Current Event: National Education Standards

Nina Shokraii Rees, an educational specialist once said, “Having a good strong test in early years will give parents the information about where kids are, and where the problems are.” The problems are with school. The problems with standardized testing in most cases, is not the kid it is the school. Therefore, it is not the parents job to fix their kids, it is the government jobs to fix the schools. By giving all students national standardized tests is only beneficial for one reason-it shows the government that they are failing at providing an education for students. Knowing this information is not even beneficial to the government because they are not willing to take action. The government for years now have blamed the problem with education on everything else but themselves. It is time for they to realize they are failing students all over the country and it is their responsibility to come up with a better plan rather than with education standards. Currently America does not have national standards but there are state standards. John Jennings, the director of the center of education said "And they will hold students and teachers accountable for reaching those cucurriculums. That's what this whole movement is about." The movement of standardized testing is to see where a student is compared to students around the state. It is unfair for the government to compare a student from a Chicago Public High School to a kid from New Trier. This unfairness is not caused from the parents, teachers, or students but a combination which all leads back to the government. The government is afraid. They are afraid because they have failed time and time again for students. They fail to give all students a proper education, they fail to look at the real issue of schools, and they fail to take action. The government needs to look at the standardize tests and think "okay here is what we are doing wrong, and this is what we need to do about it". The whole reason that low-income areas were creating and minorities were pushed into them in the first place, is the governments fault. It is time for them to clean up what they keep doing wrong and stop failing kids over and over again. They have been unfair, they have showed a lack of care, and they have ignored the thousands of kids that they have failed. It is time to find a solution through looking at standardized testing and not think that that is the answer. In my opinion on education, if they government can first own up to what they have been doing, then they can begin improvement. In my opinion on national standards, what would that do? It would further discourage kids about they education or it would further show the country how privileged some kids get to be. I do not see the purpose. I do not understand how it would accomplish anything positive. The real answer is not at throwing numbers and tests around it is in community and to answer the question- why do some children receive an unequal education and what can we as a country and government do to stop this?

Koch, K. (1999, May 14). National education standards. CQ Researcher, 9, 401-424. Retrieved February 9, 2010, from CQ Researcher Online, http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1999051400.

Opposing Viewpoints: White Americans Must Build Seperate Communities

John Morgan believes that in order to improve education whites need to create their own communities. He believes that if whites created their own communities that "The most important aspect of such a community would be the education it offered children." Morgan believes that all whites have a completely different way of thinking therefore they need their own community. He goes as far to say that an all white community would create no violence. What would this solve? What have we learned? What would happen if America tried this again? If whites create isolated communities they would have thrown away all that has been accomplished since slavery. Blacks started to move into white communities for a reason and John Morgan does not provide an answer for how that would be prevented. After years of abuse from whites, blacks still went into white communities and used their constitutional rights. This would happened again if white communities became popular. They would not be able to stay white. Black families want the "white education" for their children. It would solve no problems and since blacks have the same rights as whites.
There are many problems with inner city public schools that yes, are mostly filled with minorities. Creating white communities would further create unequal education and problems with racism. America needs to fix the problem of education as a whole, whites cannot just run away from them. Separating education due to separate communities will cause white supremacy and racial issues...again. It would split the country into two...again. Education is a key part of life. America is currently providing whites in blacks with an unequal education thus an unequal life. Separating whites from other cultures would further deny life to many minorities. Now, this is just John Morgan's opinion which is why it is not a reality. The issue is that many whites agree with him causing racial separation.
Schools like Deerfield, New Trier, etc. are filled with mostly white kids. They do not deny education to minorities but due to almost all white communities provides the school with a "white education." When blacks and whites are both given an education like one from Deerfield they both can excel. If resided in the same community, just because a boy is white does not mean he is born to have success. It all depends on how a person grows up and the education that is given. America needs to learn to work together as one country to solve this problem. A country that fought to be one country through shedding blood of brothers and friends, a country that has worked to hard to give up.

