate and
graduate students to familiarize themselves with University policies regarding Special
Accommodations, Misconduct, Religious Beliefs Accommodation, Discrimination, and
Absence for University Sponsored Events. (For details, please refer to the Undergraduate
and Graduate Timetables; the “Rights and Responsibilities” section of the Undergraduate
Bulletin; the Academic Requirements and Policies and the Facilities and Services
sections of the Graduate Bulletin; and the “Student Academic Disciplinary Procedures”
[UWS Chapter 14]; and the “Student Nonacademic Disciplinary Procedures” [UWS
Chapter 17].)
The College of Education supports the codes of ethics published by relevant specialty
organizations.
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COURSE SCHEDULE
Introduction: What’s Going on in Urban Schools?
Week 1 Introduction
Week 2 Savage Inequalities, selections: “Looking Backward”; “Other People’s Children”, “Children of the City
Invincible” (ch. 1, 2 and 4)
Week 3 podcasts on New Orleans and Washington DC school reform
“What it Takes to Make a Student”
Podcast report due
Money, and Some Policy Responses
Week 4 Urban Poverty: some background
When Work Disappears, selections (on D2L)
Week 5 Socio-Economic Status: How it affects the achievement gap
Class and Schools pp 1-83 (intro, chs 1 and 2)
Week 6 SES and NCLB
Class and Schools, pp 85-147 (chs 3-5 and conclusion)
Week 7 Racial Divisions
Eyes on the Prize, episode 2 (focused on desegregation in Little Rock and the U. of Mississippi); Little Rock
Central: 50 Years Later
Week 8 Head Start
Children as Pawns, Head Start (intro and ch 1)
Week 9 Class Size and SAGE
Children as Pawns, Does Class Size Matter? (ch3)
Week 10 Wrapping up socio-economics
Children as Pawns, Does Money Make Schools Better? (ch 5 and conclusion)
Midterm exam due
Culture and Urban Education
Week 11 Student experiences of urban schooling
Holler if You Hear Me
Week 12 Student experiences of reform
“Expectations: Can the Students Who Became a Symbol of Failed Reform Be Rescued?”
Growing up in the City
Week 13 Immigration
The House on Mango Street
Lost in Translation: Latinos, Schools and Society
Week 14 Immigration II
Up Against Whiteness, selections
Week 15 Student presentations
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Urban Education: Issues and Policies
Bibliography
* indicates holdings in Anderson Library. All books can be found within the UW Library System.
Anyon, Jean, Radical Possibilities: Public policy, urban education and a new social movement. (New York:
Routledge, 2005)
*Ayers, William and Patricia Ford, editors, City Kids, City Teachers. (New York: New Press, 1996)
*Ayers, William et al, City Kids, City Schools. (NY, New Press, 2008)
*Cisneros, Sandra, The House on Mango Street. (New York: Random House, 1991)
Hacsi, Timothy, Children as Pawns. (Cambridge MA: Harvard U Press 2005)
*Kotlowitz, Alex, There Are No Children Here. (NY: Random House, 1991)
*Kozol, Jonathan, Savage Inequalities. (New York: Harper Perennial, 1992)
*Ladson-Billings, Gloria, Dreamkeepers, 2nd edition. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009)
*Lee, Stacey, Up Against Whiteness. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2006)
*Meier, Deborah, Many Children Left Behind. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2004)
*Michie, Gregory, Holler if You Hear Me. (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999)
*See You When We Get There. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004)
Pattillo, Mary, Black on the Block: The politics of race and class in the city. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2007)
*Rothstein, Richard, Class and Schools. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004)
*Wilson, William Julius, When Work Disappears. (New York: Random House, 1997)
*There Goes the Neighborhood. (NY: Random House, 2007)
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