Kristy

 Closing the Achievement Gap Kristy Mariano  The academic achievement gap between white students and those who are considered members of minority groups in the American school system has existed without fail since minority students began attending schools. Closing this gap has become a primary concern since the integration of schools in the 1960s. While integration of schools was in and of itself a major step towards advancing the academic achievement of students of all races, it was hardly the silver bullet that it promised to be. Since communities throughout the United States remain racially segregated due to economics, many schools still remain predominantly white while others remain racially diverse. The gains that have been made in the academic achievement of African American and Latino American students have been tremendous, however, the fact that an achievement gap remains at all is unacceptable. The remedies that have been put in place through government legislation, such as Head Start and affirmative action, have been outstanding and should remain in place to continue to combat the problems that are at the root of the achievement gap. Some argue that both programs are ineffective uses of government funding and are actually government sponsored attempts at reverse racism towards white Americans. Head Start and affirmative action have benefitted students so much that the achievement gap that does exist today is a narrow one. Head Start has been one of the most beneficial programs to fight the achievement gap in history. By providing preschool aged children of the economically disadvantaged with educational and nutritional opportunities, Head Start has enabled parents who could not otherwise afford to the opportunity to give their children the early childhood education that the middle and upper classes have been giving their children since time immemorial. Educators have known for years that children who have attended preschool, or who have parents who take the responsibility on themselves, come to school better prepared and much further along cognitively than those who are left uneducated until kindergarten. Furthermore, children who are not given the proper nutrition during their development have also been shown to be far behind their peers cognitively. This program was a governmental no-brainer. In fact, until recently, this program was endorsed by all Americans as an exemplar of how a governmental program can address the needs of the public. However, in the political climate of the last decade, this program has suffered the fate of so many others. It has been attacked not because it has been proven ineffective or fiscally unsound, but because it is a government run operation. Some Republicans have attempted to discredit and shut down almost all educational programs that are government run since President George W. Bush was elected. Thankfully, the program has been so successful that advocates on both sides of the political aisle were able to stall the attempts to abandon it when it came up for reauthorization until a democratic congress was able to pass the reauthorization bill. This is the most interesting thing to note about the attempts of the Republicans to rid society of Head Start. Their solution to closing the achievement gap is also based on a government program. Those who oppose Head Start propagate the No Child Left Behind Act as the savior that the educational system in this country has been praying for for years. They believe that by closing down public schools and opening charter schools they will be able to close the achievement gap. This is interesting since it is not based on any studies, charter schools have not shown any real promise of a better education to anyone, let alone minority students, and federal funding for this bill has been insufficient to the tune of approximately 70 million dollars (251). Head Start, conversely, has been studied closely since its inception and has always shown to be of great benefit, and it has only been underfunded since some Republicans waged their war on government spending for anything other than the defense budget. The success of Head Start was not an isolated victory in the attempt to close the achievement gap. An integral piece of the battle was put in place in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson signed into law Executive Order 11246, which is better known as affirmative action. Affirmative action meant that the discriminatory practices in both the educational and employment spheres of American life would no longer be allowed. It mandated that equal opportunity be granted to all, and not just to those who were already privileged. Opponents of affirmative action believe that while it may at one time have been of some value, it is no longer a necessary practice. Some opponents even argue that this law is government sponsored reverse racism. They feel this way since the law states that if two equally qualified applicants apply for a job, the job will be given to the racial minority applicant over the white one, and since it allows schools and employers to take a slightly less qualified minority applicant for a position instead of a more qualified white person. Logical analysis of the history of affirmative action requires a person to recognize that were this law not put in place, it would be nearly impossible, and certainly not the norm, for minority people to ever become employed or to ever be accepted at universities since they had never been given the opportunities that whites had been given. If people are kept out of universities based on their race, then they will never be in a position to earn employment over their educated white peers. The argument of opponents is that since enough minorities have now attended universities to ensure that some of them have gotten into good jobs, then there is no longer a need to have affirmative action. Starting right now all applicants should be considered based only on their merits. However, until the achievement gap in education is closed entirely, it would be irresponsible to end affirmative action practices. If educational inequity remains, then the merits of applicants will reflect the same inequality that is in our schools. Closing the educational and societal achievement gap should not be a question of whether or not public education should exist, and it certainly should not be a question of whether or not the No Child Left Behind Act is advantageous to schools. These two arguments will continue for decades, and the achievement gap should not be allowed to continue along with them. The programs and laws that the government has in place to address this issue have been incredibly effective and should, therefore, continue to be funded at necessary levels and promoted to the country as helping to raise the attainment levels of all of our citizens so that we can be proud that the least among us has the same benefits of citizenship in this country as the best among us. The only way to ever see equality in our schools is to see equality in the rest society. We need to address the unequal representation of minority peoples deem impoverished in our country. We need to ensure that educational funding is equalized so that those who live in poverty do not attend worse schools than anyone else. We need to educate the public about the importance of education instead of attempting to discredit the educational system and those who work in it. There are many factors that contribute to this problem, and people much better suited and intellectually gifted than myself have attempted to solve it. I do not begin to assume that I know what the silver bullet will finally be, but I do know that the existing programs that are addressing the problem are civil rights achievements that should not ever be thrown out based on political posturing and pandering to the uneducated, racially insensitive, and ill informed masses.  Values/Character Education Kristy Mariano   Schools were founded in an attempt to teach children how to read so that they could study the Bible. Since the very beginnings of public schooling America, religion and morals education were the primary focus and the primary goal of educators. However, since the decision was made to keep religious instruction out of public schools so that all families could feel comfortable allowing their children to attend them, the debate over the character education of young Americans has been waged by all. The two sides of the character education debate have always consisted of those who believe in having traditional conservative values and character education courses in school, and those who believe that educators should open the doors to a dialogue between all of those in the classroom about controversial topics that will allow each child to come to his or her own decision about what he or she believes to be ethically sound. Now, there is finally a third voice to add to the debate. Interestingly is that of those who believe that conservatives and liberals actually agree on something for once. The liberational education movement argues that both liberals and conservatives may argue over whether or not to allow formal religious training in public schools, but neither of them will touch the real issue, which is that what needs to be taught is how dominant groups and their ideologies are being used to indoctrinate and control the obedient masses. This sounds radically left-wing, but, upon investigation, it actually does hold a much loftier goal before the educational community and those it serves than either the traditional values classroom or the liberal dialogue method do.  