Morgan, John Hunt. "White Americans Must Build Separate Communities." At Issue: White Supremacy Groups. Ed. Mitchell Young. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 8 Feb. 2010

Current Event: Fixing Urban Schools

What are students supposed to do? If students are not given the opportunity for a good education, but have the desire for one, what are they supposed to do? Many students in high-poverty areas attend schools that provide little to no education. The education they receive cannot even be compared with the education to a middle-class school in the suburbs. This has been an issue for a long time so what is the government doing? Are they helping? Can they help? These difficult questions are all ones that need to be answered to improve the educations of the youth. According to this article "Only 5 percent of white students attend such high-poverty schools". This issue is creating more separation between blacks and whites. This does not mean that all blacks are poorly educated or all whites have high educations what it means is that whites have an advantage because very few whites attend schools where it is hard to achieve an education. To fix the problem of unequal education the No Child Left Behind Act was created.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was put in place so that government could see individual test scored to judge how each school was doing. There are many people who believe this is a positive thing because schools with low test scores can be helped and improved. I ask to this opinion how are they going to be fixed? If the schools could be fixed then America would no longer have the problem of unequal education, which is not reality. The NCLB sets high standards for students to meet and not all students can meet them. That should be the first clue to the government as to why certain areas are not meeting them. The NCLB showed the difference in education standing between whites and blacks and the results showed separation. So what is there to do? Middle class schools have so many resources they do not typically need that high-poverty schools need but do not have. Many students who attend high poverty schools need special attention that they cannot have.
In the end the No Child Left Behind Act in my opinion has not done a great deal. If anything it discourages kids and does not show fair results. The government needs to take action through looking at a bigger picture. They should not blame the teachers or students behavior but more why the students behave this way. The issue of unequal education goes far beyond just education. It touches some sensitive areas like racism and I believe the government it scared of what would happen if they tried to tackle these issues. This leaves it up to the people to show that they want a proper education and deserve one.

Clemmitt, M. (2007, April 27). Fixing urban schools. CQ Researcher, 17, 361-384. Retrieved February 7, 2010, from CQ Researcher Online, http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2007042700.

Opposing Viewpoints: The Quality of Public Education has Declined

"The quality of public education has deteriorated" (Bethell). I do not believe there is a better way to describe public education. Bethell throughout this article gives different reasons for why he believes this to be true. When Bethell refers to quality he refers to SAT scored dropping significant amounts since the 1970s. Many problems in education go back to civil rights issues. The impact of the whole civil rights movement has and still is greatly effecting public education. This occurs in mostly inner city schools and this issue will continue to grow because the percent of minorities in inner city public schools is growing. Bethell goes on to mention that a huge problem with America’s educational system is the teachers. Many teachers go to school to become an educator not to educate others on a specific subject. This leads to teachers teaching with less quality which creates public schools to lose quality. There has been much legislation for education to push for improvement but each piece of legislation has had little to no effect and some has even made the situation worse. Schooling is very important to America and with these issues it becomes very difficult for students to excel.
Due to the fact that these issues have been present and growing worse for about forty years is not good for the youth. This poses many problems for the future. Since there has been legislation failing to fix the problem for many years now the government needs to figure out what legislation will work. Another possible issue for the future is the future generation. This meaning that with generations getting worse and worse educations creates for an unequal balance in society, with kids who attend non inner city schools or private schools, which is majority white, will have better educations than those attend inner city schools. An additional issue that education could run into is that if the quality of public schools continues to go down the demand for public schools will go up. If this happens and more kids attend private schools then the quality of private schools will also go down. It is the government’s job and responsibility how to fix this issue without continuing to further damage and ruin education all together. This is a very challenging issue to tackle, but it needs to be done.
I agree with Tom Bethell's view point. I believe that the quality of public education has truly been on a decline since the 70s. His reasoning behind the bold statement I believe to be all logical and true. Not only that, but I believe that this will not end. Some schools and areas are so damaged that trying to fix them would be very diffiuclt and near impossible. This is why in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) they are shutting down some schools completly and getting an all new staff and trying to recreate them. But even this is not helping so what can the government do? What can we do as a middle class society with a good education? We have a moral responiblity to create a general knowledge across of America. If we can have this knowledge then we can improve as a society. But if education is fading out then how can knowledge be obtained?

Bethell, Tom. "The Quality of Public Education Has Declined." Opposing Viewpoints: Education. Ed. Mary E. Williams. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 7 Feb. 2010 e=gale&srcprod=OVRC&userGroupName=deer63488&version=1.0>.

