Rhetorical Analysis On No Child Left Behind

The obesity epidemic in America is getting worse to the point that it spread into our children’s school lunches. In Alice Waters’ and Katrina Heron’s article “No Lunch Left Behind” explains that the government is investing a lot of funds into the schools lunches and it is being wasted to buy unhealthy junk foods. Even though with just a little more money, the food can be of better quality, healthier, and safer for the students. Waters and Heron back up their explanation by describing some of the aggravations that some Americans have for this issue through ethos, adding reliable sources to strengthen the piece, and using an informative and serious tone in attempts to be heard and understood by the government and Americans who care about the health and safety of the student.

In the letter, she writes how her school is not equipped with many essentials found within elementary schools, and proceeds to ask Kozol to “make her school into a “good” school” (409). She describes how there is no place for the children to play, no fine arts, along with how the gym is not used for its purpose. Within the letter, Alliyah stated “the whole why world” (409) as opposed to “the whole wide world”, exemplifying how the education being received may not be the best quality. At the very end of the excerpt, Kozol states how Alliyah says her school does not have the things others do, and ends the argument by mentioning how it is time for America to change the inequality within our schools. He also uses pathos by stating statistics of schools who were named in honor of those who fought for equality, and proved they are anything but equal. The irony brought forth a realization of how it seems as if those who fought for equality did so with no beneficial outcome. He also makes use of pathos by shining light on the fact that children who are not fortunate enough to attend “Baby Ivies” do not have as great of a chance of success due to a later start in their education career. These uses of pathos have the ability to persuade worried parents, or relatives, to take action on the matter at

We use rhetoric every day without even realizing it. Correctly using rhetoric on a specific group of people can drastically increase an arguments’ strength. Benjamin R. Barber wrote an article conveying his research on the failing school systems in the U.S titled America Skips School published in Harper’s Magazine. Barber uses rhetorical elements like ethos, pathos, and logos to build his argument. He establishes his credibility and then emotionally connects with his audience and explains who and what is to blame for the lack of quality education in America. Once he establishes a solid connection using these

In the movie Lean on Me, Joe Clark persuades the staff and students that work hard is necessary in order to be successful through the use of ethos, pathos, and logos. Joe Clark, A very proud and strong leader, becomes a new principal at the very dangerous and “ghetto” school, needs to give his students a first impression filled with power of what his purpose for being there in his first speech of transferring there. He uses an ethos-type approach in all of his speeches. In his first speech, he uses the common quote, ‘they say ghosts are spirits that rise from the dead. I want you to be my ghosts!’

In the movie Lean on Me, Principal Joe Clark employs the persuasion techniques Ethos, playing for trust or credibility, Pathos, playing emotions, and Logos, the use of reasoning and facts, in his various speeches throughout the film. Within the movie, Principal Clark has 3 speeches, all 3 use the persuasion technique of Ethos. One instance of ethos is when Clark first arrives at the school after being appointed principal of East Side High School, a school that was ranked at the lowest in the state. In this scene, Clark expels all of the known drug dealers in the school.

They talked about pay and how that isn’t the big issue while the biggest issue is getting the students there on a saturday, a day they have off. Mr. Clark showed the students that race isn’t a factor of why someone is smart he showed that everyone is the same and no one is above or below. At the start of the Movie Mr.Clark the new principle introduced himself to his new students in an interesting way, he was able to connect with the students in many different ways. Mr. Clark invited old students that never graduated high school and show the students how they became druggies and told the students that they had a choice of how they want to live their

second largest and oldest city in Georgia with a population of about 200,000. The school district

Clark knows his student body well before the students are going to take the basic skills test. He knows that if he challenges their competitive side he will be met with fire. The principal makes public what outsiders view of the school, “They say you are inferior. You are a bunch of n*****s and s***s and poor white trash and education is wasted on you. You cannot learn. You’re lost!” This does exactly what it’s supposed to do, it gets the students fired up to prove the state board wrong. Mr. Clark uses explicit language in the beginning part of his speech, that is an appeal to pathos. Mr. Clark uses swear words that creates more emotion among the students. The students feel anger at first before he progresses later in his speech to encourage them to use the outsiders negativity to inspire them. Clark encourages the students to do the best that they can so they can do exactly that, show their value and their worth. He cheers them on by saying, “But you can turn that around and make liars out of those bastards in exactly one hour when you take that test and pass it and win!” Having an adult believe in them and their abilities helps them more than anything else. The emotion that Mr. Clark projects in his speech makes them excited to do their very best. It pays off. Enough students pass the test and the current administration will retain control over the school because they trained the students so