Liberational education aims to arm students with the tools to critically examine a society, its ideologies, and its actions for the purpose of recognizing how to fix the problems that exist within its framework. So, students will be able to look at American society, what beliefs and structures are at work within it, the actions that are taken to achieve its goals, and then help rid it of any problems that it encounters? Why wouldn’t we all want children who could help make our society a better one? No one can argue that dominant cultures have arisen in every society ever created. These cultures are said to be dominant because they control who is in power, who is kept out of power, who attains economic and cultural advantages, and who does not. Those in power in America are only allowed to stay in power if they can convince others that they are the best person for the job. This could mean actually being the best person for the job will get one the job, or it could mean that one who has the most money to buy the best public relations and communications teams along with the most advertising will be the one to get the job. This is just the type of knowledge that liberational education attempts to empower students with. This type of education is considered liberational since it holds as its goal “the emancipation of students and teachers from the blinders of class-dominated ignorance, conformity, and thought control. Its dynamic quality views students and teachers as active participants in opposing oppression and improving democracy” (278). Our country will lavishly benefit from those who have been taught the reasoning skills to determine the flaws in our democracy and aid in addressing them, and this is the type of education that proponents of liberation education are promising. While saying “thought control” may be counterproductive in the articulation of goals of liberation education since many will dismiss the argument the moment they hear such a radical sounding phrase, it is probably the best word to describe the argument of those in favor of conservative traditional education courses being taught in our schools. Citing the atrocious behavior of pop stars, adulterous husbands and wives, the rise in teen pregnancies, abusive relationships, and divorces, the moral police are trying to protect the American public from itself by advocating for the urgent and wholesale return to traditional values education in our public schools. Those who believe that the seams in the fabric of society have come apart and are dangerously close to completely unraveling, argue that in an attempt to insert moral relativism in our classrooms, society has allowed for the unchecked behavior of its citizens which has caused the problems that we are now complaining about. Those who advocate for traditional values blame “Darwinism and the relativistic view that springs from it, personalism, pluralism, and secularization” as the factors that have led to our moral decline (268). All we need to do to address these issues, some claim, is to go back to the tried and true ways of the past by teaching our children our values, which tend to be overtly or covertly associated with Christian dogma, and then people will be civil to one another again. No one will argue that society is not a messy and at times messed up place in the new millennium. Whether one is complaining about children in public who are clearly not ever reprimanded for rude behavior or about the politicians on whichever television channel one does not like and their obviously myopic view of whatever problem in society it is that concerns one, all of us can agree that there are major issues arising all of the time that concern the values and ethics we think our country should uphold. The question is how best to address these issues, which also means that we must first identify the real causes of these issues. Traditional values proponents will cite radical feminism as promoting a view of the female that is not in keeping with good family values and that have caused women to abandon their children, leave their husbands, and debase themselves by selling their bodies while claiming to be a singer or dancer. They point to curricular materials that have “an aggressive feminist bias” saying that “traditional parenthood and family life are virtually censored from school materials, while available teaching materials convey romantic images of adventurous single women” (267). This teaches children the wrong idea about the woman’s role in a morally sound society. That is, it teaches young women that they are not reliant upon men, that they have value aside from producing and raising children, and that they do not need to rely on men to solve the world is problems but can actually contribute to society with or without a man. It teaches young girls that adventures are fun and that they can grow up and go on a wonderful adventure. Is this really objectionable or radical thinking? Is this the great threat to our society? Traditional values proponents claim that they want to teach the values that we can all agree on for the most part. That lying and cheating are wrong. That justice and equality are the most important ingredients in a free and fair society. Is equality defined as showing women in books that are always married, staying home to take care of their lovely yet rascally children, cooking dinner for their ever loving and just husbands so that it is ready and waiting when these men come home from their important jobs that afford their wives the luxuries that they have become accustomed to? Should not the education of our youth be based on equipping them to deal with the realities of the world that they inhabit? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> One wonders how, when espousing such a view, people do not realize that they are not going to be able to win over any supporters. If one wants traditional values education concerning women’s roles in a society, then he or she must convince women that traditional roles are beneficial. Perhaps some data on the number of children who have been sent to daycares and wound up worse off in life than those who were raised by their stay at home mothers would win over some. Perhaps creating a society that does not require that both parents work to earn a livable wage would also produce the same results. However, the argument is always based either explicitly or implicitly on religion, which will never win over anyone who is not religious. Furthermore, religious education clearly can take place in a religious school. There has been little discussion about why that is insufficient and must be placed in the public school setting. Perhaps this is because then the argument would really be seen for what it is; A concerted effort by religious zealots to indoctrinate the poor heathen children into becoming good, law-abiding, Christian crusaders so that parents do not have to worry about the bad influences their children might be subjected to when they are outside of the home. Perhaps the argument is so clearly objectionable to the majority of citizens in this country that even the best thinkers in the religious community cannot tailor an argument any better than the one made in the poorly written essay in // Critical Issues in Education //. Whatever the case may be, it is clear that the argument in favor of this type of education is seriously lacking in the areas of good rhetorical writing and in actual content since it relies heavily on the invocation of romantic images of yesteryear and the morality that shone through the land in the 1950s and claim that this is the ideal that can be achieved only through the introduction of formal character and values, i.e. religious, instruction in our public schools. Without clearly defining the problems they see, the root causes of them as can be proven through scientific research and evaluation, and the clearly tested and scientifically accepted solutions to eradicate those root causes, the arguments made for traditional values education will fail to sway a single opponent of it. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Should video games be so violent? Should people be able to curse in music, on television, in movies, or on the radio? Which words do we consider curse words? These are all fine debates to have around the dinner table. It is nice that we notice that things are a bit of a mess in the world. It is good to be concerned citizens in a democratic nation and to have the ability to discuss such controversial issues with anyone we choose. The problem is that far too many people do just that. They do nothing more or less than notice and discuss the topical ills of society. The Charlie Sheen scandal is a hot topic at the moment. He has called attention to the horrors of drug addiction, being abusive to others, and bad public behavior. So what? Will society address these issues? Of course, it will not since the people in society have been taught that that is the work of their duly elected officials in government. The problem is that they are unaware that politicians have been taught that money equals speech, and that by buying up the most advertising minutes and hiring the best communications team that they can, they may just be able to pander and slander their way through the next election so that they can then vote for laws that they do not think will actually help a single citizen, but that will look darn good when reelection comes around. Liberational education will ensure that most of the children in the country will be aware of political posturing, that most will be able to recognize propaganda and attempt to ascertain the motivations behind it. It will enable people to see beneath the topical stories of the day to the actual societal structures that enabled it to become a story in the first place. Not only will our citizens recognize and discuss these issues, but they may also actually be armed with enough courage and wisdom to attack these issues in an attempt to improve upon our decaying democracy. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Multicultural Education <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Kristy Mariano <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> While the need for multicultural awareness becomes ever more apparent in day-to-day life, our educational processes are in danger of remaining behind this consciousness. As James A. Banks, the founder of multicultural education, forewarns, “[o]ur survival as a strong and democratic nation will be seriously imperiled if we do not help our students attain the knowledge and skills they need to function in a culturally diverse future society and world.” [1] The current trend in cultural insensitivity is that of Arab bashing. In an attempt to instill fear in the hearts of Americans, some in society have pushed an anti-Muslim rhetorical speech style that engenders only intolerance towards and hate for those in the Arab and Muslim communities. While this is the most recent group to be targeted for hostility in America, it certainly is not the first. Considering the history of our nation, one that cannot be studied without realizing that every age has seen a new cultural or ethnic group facing the intolerant American masses, it seems both imperative and wise to incorporate multicultural education into our schools. Without an understanding of others in this global economy, it will be impossible for our students to feel truly prepared for doing business when they leave our hallowed educational institutions and embark on personal and work related adventures that will bring them into more contact with those of other cultures than they may experience prior to leaving school. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is the best and that all other cultures pale in comparison to one’s own. It is also the belief that all cultures value, believe, and think the same things that one's own does. This is dangerous to society as it does not leave room for the contributions of any civilization other than one's own. Furthermore, it results in prejudice, discrimination, and racism. All of these problems are dangerous to society because, for the world to exist peacefully, all people must be willing to listen to another's point of view before rejecting it in favor of one's own. Teachers should try to decrease ethnocentrism in the classroom by creating an environment in which all ideas are tested, including their own, before they are accepted. Students should also be introduced to many different contributions made by the world’s many cultures in an attempt to show that not only American culture is important to the world, but that all cultures have contributed to making the world a better place. In addition, educators should offer as many possible alternatives to any idea that is presented in an attempt to expose students to the many views that exist on any given topic. This strategy will lessen the likelihood that students in classes believe that everyone thinks, acts, and feels the way that they do, as well as counter the notion that their ideas are the best ones all of the time. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ethnocentrism has negative connotations that hardly anyone would bother to claim that it is good that some are ethnocentric. Opponents of multicultural education do not believe that ethnocentrism is good, but they do feel that offering the perspectives of those with whom America fought during a conflict may result in students learning that “there is no overarching and agreed-upon sense of truth or right moral action” (302). This, they claim, is the actual goal of multicultural education; to ensure that students believe that right and wrong are relative terms. On the one hand, this is, indeed, the goal. Understanding that one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter can help students begin to understand why conflict arises. Awareness of the influence of perspective will aid any student since it is with this understanding that they will be able to truly get to root of international conflicts and attempt to find ways to resolve them that will be mutually beneficial to all parties. Without understanding the perspective of an enemy, one is left merely to use force in an attempt to overpower them. When one understands multicultural perspectives, one can begin to use ideas and rhetoric to persuade others. On the other hand, the argument that multicultural education demands that students internalize that all knowledge is dependent upon one’s time and place in history is to overstate the goal. Of course, students should be taught about right and wrong. It is wrong to take a life even if one understands why someone else believes that it is the right thing to do. Multicultural education only tries to imbue students with a sense of what it means to be a citizen in a global community. It does not demand that one adopt the views of other cultures, but it does demand that one understand the views of others. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Opponents do not necessarily feel that understanding perspectives is wrong, but they worry that what is lost when one tries to do this is the understanding of the common culture of America. They feel that students should instead be taught “about the common Western ideals that shaped the United States and bind us together as a nation: democracy, capitalism, and monotheism” (299). They worry that the nation will become divisive and combative if its citizens are not brought up to value common ideals such as the aforementioned. While these are ideals that the nation was founded upon, they are hardly the ideals to which all Americans presently subscribe. Students can be taught about democracy and capitalism, but without an understanding of autocracies, monarchies, and oligarchies, they will hardly have a clear picture in their minds about why one would fight so dearly to maintain a democratic nation as the settlers did at its inception. Furthermore, without understanding the true beliefs of communists and Marxists, one will never understand why so many cultures in the present and past have fought revolutions to become communist. It is important that one be taught all of the political and economic ideas that have influenced world history, and by taught it should be understood that the promise and reality of each should be understood, in order to better grasp why Americans tend to appreciate their form of government over others. Otherwise, it may seem ethnocentric to say that democracy is the best form of government. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">A multicultural curriculum attempts to emphasize the contributions, trials, and tribulations of culturally diverse groups. In addition, a multicultural curriculum offers all students an equal opportunity to take all courses that the school offers, uses non-sexist and bias free material in the classroom, and offers students collaborative as well as competitive opportunities within the classroom. Furthermore, a multicultural curriculum uses textbooks that are accurate and do not leave out information on some cultures’ achievements. Educators must also disseminate encouraging and appreciative messages about diversity in a multicultural school. The concepts and practices of multiculturalism, democracy, equal opportunity, and good schools are inseparable because the future of this civilization depends upon the citizens that inhabit it and those citizens are currently students in our schools. Democracy and equal opportunity depend upon the people to maintain their health in this country, and our schools are the only institution that all citizens are a part of for a time. As such, our schools are the best places to instill these ideals and the practices of multiculturalism help to do this.

[1] Banks, James A. // An Introduction to Multicultural Education //. Needham Heights, Mass. Allyn and Bacon. 1994. p 17. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Discipline in schools becomes a tricky issue if one attempts to find just one philosophy to fit the thousands of schools in the country. While it is true that one uniform system that stresses continuity and fairness would be best for all, this is a practical impossibility when all of the variables that must be taken into account for discipline are added. A zero tolerance policy creates an atmosphere where students must become aware that there are direct and distinct consequences for their actions, however, in application this is not always wholly successful or fair. A more democratic and discretionary approach, while being more fair in theory, is very difficult to achieve and puts great deals of work and stress on the administrators. Both sides of this argument call for more people and resources to be allocated into maintaining order and promoting an environment safe and conducive for learning. At this time however, it is difficult enough for schools to maintain the levels of support they need just to keep what they have and adding more would be impossible. What seems feasible and likely to help at this point is more helpful involvement from parents, and a greater understanding of the monumental task it is to keep hundreds or thousands of kids in line. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The idea behind a zero-tolerance approach to school discipline was created with the best goals in mind, and this approach does its best to avoid biases or unfairness when administering discipline. As is often the case when it comes to justice, the problem is not in the rules and how they are written, although it certainly can be, but more often the problem lies with those who are enforcing these rules. Those in favor of zero-tolerance policies in schools, as well as in society, claim there is no bias racial or otherwise, but it is an unfortunate fact that the numbers prove otherwise (371). It is sad that law enforcement specialists need to be involved in some of our nation’s schools, but our goal should be to lower the number of them that are needed rather than creating a school police force. The multitude of horror stories involving instances of abuses of power, poor judgment, and punishments that don’t fit the offenses should serve as a caution signal to those who would put too much power over the lives and futures of students into too few hands (372). Too often, zero tolerance policies have led to children who pose no threat to the school community being severely punished for a simple oversight either on their part or their parents’ parts. Children who bring an aspirin to school are suspended right along with the children who bring heroin and crack to school. This is clearly outrageous, and it should be within an administrator’s prevue to decide that the child who brought an aspirin to school and forgot to give it to the nurse should be warned to do so in the future instead of being suspended. Out of a fear of litigation, schools have opted to avoid any confusion about punishments by adopting policies that allow them to be enforcers of a set of rules rather than interpreters of the rules. Adults in schools need to be given enough support from their communities to rationally handle situations as they arise on a case by case basis. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The truth is that discipline in schools is a huge problem and can be the greatest impediment to the success, perceived or otherwise, of a school. The knee-jerk reaction is to say that kids are simply getting worse and, therefore, to combat this we need to impose stricter punishments to establish a culture of law and order in schools. Children do need to know that if they misbehave and disrupt classes, or harm others there will be punishments, which will act as deterrents to future misbehavior (368). However, “many educators tend to bend over backwards to give students more breaks than they will ever receive out on the streets of our society and in the workplace where we are supposed to be preparing them to function” (368). Students need to know that misdeeds will be punished, and educators and school officials need to be given the support and ability to use discretion to properly mete out such punishments when they are necessary. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">One of the problems not mentioned in the book is the resistance and interference that parents of problem students can at times raise. In our overly litigious society, there is a habit to pursue litigation too quickly when a parent thinks their child is being unfairly treated. While it may be true in some cases, these parents are not always seeking simply to rectify a wrong but to extract payment and financial reimbursement from already cash-strapped school systems. In addition, some parents refuse to believe that their child could be responsible for being a disruption or causing harm to another child or a teacher. The problem that educators face is having to fear the retribution of the parents when they disagree with what may be a fair judgment of their child’s behavior or when they feel that the punishments handed out to their child are unfair. This is why parents need to be brought into the fold when it comes to maintaining discipline in schools. The discipline of children should ideally start in the home where it is most likely to achieve the maximum result. However, this is not always possible. This is why schools need the support of the majority of parents to be able to act accordingly when students misbehave and should consult with parents when it comes to a final judgment on the punishment for a student.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Technology, in particular computing, has grown in leaps and bounds in a relatively miniscule amount of time. Modern life has been molded and shaped by these advances to the point that it is hard for many to believe that we ever got on without them. Most of these advances are heralded as having the ability to change all of our lives permanently and almost always for the better. For as long as I can remember, these same assumptions have been made about the impacts of technology in education, and various techno-prophets and messiahs have promised parents, students, and educators the moon. Have such promises actually been delivered, and if not why haven’t they come to fruition? Few people would argue that the use of technology has achieved the promise and potential that has been foreseen. A myriad of reasons for this have been proposed, most of which imply that there is not enough technology or educators qualified in using it effectively. However, the answer is not simply to have more and more, but that, while it can be useful and helpful in a classroom, effective teachers, and teaching methods are more beneficial to students than more computers and technology. This argument is much like the one surrounding the effects of nature and nurture in psychology. Rather than one side or the other being completely correct, each side has its merits and a place somewhere in the middle is where the answer most likely lies. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">When approaching such an argument the most useful tool to prove one’s point is relevant and well conducted research. When one looks at the research cited by both sides, a few things become clear. Those in favor of more technology in schools will make broad, sweeping assessments championing the use of technology, while providing very little statistical information with which to back up their statements. A fair amount of the research is also being conducted by those with a financial stake in how much technology is used in education. Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and others are not surprisingly behind research indicating just how amazingly useful their products “can” be (312). “Can” is the operative word they often use since they are often unable to say definitively that their products are most definitely helpful. For example, a study conducted by Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow concluded that, “introduction of technology into classrooms can significantly increase the potential for learning” (312). Such a conclusion is hardly convincing, nor is it particularly quantifiable. One must always be wary of research conducted with such questionable goals such as profit in mind (322). On the other side of the argument, a very comprehensive study by the University of Munich that sampled computer usage of 175,000 students in 31 countries found “performance in math and reading had suffered significantly” among those students who used computers several times a week (321, MacDonald 2004). While this study’s finding is not conclusive evidence that computers will hurt students’ ability to learn, it does serve as a valid and fair criticism of the notion that the use of computers will help students. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Advocates for increased amounts of technology in education often claim that technology will revolutionize and improve the teacher, or in some cases eliminate the need for them all together. They call on the idea of “distance learning” as a method of allowing fewer teachers to reach more students and effectively reduce costs (310). Mass proliferation and use of distance learning and digital classrooms is a frightening concept on par with the robotic teachers dreamed up by Ray Bradbury in “The Fun They Had” and being brought to life in South Korea currently. There is no proof that distance learning can come remotely close to the quality of a physical teacher in a physical classroom. Claims of cutting costs are likely also a pipedream, as the costs to implement and maintain technology are often quite high and the results not worthy of such costs (324). It is foolish to believe that the corporations who are producing and promoting the use of their technology in the classroom are doing so with an altruistic motive to help students learn and teachers teach. When corporations make a push to include themselves in the educational process one must always be aware that their motives may run concurrent to one of the greatest benefits and pillars of education: critical thinking. One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to surmise that companies may want to implant their own ideals and advertisements into the educational process while they provide their revolutionary products (325). One of the great fears of such integration is that “teachers will lose instructional freedom and responsibilities for actual education, but are likely to remain accountable for any test results and school failures” (325). In many schools teachers will lose progressively more and more influence into how classes are taught and what is being taught, which makes the profession of teaching less appealing to those with the brightest minds. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Rather than a complete acceptance of technology into every aspect of our lives, we would be wise to cautiously evaluate the true benefits and drawbacks to that which we are using. Technology certainly has its place in a classroom, but it should not be allowed to dominate and replace the role of teachers. Schools and educators are often criticized as being resistant to change and reluctant to accept new methods and implements. This is not necessarily a negative thing as is being espoused. Those in charge of educating this generation and those who come after should be open to change, but only after the positive and negative sides of any change are properly evaluated. Such caution is arguably laudable compared to an instant acceptance of every innovation that comes down the pike. The value of quality educators should not be marginalized or underestimated, as they are one aspect of education that has been conclusively shown to make a real difference in the education and lives of students.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Standardized testing plays a pivotal role in the education and lives of nearly every student in America. These tests are responsible for determining far more than just how much a student knows, but may not even be completely effective at that task. These multiple choice, fill in the bubble tests are responsible for determining school funding, success ratings, and even the ability to continue functioning as a school. In addition to this, they also serve to evaluate a teacher’s success rate in the classroom and could decide whether or not an educator gets to keep his or her job. This all comes to us under the guise of trying to assess how well our children are doing and just how smart they are. Legislation such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) has made it a requirement that all of these multifaceted and deeply complex issues and decisions are reliant almost solely upon the aggregate scores of tests that are at best flawed and at worst biased and far more subjective than the test-makers would ever admit. Belief in the abilities of standardized tests to tell us how well our schools are doing is dangerous and overly expensive. Standardized testing is a poor measure of how much our students know and is a much better measure of how well they know how to take that particular test. As such, calls to expand standardized testing should be ignored and the system itself should be overhauled unless we want legions of students with little practical knowledge outside of how to pass a test. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It is unconscionable, but not entirely surprising to learn, that standardized testing is a business, and a very big and profitable business at that. Individual profits and the greater gains of a society rarely are able to neatly mesh together without some abuse taking place. The Educational Testing Service, the world’s largest testing company, reports revenues exceeding 800 million dollars a year, so business for the ETS is very good indeed (339). It is no surprise that this corporation would be an advocate for increased standardized testing and champion their measures as the very best for assessing a student’s education. The federally created assessment organization for judging how well these tests do and what they need to be assessing, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is conveniently also run by the ETS and has been since 1983 (346). It is again no surprise that they deem the ETS and standardized tests to be doing a good job mostly, and are somehow able to claim that they are fair and accurate. It is certainly in the best interests of the company that runs them that they say so and the wool is yet again pulled over the eyes of the public in the interest of a privately run corporation who exercises a great deal of control over the public schools of America. The fact that legislators are wholly in favor of standardized testing should not be reassurance that these measures are working, but rather a warning and a reason to look at where exactly some of the profits of ETS are going. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Aside from the ethical issues involved with why standardized testing is advocated and who is advocating it, there is the simple issue of whether or not they are reliable, valid, and therefore of any use at all. The makers of standardized tests claim that their tests are completely objective measures and offer the very best hard data upon which to judge how well schools, teachers, and students are doing (349). They claim that alternate, practical assessments of what a student knows are far too costly, and give the example of finding out whether a student knows how to make a wooden bowl. Such a simplistic straw-man argument falls apart quickly when we look across the ocean where other countries are able to assess their students’ abilities completely without the use of multiple-choice tests. For example, in Germany high school students are required to take a test before graduation involving practical short answer questions, essays, and mathematical problems. In addition to these more standard types of assessments, the students must also perform some of their skills in front of a panel of educators. Students in some of these European countries go entire school careers without being administered a multiple-choice test and many even scoff at the idea of such a test being useful. Multiple forms of evidence are far more telling of a student’s abilities and aptitude since standardized tests have the tendency to show a bias or are exploitative of students who simply don’t excel at test taking (343). Knowing this to be true, most educators are trained rigorously on how to create performance assessments, and are regularly taught that they must be incorporating such assessments into their classrooms if they are to be effective teachers. It is interesting that what the educators in our nation are told are the best practices in assessment are so wholly ignored when it comes time to assess the educators and schools themselves. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The increased importance of standardized testing and such things as showing “adequate yearly progress” also tie the hands of educators and force them to teach to the test (342). Most Americans agree that practices such as teaching to the test are inherently bad for students (342). Teachers in all sorts of public schools, in both rich and poor areas, are put under the gun to have their students perform well on such tests. A measure such as adequate yearly progress is flawed in that exceptionally good schools may not show progress if their passing rates are already in the high ninety percent range. Due to legislation such as No Child Left Behind, some schools that are performing well may be unduly punished by the lack of discretion when it comes to reading such scores. Inaccurate and sparsely detailed results to such testing can very negatively affect public opinion as well as funding and support for schools. Therefore, it is crucial that if our schools are to be judged on a handful of such tests that they be overwhelmingly valid, which test-makers have struggled to prove. For example, the vaunted SAT has been shown to be only around fifty percent accurate at predicting the one thing it was designed to do, which is determine a student’s likely success at college (341). Economics come in again when studies show that students with access to test coaching and prep, which is run by the corporation who makes the test as well as independent companies, show they can increase scores (342). This clearly gives an unfair advantage to those who can afford such preparation and creates a bias towards the wealthy when it comes to college admissions (342). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Makers of standardized tests claim that their way is most definitely the best, completely objective, and really, the only way to evaluate schools, teachers, and students. Their interests are likely clouded by their own objective, which is making a profit. If less school funding were to be directed at standardized tests, we may find a great deal left for more important and practical measures of students knowledge and success. It would certainly make more sense if students were to be judged upon criterion other than multiple standardized tests. It may even be possible to more accurately assess students at a lower cost if we take power away from corporations like the ETS and put it into the hands of the educators in charge of these students. Many people are unhappy with the performance of American schools in comparison with other nations, yet the majority of students are able to pass these standardized tests. So, if a majority of students knows what has been deemed required of them to know, why are we still doing so poorly in comparison? The answer is that the tests do not accurately or effectively measure how much a student actually knows. Teaching to these tests will only further retard our progress internationally, and a more practical measure is needed. Teachers need to be given back control over how students are to be tested and much more than a handful of long multiple-choice tests should be required.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">Kristy Mariano <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">Privatization

