Dale Russakoff

Lincoln High School, which is located in a low-income neighborhood in San Diego, was a rebuilt after 50 years of failing to educate children. Rebuilding the high school was the answer the community had been looking for they were hopeful. Before the rebuild most students who attended Lincoln did not meet the standards for their grade-level, few graduated and even fewer went go on to college. After years of suffering and neglect there was little doubt That Lincoln High School deserved the $129 million it received from the city to rebuild. But was rebuilding the school the solution for Lincoln High School 's education problem? First we’ll examine, How the problem started, the decision making steps and if the plan was successful.

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, a novel depicting success, provides different examples of how an individual can achieve success in every chapter of his book to show his audience that success, despite a variety of barriers, is in fact in our control. A very important chapter titled, “Marita's Bargain”, explains the flaws in today’s public school systems. He shows the problems with the solutions to fix them while showing the alternatives to the regular system such as the KIPP Program in New York. The KIPP Program (Knowledge is Power Program) is a new kind of middle school that selects students from less fortunate locations and uses unique teaching strategies to turn them around into fantastic learners. In the chapter, Gladwell is extremely descriptive by using visual words to paint the picture of the South Bronx in New York City. He describes the buildings that were built in the 1960’s as squat and bleak looking. Gladwell had an interest in this subject as it involves success, however he had no prior experiences to produce the piece. Gladwell establishes personal credibility through the use of knowledge, reason, and facts and figures. He comes across very knowledgeable on the subject presenting great data with excellent vocabulary. He is able to do this with no obvious bias as well. Gladwell shows authority because he is well known for writing novels that involve success. His intention is to teach and explain how schools need to change the length of vacation breaks

Pedro Noguera, a phenomenal urban sociologist and a professor at New York University confronts the problems which exist in our nation’s education system in his book, City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education. Noguera describes what he views to be the main problems facing urban education and suggests strategies for improvement. From years of experience as a teacher and school board member, he reflects on what he believes to be the real problems. Noguera blames the school’s failures on students, parents, and teachers which leads to blame local government officials or policymakers. Noguera states in City Schools and the American Dream, “The central argument of this book is that until there is a genuine commitment to address the social context of schooling — to confront the urban condition — it will be impossible to bring about significant and sustainable improvements in urban public schools” (pg.6). Noguera believes that we must address the central problem to make any type of solutions for improvement.

This demonstrates that if Sam’s school had got more funding then Sam may have received a proper education, and would have learned the intellectual skills that could help him to obtain a high paying job. Unlike many other people in richer parts of America who are able to achieve a lot in life due to their education, Sam’s lack of wealth ruins his future. Another example is one that hits closer to home- in terms of educational funding, the Illinois system is corrupt, and one of the districts that suffers most is that of Chicago Public Schools. In an interview with Ryan Young from CNN and an anonymous Chicago Public School teacher over the recent strike over budget cuts and the overall lack in school funding, the teacher states, “We care about the students. We want funding for our schools so our children can have supplies… gym, art, and PE., just like the kids in the suburbs do.” This is a direct representation of what is occurring in the Chicago Public School system today as a consequence of budget cuts and unequal funding. In general, the lack of school funding gives poorer children disadvantages when it comes to supplies that can help them to thrive. Also, budget cuts weaken the capacity of schools’ to develop the intelligence and creativity of the next generation of workers. In fact,, funding cuts lessen the ability of the schools to help prepare children better for their future, such as improving teacher

For my entire life of schooling, both my parents and I would agree that I constantly complained about the educational systems in which I was enrolled. But when I actually take the time to think about everything I have been through, I realize that I have indeed had an excellent education. My schooling was full of opportunities and experiences, all of which contributed to the person I am today; adequate education has been an indispensable facet of my being. Sadly, not everyone has had this same privilege. And now as a college student, I am becoming even more aware of this sad fact. Looking around me in such a diverse city as Chicago, I find myself being more and more grateful. When I read Jonathan Kozol's Fremont High School, this these

The educational system of the united states is not capitalizing on the full potential of its people. Jonathan Kozol in his article “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”, discusses the drastic difference in the quality of education based on a family’s income. Kozol discusses how economic disparities usually coincide with race, but focuses on the economic gap of education. Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast “Carlos doesn’t remember”, gives a story and a personal touch, to the issues low income students face. Kozol writing and Gladwell’s podcast, both show that the quality of a child’s education is pure chance. A lottery of being born into a high or low income family dictates the outcome and capitalization of a child’s future.

“Education in our country is the social service equivalent of Katrina. Part of the challenge that we face in this nation is that we have to confront the fact that we have systems that are designed essentially to fail kids,” states Geoffrey Canada in his address at the Social Justice Leadership Conference (Newport, 2011). Canada has an innate ability to blatantly state the problems facing communities in this country. However he is not just talking; he is doing something about it.