Short Story on Education

Finding a short story on education was surprisingly difficult. As I searched for a story about segregation in school or funding for school and came up with no results, I truly realized that education does not necessarily involve schools and learning in a classroom through teachers. To have an education is to have knowledge. Yes, there are many different levels of education creating many different levels of knowledge but all education requires knowledge. In the short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut all of America is considered equal. "They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way."(Welcome 7). If one person was born smarter or prettier for example, then the government would handicap them so they were equal. Harrison Bergeron was considered to be smart and was thrown in jail because he was not following the rules. By him not following the rules was the governments way of thinking that society would fall back to different levels of knowledge and equality. He escaped from jail and went to dance with a ballerina. Harrison and the ballerina took off their handicaps and became unequal to all. They danced and listened to real music. The result of their actions and breaking the law resulted in their death. Harrison's mother and father see this occur on television. His mother is crying for her son but she cannot remember moments later why she is crying because the government has taken away her knowledge.

This short story at first was not clear how it related to education but after careful thinking and rereading I realized that it has everything to do with education. In the story the government takes away their right to knowledge, which is taking away their right to an education. This story was supposed to take place in 2081 and equalizing everyone was supposed to get rid of all the problems America has had in the past. By taking away the people's education and knowledge goes against everything that America stands for, has stood for, worked for, fought for and will continue to fight for, for centuries. The government in the story controls their every move, which throws away one-thousand years of fighting for freedom. This is shown through Harrison's mother. His mother cannot even mourn or know that her son is dead because she is not allowed to have knowledge. The society also does not know that they have rights because they are not allowed an education. They are also not allowed to freely express themselves, some of the people in the society cannot even show their faces. The problem is, is that most people in the society do not even know or see that their is a problem. They cannot see it because not only do they not know any better the government takes it upon themselves to decide what they can know and how they use the information that they do know. This all does not work in a society, because they are denied the right to be themselves.

Through Harrison Bergeron it shows how vital education truly is. That without education America cannot really function as a society. Yes, they can go about their day with actions and words, but they cannot do anything meaningful or live a fulfilled life without education. They cannot do this because they do not know, they do not know what it truly means to live. No one can find success within themselves or a society without knowledge and education. Without an education we would all live without a purpose. If this short story actually became a reality we would be dealing with denying rights yet again. America in current day has already found that the right to an education is essential and necessary and to deny it again is pointless and an act of stupidity. It did not work before and it will not work in the future. The people need knowledge through education and they have the right to it.

Welcome to the Monkey House: Kurt Vonnegut

Where Am I Now?

Now I am left thinking with a different view on education. I still believe that education is a vital part of a society, but I am left with wondering how previous actions have effected the knowledge and educations of thousands of kids. By this I mean things like the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has had little positive effect on kids. The nation today is still dealing with problems that occurred decades ago. This meaning that things that have happened occurring with racism years ago are still effecting public education today. I believe that this is what I would like to focus on.

Primary Source: Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965)

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act makes statements that suggest and attempt to better education. The act provides all children with an education, it also states that all children have the right to an equal and free public education. This is very hard to maintain due to the fact that taxes help fund public schools and low income areas creates schools with little funds. This is why the act goes on to further say that the state will help fund schools for low income areas. The act is set up for each state to create standards for their students to meet, which is a good process for public schooling. The problem with these standards are typically students in low income areas do not meet them while most students in high income areas do. This shows a problem with state funding and how it leads to inequality in schools. The act goes on to state different reasons how all children can meet these standards. The act goes as far to say "All parents can contribute to their children's success by helping at home and becoming partners with teachers so that children can achieve high standards."(Elementary) This act put a lot of belief into their statements. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act gives suggestions to what they believe can help meet this standards. The problem with their suggestions is they harder to meet in low income areas as opposed to high income areas. This yet again but low income schools and areas behind and it becomes harder to meet state standards. I would go as far to say that many of the suggestions the act gives are useless. For example by saying that children can have an easier time reaching state standards through school choice is a pointless statement. Many students do not have the choice of a decent public school due to their previous school. If their previous school, such as middle school, was not one of good teachers or education they are not academically advanced enough to move on to a better more well educated school.

"Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965)." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .