Public schools provide an environment where young people can discover who they are meant to become. John Holt’s essay, “School Is Bad For Children” emphasizes the ways the public school system destroys a student’s imagination and willingness to learn. This is not the case for every school. Schools are often a safe place for students to learn not only the academic material but, they are also places for students to develop their talents while building a strong support system. The government can not regulate every school to make sure each student is getting exactly what each student deserves. While the generic system is easy to maintain and to teach, there is no guarantee learning is occurring for the students. Public schools help each student navigate their own minds by providing a general education by which the students can choose what they do with their knowledge after they graduate. Without conventional public schooling, many students would not have the chance to learn, schools can provide an adequate education regardless of the location of teaching, and public schools are safe places for children with unidealistic family lives. In the United States of America the gap between upper and lower class is growing and public education provides an outlet from poverty. The amount of Americans living in the middle class is decreasing. If the US decided to change the public school system and reform schools to be exactly how Holt describes, only the wealthy would be able to afford
Public schools help students become prepared for society until the day they graduate from high school. Over the years, students do not continue since they do not feel that they are prepared for college and decided to earn a low-paying job instead. Therefore, more students are either dropping out of high school or not attempting to enroll in college to improve their education.
John Gatto’s “Against School” is a persuasive essay arguing both the ineffectiveness and negative outcomes of today’s public school system. Not only does Gatto provide credibility with his experience as a teacher, but he also presents historical evidence that suggests that the public school system is an outdated structure, originally meant to dumb down students as well as program them to be obedient pawns in society. Fact and authority alone do not supplement his argument. Gatto also uses emotional appeals, such as fear and doubt, to tear down the reader’s trust in the schooling system. Although it may seem to be so, Gatto’s argument is not one sided. He also offers suggestions to make the educational system more efficient at the hands of
In a progressively more globalized world that necessitates more effective educational practices, the U.S., once the biggest global force in education, has seen its dominance slowly slip out, and its educational status fall even lower than that of several third-world countries. The decline experienced in American school system academic achievement is not as a result of lack of funding, but as a consequence of the overall educational system watering down. According to Gatto, educating children through the existing public school system of America is crippling rather than helping them. From his essay, ‘Against School,’ it is established that the goal of the whole public school system is to limit people’s intelligence in an attempt to create a society that is manageable. Gatto continues to state that action is needed to change this situation. He supports his assertions using current and historical information about the American school system and his personal experience. After reading his article, one realizes that most of Gatto’s arguments are true. It is true that the American education system is making the students comfort to the government and society norms, which is why they are easily bored. This essay’s goal will, therefore, be to support John Gatto’s beliefs.
The public school system of America is the driving force of the nation’s job market. There is a direct correlation between the nation’s job market and the nation’s economic opulence. Despite education being at an all-time high for tax dollars spent, the heightened accessibility of schools across the country, and continuation of schooling after high school more than ever, the public school system of the United States continues to pump out insufficient workers to the work force. For almost two hundred years, the citizens of America have held a belief that going through the school system will be the necessary element to the life one wants to live in America. Over the years, schooling emitted a false hope that made job assurance possible. Fifty
Andrew R. Deras Dr. Jide Osikomaiya English 100 8 September 2016 The Most Compelling Problems In American Schools As we delve back into a new year for students and teachers alike returning to school to continue with the daily life of academics and learning, we all must be understanding of what exactly we are sending our peers and children back to. It should be no surprise to most of us that throughout the years we have seen countless upon countless examples from the news and through others, that our school system is flawed in some way, shape or form. It is no longer a coincidence that our students are only achieving 36th from the top in all total curriculum (Arnett). This is also evident to anyone who may happen to own a T.V. and has been a viewer to these numerous articles describing these horrible issues we have within schools firsthand (ABC News). Not only that, but schooling can also be further compromised by politics and law related issues (Ravitch). What my goal for the essay I am submitting to you is; to give my opinions on the current situation of public schooling in America, discuss the issues, and back my points I will be presenting, with concrete evidence I have uncovered in my research. I would like to make it clear that my stance on the current situation is that there is not only a singular problem with public education, but a number of issues that inhibit students to learn properly and function as productive members of society. An excellent place to start would
School, everyone summons different thoughts and connotations whenever they hear that word. Although people range in their opinions of school, many can agree that schools all have the same goal: to educate their students. This is proving to be false; John Taylor Gatto provides evidence of this in his essay, “Against School.” Within this text he explains how schools are not educating students to be the best they can be, instead teachers are teaching them to become role players in today’s society and to be desensitized from their natural creativity. Gatto, a three time New York Teacher of the Year, has had his fair share of teaching. Gatto provides evidence to the audience that they have been wrong all along about the way a school functions. His ideals prove that the schooling systems in today’s society are not what they seem; schools are thought to develop and help a student unlock their full potential but through the evidence that Gatto provides us he shows that the education system does anything but that. He shows us this by appealing to the audience’s logos and pathos or their logical and emotional natures.
With the many diverse characteristics of the Unites States, perhaps the most troubling is the rising gap in the distribution of wealth. As the wealth gap in the United States rises exponentially, the gap in the quality of public schooling rises with it. For a country that prides itself in prestigious outlets of education, the system of public schooling seems to be miserably failing. Public education, a system that some fight to destroy while others fight to preserve, is perhaps the only source of academic opportunity for many individuals living in this country. The fact that someone can live in a certain area and receive a higher quality of public education than someone else living in a different area in the same country—even in the same state—is a problem that should not trouble a ‘progressive’ democratic society. Unfortunately, areas of lower socioeconomic status receive much less funding than areas of higher socioeconomic status, where property taxes account for 45% of funding in public school districts. Naturally, the impoverished residents of poor neighborhoods pay a harsh price in this situation, sending their children to an underfunded school with little to no resources, where sometimes teachers must supply the classroom from their own pocket. As Rogerson and Fernandez note, “a system that allows the accidents of geography and birth to determine the quality of education received by an individual is inimical to the idea of equal opportunity in the marketplace”
It is essential for child of any age to get a form of education. Private or public, school is a necessity for children to expand their knowledge and learn from their mistakes. But, how will a vast eighty-seven percent of the US's children learn if there is not money to invest in their public schools? Mothers Jessica Blatt and Lizzie Scott in their editorial argue that Public schools are not receiving the affection they need. First, Blatt and Scott incorporate emotional diction into their editorial to appeal to the audience's empathetic emotions. Second, Blatt and Scott integrate specific details into their editorial to emphasize the change that needs to happen in the public schooling system. Third, Blatt and Scott manipulate the syntax of their editorial to mirror the how the Public School Watchdogs need supporters now. These establish a passionate devoted tone. Blatt's and Scott's editorial is significant because it enlightens one about the problems happening behind the doors of public education.
There are many controversies that American public education system does more harm than good. In “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto and “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” by Jean Anyon, explains how school education destructively impacts us. Gatto states his experience as a public school teacher and why he “just can't-do it anymore”. He was tired how the schooling was programmed. He argues how school system are affecting students to be more like “childlike” citizens. Also, Anyon demonstrates her research on how there are many different kinds of education depending what “class” you were. She informs us that there is an inequality in “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”. She tells us that this difference in
In this video about “What’s Wrong with Our Schools”, Milton demands a question which is still important even today than it was in 1980. why the public-school system has changed so much since lots of parents are starting to protest about the poor quality of education that their children are receiving and the public hating the increased taxes that help the public schools. Milton made a conclusion by saying that it is the government who control the most harms the welfare of students and parents alike.
Since 1805 public schools have been the backbone of many Americans and their strive for an education. On top of this, public schools, according to the Huffington Post, equate to 91% or 50.7 million of those attending pre-Kindergarten through the 12th grade. But, with other school types such as year-round attending over 2 million students, the question begs, “Which school type provides their students with the best education”?
The United States prides itself on its public education system making it a core value of many families. The level of education a person has will influence their career achievements. Americans expect their public system of education to provide a solid curriculum. Most of the people in the United States place their trust in the public school system in which they support through taxes. This trust although is contradicted by the public system of education’s current shape. Much of the schools in the United States are either deteriorating, or failing all together. The drawbacks of public education create an unhealthy environment for student learning.
The greatly discussed dilemma of having a child be taught in a public school setting versus a homeschool setting has been evaluated by parents since the idea was first introduced in the 1970’s. Public schooling had been the standard method of teaching since it is a requirement for states to provide public, free education for children in grades K-12. However, the backlash against the system began when two educational theorists and supporters of school reform, John Holt and Raymond Moore, started to question both the techniques and the products of public schools. Some parents went on to support the ideas of them and began to teach their children in the environment of their own homes for several different reasons. Some included moral or religious reasons, a desire for high educational achievement, dissatisfaction with public schools’ instructional program, or concerns about drugs and peer pressure in a public school environment. Child development specialists believe that homeschooled children are isolated from the outside world, therefore making them socially handicapped. If being exposed to this type of education on an elementary school level, the child can suffer from the lack of fundamental development of effective social skills needed for a lifetime ahead of them.
1.1 million American students drop out of school every year (TBF, 2012). After World War II, the United States had the #1 high school graduation rate in the world. Today, we have dropped to # 22 among 27 industrialized nations (TBF, 2012). These astronomically large numbers are why I chose this topic. Public schooling is in crisis, and more and more people are opting to go to private schools or be homeschooled. Even through all of this, there are many glimpses of hope. Many public schools are still very good, and competitive towards private schools. On the flip side, other public schools, namely in big cities, are also colossally behind the suburban schools that are competitively good. Luckily, I live in Penfield, where we have one of the suburban schools, but what if I didn’t? That’s the reason I choose this topic (I have a bit of a habit of overanalyzing things, so the “what-if” factor really intrigued me). With that out of the way, here is one of the most important decisions I will ever make: what I will do about education.
Can you imagine a world in which parents were free to send their children to only the best schools, no matter which neighborhood they lived in? What if cost wasn’t a factor? Imagine if even a student in the poorest section of town had access to the best education. What could that child achieve? What would they become? How would their life change? Those questions that I asked lead now to the focus of the essay. The world we live in is ever so changing, with that the need for education also needs to be changing. No longer do classic public schools fit the job in all certain situations. That is why with school choice being a controversial issue in education reform, school choice public funds should be used to support school choice programs that offer parents alternatives to traditional public schools.