In 2004, coinciding with the conclusion of President George W. Bush’s first term in office, United States Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, released an essay depicting the successes of his administration. Paige’s department spearheaded the initiative sparked by the No Child Left Behind Act, a set of policies enacted to reform education and provide students with an improved degree of learning more suited to the evolving job market. Paige brings light to the findings of his administration, presenting what he considers to be evidence explicitly showing the successful nature of these programs. Through numerous faults with his argumentation and reasoning, however, Paige’s opinion on the outcome of said policies is highly debatable. To judge

With the NCLB’s focused emphasis on English and math standards, other educational areas such as the arts and sciences have been overlooked. The No Child Left Behind Act also focuses on bringing the lower scores up and not helping in raising the scores of those students who are already at higher levels leaving these higher achieving students behind in a push for equality. Although test scores have risen and the achievement gap between minority and white students has decreased, the No Child Left Behind Act has damaged the United States educational system by not addressing the needs of all students, forcing curricula to exclude arts, civics, foreign language and sciences, and emphasizing testing and not learning. It is time for a change.

The role of the federal government in setting education policy increased significantly with the passage by Congress of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping education reform law that revised the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. "Federal policy has played a major role in supporting standards-based reform since the passage of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) of 1994. That law required states to establish challenging content and performance standards, implement assessments…hold school systems accountable…" (Goertz, 2005, pg. 73)

Pathos is the writers attempt to appeal to the audience emotions. For instance, “In June, a professor protecting himself with a pseudonym wrote an essay for Vox describing how gingerly he now has to teach. ‘“I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me,”’ the headline said” (Lukianoff and Haidt). The authors appeal to emotion paints a picture in the reader’s mind, further opening their eyes to make them feel how the professor was feeling. Also, naming the article “The Coddling of the American Mind” was a great was to represent how the problem was being addressed. The use of the word “coddling” reflected the way colleges were treating their students like babies. Enforcing trigger warnings to protect the students are not helping them for the future. This appeals to pathos because the audience gets a glimpse of what the after effect of “babying” has on

The No Child Left Behind Act was based on the Elementary & Secondary Education Act of 1965. The act was established based on the promise of Thomas Jefferson to create a free public education system in Virginia (Hammond, Kohn, Meier, Sizer & Wood, 2004). The act is now reauthorized as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act was to make sure that children were given a fair, quality education. The act set out to close the achievement gaps in education, which were caused by children living in poverty, living with disabilities, children who were of different ethnic backgrounds and English learners. The proposed methods of the act targeted all children and provided an equal opportunity to meet

In other words, Funds are being withdrawn from non-tested subject areas and applied to the tested subjects’ areas, which are math, reading and science, for preparation resources for the exams. Rather, those funds should really be used to hire highly qualified teachers and to purchase and maintain functional equipment for the non-tested subject areas, like the arts. The withdrawal of time spent in a non-tested subject classroom, focusing on that course’s actual content area is another example of the detrimental effect No Child Left Behind has on non-tested content areas. Tina Beveridge, a music professor at Lower Columbia College, quotes Gerber and Gerrity in her article, “No Child Left Behind and Fine Arts Classes”, and states that principles prefer to hire teachers for arts positions, who are trained in the arts and either reading or math (5). Therefore, school leaders want to hire teachers that are dually trained in arts and math or reading, so that those teachers can teach the tested subject matter within the non-tested subjects classroom’s and takes away the time spent on learning those neglected subjects. The No Child Left Behind Act, while having good intentions, is

The No Child Left Behind Act also has a very narrow focus on curriculum. The act focuses on just math and reading scores. This could have an undemocratic effect on a large generation of students in poorly performing schools. Schools would have take away much of the broad education in order to elevate scores on just two subject areas. Students in wealthy schools with good test scores will continue to learn a full range of subjects including art, social studies and science, while the students who scored poorly on the tests, will be receiving education in only two subject areas. It is not right to put two subjects as the top priority. This means that not all students will get a complete education. This concern with literacy and math skills divides