In the second part of the Celebrated Horace Trilogy, Horace’s School, Theodore R. Sizer emphasizes education’s role in Franklin High and how Franklin High’s “civic education” is not of unique quality, for it restricts Franklin High’s students from breaking out of their comfort zone. That comfort zone is being satisfied with the education given and not feeding off of the school’s education to push the limit on success if a limit is even present. A caution that Horace Smith, a veteran English teacher at Franklin High, is trying to disperse through the Board of Education and Franklin High’s community; a caution that becomes evident when Smith critiques the curriculum of Franklin High. In Franklin High, there are “Exhibitions-a portfolio collected

Dean and Professor, Alfred Tatum, writes for the Chicago Tribune, about the generous donation from a rapper, commonly known as Chance the Rapper. Also, about his many years as a teacher. Tatum writes in his piece about the education and society of Chicago and with Chance the Rapper’s donation of around 1.1 million dollars it could possible change the education system and possibly the lives of many youths. Tatum’s purpose of writing his piece was to show his audience that Chicago is not a lost cause, as long as people of the community bound together to improve the city that they live in and it starts with the school.

Bill Gates claims he is worried about the state of schools, and admitted he testified in court for this reason. By including such a well-known public figure, the audience can connect to him and trust what he is saying due to his authority. Michelle Rhee became the new Chancellor of the Washington, DC public schools in 2007. She too was in favor of bettering school systems and also appeals to the audience in persuasion for change through authority. Although Rhee was not warmly esteemed by the Teacher’s Union or parents in the DC area, her judgement and opinions, formulated from experience and observation, further support why major changes are needed for the school system. Both Gates and Rhee imply that educational opportunities must be bettered so that the lives of children across the country will be impacted and the chances that they succeed bettered. This appeal is effective because they go along with just morals and ethics and support change, which inspires the audience to follow them and fight for change as

To relocate the volumes of people to achieve her goal of social change would not be received well by the middle class. The middle class takes property very seriously, if someone was to relocate them from their nice suburban houses and environment straight into Harlem one would be extremely angry. The rest of her proposals are ideas that would seem to work to help improve the working poor and influence their job situation but only for small groups. Newman 's remedies are in a small scale that is geared to help small groups, which is largely unequal to the scale of need for all the working poor. Several of her proposals involved methods that we use today such as a reform of unionization for low wage workers and a reform to improve the health care and child care for the poor. One of her best proposals by far is to incorporate a school to work program. This is largely similar to the cooperative education experience many receive at Kettering University. This has many advantages including the school, the school 's teachers, and the employers. The schools would benefit from a sense of purpose that is now incorporated within the student body and gives the school an opportunity for a system of punishments and rewards available. Employers of the students greatly benefit as well. The Teachers and employers would form strong relationships in which teachers provide reliable information about quality students in return for the employers offer

One of the biggest overlying pieces of this article, is the narrative brought into view within the first few sentences- American Exceptionalism. People everywhere, disregarding their views on the problems in the school system, agree that America is the best in everything else, therefore our schools should be top-of-the-line and produce high achieving scholars that can compete with anyone from around the world. It doesn’t matter that there are students coming from all different types of backgrounds- we need to be on top. Putting the idea of this narrative in the beginning of the article, the author sets up the option for the reader to try to see why reformers are set on fixing the “issue” in our system. We want to be the best. Have pride in our

In the comment made by former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, he is attempting to make an analogical argument paralleling the evaluation of teachers to the evaluation of heart surgeons. Comparing the success of teachers based on students standardized test scores with the success of heart surgeons based on patient survival rates are distinctively different. The disanalogy here begins by looking at the significant differences between the two. A student’s success on standardized tests is influenced by several different factors. Although a teacher is an important part of the equation, other factors must be considered including the students study habits, motivation, family involvement, innate ability, community, social/emotional factors, quality

While it is not until his final chapter “Young People: Improving the Odds” that we read Edelman’s thoughts on American education at length, I argue that the theme of education is one that motivates Edelman’s writing.

Systemic change is a recurrent process in which the influence of change on all parts and their relationships to one another are taken into contemplation. Systematic change allows for change on the policy, technology, education, and information levels, it goes beyond thinking about individuals and single problems. Change is an important part of progress and systematic change is a huge undertaking for a school, even any business. People are resistant to change, they like being comfortable, but sometimes being comfortable is not being effective. This week while discussing change, an article stood out; the author wrote “…comprehensive school reform will succeed only if it’s predicated on a sustained, cooperative, and trusting relationship among parents, school and district staff, and the school board governing the system” (Usdan, 2010, pp.9). In many ways this is true, systematic change is such a large amount of change, people that are not supportive of the change can ultimately cause it to fail. In some cases, one person’s lack of interest in the change can cause a successful school to