Taking sides : clashing views on educational issues / [selected, edited and with issue framing material] by Glenn L. Koonce.

Includes bibliographical references.

This book presents opposing or sharply varying viewpoints on educational issues of current concerns. Unit 1 offers consideration of two basic theoretical issues that have been discussed by scholars and practitioners in the past century and are still debated today: curriculum content and its imposition upon the young and the philosophical underpinning of the purpose and process of public education. Unit 2 features four issues that are fundamental to understanding the present circumstances that shape American education: democratic classrooms for citizenship preparation; student First Amendment rights; common curriculum considerations, including policy and the Common Core standards; and the challenges of turning around schools with poor school performance. Unit 3 examines more specific issues currently being discussed and debated: arming teachers, universal preschool, teacher preparation and federal government policies, no-zero grading practices, twenty-first century skills movement, flipped learning and flipped classrooms, class size and student achievement, school funding and student achievement, charter school expansion, impact of technology on teaching and learning, optin gout of testing, homework, technology and tracing student social-emotional learning, electronic versus print textbooks, and K-12 accreditation. Every effort has been made to select views from a wide range of thinkers--philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, professional educators, political leaders, historians, researchers, and, at times, gadflies who want to have their voices hears. Time-honored stances on education are being disputed. All K-12 students are affected in the discussions to improve outcomes for their career and college readiness. A special effort has been made to include the new Federal law, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and its effect on many of the issues. By combining the material in this volume with the informational background provided by a good introductory textbook, students should be prepared to address the problems confronting schools today--preface.