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Throughout the entirety of the many arguments surrounding education in America, the issue of funding is by far the most overarching concern of all those involved. Few would argue that education deserves less funding, but the argument of how funding is allocated quickly becomes contentious amongst those on all sides of this issue. In the growing wake of dissatisfaction with the American school system, and unflattering comparisons to other industrialized nations, the argument for privatization of schools has steadily gained a foothold in the national discourse. As with many other government-run programs designed to facilitate the public well-being, the thought of allowing private organizations, free of governmental restraints, to run our healthcare, transportation and other public services in a free-market has strong support. Many feel that capitalism, free-markets, and deregulation are fundamentally American ideals and their implementation into government run services would both lower the costs to the public and improve performance. This is the “siren song” (178) and vital mythology of the proponents of privatization. It is deeply ingrained into the American psyche to expect a better product at a lower price and the allure of such ideals is certainly hard to resist. Before we jump off the deep-end into privatization, it is only prudent as the would be customers of this proposed product to analyze if we would really be receiving what is being advertised and not just buying a well-made advertisement. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The arguments for privatization underline lofty ideals, and rally behind the cry that we deserve only the best schools for our children, a blanket statement no one would be foolish enough to argue against. This is packaged with the notion that public schools are over-funded, under-performing, wasteful, bloated, and full of bureaucracy, which separates its consumers from democracy and choices (159, 161). Their simple pledge is to use the precepts of a free-market economy to provide competition to provide the very best education at the lowest cost, and they are all equally assured that this is the only outcome from privatization. These are wonderful claims, which are unfortunately almost never reinforced with any real statistical data. They are, in essence, extremely well produced advertisements for their cause. The proponents of privatization are doing a good job of holding their ideas aloft while demonizing the public school system. Public schools are losing this battle only on the merits or lack thereof, of their PR campaign to respond to privatization proponents (169). A cursory glance at the articles offered in favor of the two sides of this argument shows very little, and sometimes biased citation for many of the claims of the advantages of privatization. This is compared to the arguments against privatization, where citation of relevant research is abundant (159-178). Proponents of privatization have over-simplified their side of the argument in order to facilitate mass appeal. Not investigating their often hollow claims leaves us vulnerable to following their “siren song” to the shipwreck of our education system. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">One issue that proponents of privatization would like to declare immaterial or have swept under the rug is that of corporate ethics. In the fallout of the economic crisis, it is becoming abundantly clear that while the heads of major corporations are very good at accumulating wealth for themselves, they often do so at the expense of everyone below them. Privatization touts members of this community as the ones best fit to be in charge of our schools, citing “Most school administrators lack the business background and discipline needed to develop and implement sound strategic planning, efficient resource allocations, monitoring and accountability control, and effective management in schools” (161-162). While it is ludicrous to say that all school administrators have their priorities straight, it is doubly so to think that venture capitalists and entrepreneurs would be thinking solely of what would most benefit the students and staff. In a study published in 2006 Levin asserted that for profit schools “have found greater administration costs than comparable public schools” (168). The news is filled with stories of CEOs in charge of failing companies awarding themselves gigantic bonuses and sometimes these bonuses have been put on the tab of the taxpayer when some failing companies needed to be bailed out (176). It is only reasonable to be skeptical that heads of corporations that run schools would be any different. In addition, we can all be relatively certain that the goal of the public education system is to educate and enrich the nation’s youth and prepare them for the world of adulthood based on fundamental democratic values. Can we be certain that a privately run organization would not try to insert their own self-serving ideas into the curriculum? Privately run schools could be far less open to the examination of topics that run counter to their own interests (171). Corporations tend to disagree with the idea that they need to be transparent and most discourage open discussion of their practices and methods. Discussion of controversial topics is a vital part of our public school system, which we cannot afford to see subverted by corporate interests. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Another widely touted benefit of the privatization of public schooling is the proposed implementation of merit-based pay. This idea seems very logical at first glance. Rewarding teachers who show they are educating the students the best and encouraging all teachers to strive to be better by imposing a monetary incentive sounds great (160). Supporters claim that by looking at test scores we can determine who is best doing their job, reward them, and weed out those that are not performing as well. The primary problem with such an idea is thinking that the definitive measure of a teacher’s ability can be distilled into a few standardized tests. There are simply too many factors in play when it comes to how a child performs on a test, as well as too many variables in determining what a test actually measures to use these as a basis for evaluating teacher performance. To borrow again from current events, one can see a pattern of less than truthful reporting when it is time for some companies to calculate their own performance. There are many instances where companies have inaccurately portrayed their finances to the benefit of the few at the top. There is no reason to believe that this same sort of inventive mathematics couldn’t also be used to misrepresent the success of a privately run school (169). Studies that look into privatization by governments show that this type of deceit is already common practice. Private contractors can put in low bids, which they then raise or they simply just spend more than they claimed they would leaving someone else to pick up the elevated costs and appearing to be able to run things at less cost (168, 177). Other studies of Edison, the largest private corporation running private schools, show no real improvements in the performance of students, while they claim to have shown great improvement (168). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">When one looks at the collected data and related studies into various forms of privatization, it becomes clear that the advocates of privatization are doing a wonderful job of selling a beautiful lie. The people behind the argument for privatization have worked hard to put the focus on the problems of public schools, and to distract from the glaring problems lying behind their seemingly altruistic push for better schools for everyone. Pro-privatization advocates push for the deregulation of schooling, much as they do in the world of business, under the banner of reducing bureaucracy and increasing efficiency. In the world of business, this has led to wanton abuse of the environment, human rights, and overall fairness in the marketplace. Regulation and oversight are very much needed in any school system, and while it may never be perfect for everyone, it is certainly better than increasing the chances for abuse. This is not to say, however, that public schools are not in great need of fixing. They certainly are. There must be options that allow Americans to retain the public nature of our schools. Proponents of privatization are quick to compare U.S. schools with those of other industrialized countries. Instead of wholesale privatization, perhaps we should look to learn from the schools and cultures that are currently outperforming us for ideas to improve and reform the system we have. Critics of public schools will point out that our current system is antiquated and not fit to compete in the modern world. However, many of the school systems worldwide that are currently beating us are also based off of older ideas; our goal should not be to take this old dog out back and shoot it, but rather to teach it some new tricks.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Arguments in education that focus on the monetary aspects involved in schooling inevitably lead to proposed solutions involving corporate involvement. These institutions hold vast amounts of capital and could easily give money to schools struggling to make ends meet. Many corporations have been doing so for years. A whole generation has grown up many of whom have experienced Channel One and the “free” televisions it offered their schools. People in business are quick to agree and point out that schooling is the best indicator of economic success later in life (185). They feel that they can and should play an important role in providing the education for those who they see as their future workforce. Proponents of corporate relationships with schools and education see these “partnerships” as a win for both sides with no foreseeable drawbacks or negative aspects. In what has become typical of the arguments put forth by those favoring corporate intervention into education, they lay out a very simplistic argument, which paints in broad strokes, outlining the benefits for all of society that such partnerships afford. What is always left out of such glowing advertisements for corporate/school merging, is any real critical analysis of the motives of the business world and the true impact of their intervention. One could view the corporate world as a snake intent on swallowing whole anything it views as profitable for itself, be it other companies, politicians, or education. Allowing corporations into schools unfettered is allowing the fangs to sink in; it is then only a matter of time until the corporate world unhinges its jaw to swallow schools entirely. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">When corporate leaders criticize the educational system, they often decry its inability to teach basic skills, workers’ values, and the “proper” attitude (200). These criticisms should provide the first warning bells at what some of the real intent of corporate intervention is: training a diligent, mollified, and content workforce for them to better exploit. This may seem reactionary and perhaps something that belongs in the realm of conspiracy theory, except one of the primary precepts of their argument for corporate integration into schools is the idea of human capital. Human capital is a theory that promotes viewing people not just as living beings, but as assets that can be acquired and spent (195). This dehumanizing view of people and students as an asset is certainly not new to the world of business, but its effects can be seen in the unethical treatment of workers throughout history and the world. Business leaders speak often of schools not producing students with the proper attitude. What exactly is the proper attitude according to them? Would their proper attitude include skills such as critical thinking, independence, or criticism of authority? One would certainly not think so since research has shown that these traits are seen as detriments to a worker’s character (Henwood, 2003) (199). These qualities are some of the core values that a school in a democratic society should seek to instill in its pupils. Not only that but, “The school should be the place where commercialization and corporatization are critically examined, not merely imposed” (205). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Most advocates for corporate immersion into education would argue that they only want to provide help for students and teachers to make America more competitive. They cite their offers of funding, materials, sponsorship of events and fieldtrips, and other monetary help as examples of their good-hearted nature in this arena. It’s a popular saying in the world of business that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and anyone who views these contributions as altruistic gifts from the world of business is clearly blind to the basic nature of corporations. Perhaps the most insidious of these “gifts” are the free materials they give to teachers, which are produced at very little cost to the businesses and, according to them, intended to merely help with the costs of education. The hidden cost of these materials is the loss of critical knowledge and a skewing of facts, history, and values. Teaching materials provided by oil companies have been shown to concentrate on the virtues of fossil fuels and completely ignore any negative impact or alternatives (197). Through the use of teaching materials, companies can promote more than just their product; they can promote their ideology and lifestyle to the youth. The dual nature of industry’s helping hand is worth critical examination and more than a little caution. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Schools have become inundated with corporate logos as well as ethos as a result of their dealings with corporations. Schools have given naming rights to businesses not just for buildings, but rooms as well, and allowed corporations to plaster their trademarks on nearly any available space they can find (196). This is all in the name of advertising, something they like to claim is very innocent, often harmless, and moreover good for people; it’s something we need. In one argument they go so far to suggest that students deserve advertising in schools as if they are deprived of it in all other aspects of their lives, or worse as if being deprived of it for the eight hours they are at school is a crime against them (192). Keeping in the tradition of seeing people as assets, they view students as future consumers as well as future workers, and this is an opportunity to influence their current and future sales they simply cannot pass on. They claim that schools should “provide education that reflects the society” and claim that this is a society of consumerism (192). They have failed to include one critical word in their thoughts of the education school should provide, that word being “ideals.” Education should reflect the ideals of society and not just the base of society itself. It is easily understood, however, why businesses would want consumerism to be a core value taught at schools; it does their job for them and makes advertising even easier. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The benefits for businesses that get involved with schools are very apparent; schools are a powerful medium for influencing the youth of this nation and, as such, are viewed as a valuable asset. The benefits for schools and society as a whole are far murkier and the path towards greater corporate involvement in education is laden with pitfalls. If we wish to trade in values such as individuality, critical thinking, and justice for short-term financial help, we will find ourselves on the losing end of a very lopsided bargain. The thought of an educational system fully integrated with business invokes dystopian images from the works of Huxley and Orwell. Greater scholarship into the effects that the existing partnerships businesses have with schools is most certainly needed; unfortunately, the corporate world doesn’t <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">Kristy Mariano <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">Immigration and Education

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Immigration is an issue that is heatedly debated in every country around the world. In the United States, immigration conversations have taken place since the inception of the country. In the two articles presented in the book //Critical Issues in Education//, the issue of immigration was at times tenuously applied to the problems that schools face as a result of dealing with large numbers of non-native English speaking immigrants that are both legally and illegally in the country. While the first article dealt with the issue broadly, it at least focused on English language learners as a population that our schools must continue to support and provide services to in order to continue the country’s economic progress in the future. The second article barely dealt with the issues that face schools, but chose to rather broadly discuss immigration policy in the U.S. Therefore, it is hard for one to take any stance other than to say that while immigration policies must be reviewed and enforced, our current situation demands that immigrant children receive help from our schools. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The only area of immigration and education that one can take a position on is how best to assess the learning of this population in the high-stakes arena of No Child Left Behind. It is clear from all of the studies that have been done on the issue that it is unfair to force students who are non-native English speakers to take tests that are written in the language used for the tests of their native English speaking grade level counterparts. By forcing them to do so, the government is forcing ELL students to prove proficiency not in math, but in the ability to do math as well as the ability to read the English words that make up the math questions. This is penalizing students and schools unfairly. According to Jamal Abedi and Ron Dietel (2004), senior researchers at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), “Language demands of tests negatively influence accurate measurement of ELL performance” (p. 782). Yet, according to the NCLBA, the adequate yearly progress tests given to all subgroups must be worded the same and can only be administered in English. ELL students today face two challenges on these tests as a result of this requirement; showing they are proficient in the English language, and showing proficiency in the subject area they are being tested on. CRESST research has also shown that “Modifying, often simplifying the language of the test items has consistently resulted in ELL performance improvement without reducing the rigor of the test” (Abedi & Dietel, 2004, p. 783). In light of this research, the tests given to ELL students should prove rather painless to change. In an attempt to accurately assess ELL student progress and achievement in both mathematics and reading, in alignment with NCLBA standards, such tests should be re-written to avoid unnecessary linguistic complexities, without altering the difficulty of the test subject. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Whether one agrees with current immigration policies in this country or not, it is a fact that under U.S. law we must provide immigrant children, whether their citizenship status is legal or illegal, with an education. Does this mean that schools must spend more money than they have? Does this mean that teachers and students will encounter language and culture issues in school? The answer to both questions is yes. However, this situation does not mean that our schools are being punished because of immigrants. This means that our schools have the opportunity to have diverse voices heard in their communities. This means that students will grow up with a more multicultural perspective than those who attend schools with very few diverse students. However, this also means that the government must recognize the difficulties that schools face as a result of their highly diverse populations. It is ludicrous that schools should be punished based on the unfair test scores of their immigrant populations. The government needs to find a way to fairly assess English Language Learners rather than a way to effectively punish schools for doing the very hard job of helping these students to acclimate to their new country.

<span style="display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Kristy Mariano <span style="display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Issues in Education <span style="display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right; text-indent: 0.5in;"> 2-8-11 <span style="display: block; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Educational Gender Equity <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The educational system in the United States has always had to conform to the national trends that have shaped our history. The issue of gender equality is a clear case in which the rights of students in schools has been directly related to those of women in the country as a whole. It is amazing that the idea of gender equity in public schools is still an area of heated debate in a society that would no longer dare to tell women in society that they can not participate equally in all spheres of public and private life. The laws of the United States should and have been created to ensure equality between the sexes. Our public schools should remain in step with the times by ensuring that classrooms are coeducational, materials are not gender biased, and athletics are equally funded. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The No Child Left Behind Act has altered our public schools in a plethora of ways, but the most interesting part of the law is probably one of the most seldom heard about provisions in it. The No Child Left Behind Act has made it possible for public schools to create separate classes based on gender, as well as to establish entire schools that are single-sex. Proponents of this provision claim that same-sex classes are in the best interest of students since in these settings “it is within the range of acceptable femininity for a girl to learn how to work hard, discover what kinds of efforts are successful for her, and [to] develop time-management and problem solving skills” (110). It is incredible to think that one needs to be in a single-sex classroom for these lessons to be taught. Are not all students, regardless of their differences, in need of these skills? Are women or men unable to grasp such things as time-management when in the company of the opposite sex? By claiming that women need to be isolated from men in order to feel comfortable exerting educational effort, the proponents of single-sex education are claiming that it is not acceptable for women to exhibit this ability in front of men. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">It is equally unsettling that proponents of gender-based education proclaim that science has shown that “boys need brightly lit classrooms and teachers who speak in loud, enthusiastic tones. They need exercise periods during the day, more confrontational discipline practices and learning activities that engage them in quests for answers” (109-110). Can it truly be proven that men, more than women, need good lighting in a room? Can it really be argued that men need to search for answers but women do not? It is ludicrous and insulting to assume that both sexes do not need a motivational and engaging teacher, that they do not both want meaningful tasks to complete in school, and that they both do not want to sit in a chair for eight hours a day, does not equally excite both sexes. All children need these things. It is equally insulting to say that boys do not need an educational setting where “cooperation and bonding are encouraged” (110). To argue otherwise is to promote the sexism that existed in Puritan America and to diminish the role that was hard won by the women who have lived and contributed to the advancement of our nation. It would be a step in the wrong direction to now claim that the equality women have achieved has been despite the coeducational setting to which they have been so horrendously subjected. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The advancement of our laws to include racial and gender equality are laudable, and Title IX is a shining example of the rewards of doing so. Under Title IX, funding must equally support male and female athletes and scholars. The amount of women athletes and women in higher education has seen a huge leap as a result of the law. Women now are at almost equal levels in terms of college completion for the first time in our nation’s history. This is not an accident. The argument that this law is discriminatory to men since they can no longer spend their entire athletics funding allotment on football is somewhat fair since this is usually a massive source of revenue for a university. However, to claim that this law has hurt males in society is insane when one looks at the salaries of male athletes in the country compared to that of the females. Men still out earn females in athletics at a staggering rate. It is not the goal or the outcome of the law that men be given fewer chances so that more women can participate in an activity. Thanks to the coeducational setting of public schools, and coeducational recreational opportunities, students today seem less unsettled by the opposite sex than any generation has before them. The equality that was sought has been achieved when one looks at Title IX, which is a rare event in American politics. The policies that have been put in place to ensure a mutually beneficial learning experience in a classroom for students of both genders have helped make real and lasting changes in our nation. To claim otherwise is argue for inequity, which is a fundamentally wrong principle to advocate. Opponents of coeducational settings claims that textbooks that are gender neutral limit choices and hinder the exposure of our students to intellectual materials is a classic red herring. To claim that dress code policies should be able to mandate that females wear skirts to school or that males can not have jewelry on is likewise an argument that promotes inequity and lacks a logical conclusion. The bottom line when it comes to the argument over gender-based education is that women and men should be given equal opportunities, access to, funding for, and encouragement within our public schools. While people may argue over how best to achieve true gender equality, it seems clear that the goal remains the same and that the practices and laws that have been put in place to ensure that this is achieved have been working. The current failure in our educational system seems to be the lack of attention that is devoted to teaching history since it is hard to imagine in a country that saw such a devoted and hard fought movement such as that of the suffragettes and the more modern feminist movements could ever think that turning to separate education of its boys and girls would result in a more equal society. Kristy Mariano Reflection Paper February 8, 2011 Standards Based Reform Standards based reforms in schools can be advantageous to those who attend the poorest schools, wont for educational access and materials, have poorly trained or a lack of enough teachers, and who are faced with a litany of problems in their homes and neighborhoods as well. However, standards based reform is built upon the idea of equality. Therefore, all schools must be held to the same standards, which are to be measured using the same standardized tests. In the educational world there are few phrases that are used more than those of individual educational plans, differentiated instruction, and student-centered instruction. The field of education, and the country as a whole, must come to reconcile the disparate goals that have been thrust upon educators. Teachers desperately try to show their administrators that they are current in pedagogical knowledge of the best educational practices. They do so by ensuring that their instruction is differentiated based on the needs of each student in their classrooms. Teachers are mandated by law to ensure that children with special needs are given accommodations in their assessments and instruction. Teachers are then told that in order to prove that they are of any value they must also get each child to pass a standardized test that does not in any way account for the individual differences of the children that they have been tailoring their materials and content to suit. Yes, in an ideal world, all of these goals would cooperate with one another to create a great outcome that could be quantifiably proven. However, in many schools this is an impossibility due to factors that are absolutely out of the hands of the educators within them. Since administrators have been made to account for the scores that their schools produce on the state tests, it has become the most important goal of all educators to ensure that their students are not the children whose scores fail to meet adequate yearly progress goals. The proponents of standards based reform are unapologetic about teaching to the test since they feel that this will “lead students and teachers along a higher curricular path” (122). They feel that the “‘child-centered approach’ led to the ‘dumbing down’ of the school curriculum, and the test results indicate students were not learning enough of value” (122). While it is most likely true that the child-centered approach to education has been detrimental to students in terms of the rigor and relevance of their instruction, it is equally true, if not more so, that the high stakes testing and accountability inherent in standards based school reform has led to an even more disembodied education for students that leaves them ill prepared for life outside of the multiple choice classroom. Implicit in the author’s statement is that the tests being used to determine student proficiency are actually testing whether or not the students have “learned enough of value” (122). The question is whether these tests actually do test things of value. They certainly test a student’s ability to take a multiple choice, short answer, and extended response reading test. They definitely test a student’s ability to take a multiple choice math test. Are test taking skills what the country had in mind when it decided to reform education. Is the field of education really only tasked with ensuring that children are able to take tests? If so, then there is little wonder why our students are falling behind the rest of the world in education. Educational priorities are seriously skewed if these tests are the be all and end all of education.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">It is always fascinating to hear politicians and parents agonizing over the sate of American schools while they simultaneously promote higher stakes accountability as the answer to the problems that our educational system faces. These tests ensure that great teachers are forced to teach children only the most basic and uninteresting facts possible. How can there be any real and lasting learning in a course that is being judged based on the test scores that it produces? The impact of the No Child Left Behind Act’s required tests can most clearly be seen in the effect it is having in the classroom. With the emphasis moving away from a broad curriculum covering most areas of learning, and towards a reading and math geared test prep oriented class, students and parents alike are less interested and in fact unhappy with the quality of education being given at schools. The shift has occurred due to the necessity for every sub-group to pass their tests, whether or not they actually have the intellectual skills to do so. Teachers are making concerted efforts to teach only what is going to appear on the test to ensure that the students know what to do on test day. Longer papers are being substituted for short answer or multiple-choice questions, which reflect the kinds of questions that what will be asked on the tests. This in fact defeats the entire purpose of the Act itself, as it lowers the amount of critical thinking skills that are taught since critical thinking skills are shown to develop through the thought process required on longer papers. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The standard of education is not only lowered by eradicating papers, but also through the emphasis on being average. Teachers have begun to focus their attention almost entirely on students whose ability levels fall into the middle 50% of the class. The thought process behind this is that those who are above the 50% mark will succeed on the test regardless of the efforts made by the school. Centering the class solely on the average student’s ability to read and do mathematics significantly decreases the opportunity for the brightest children to learn new material. In essence, the Act creates a communistic approach to learning that in no way reflects the world these children are said to be preparing for. The average is the goal, and to exceed that goal means to be bored day after day as you are ignored in class for the benefit of the entire school. To be below the average is worse still, as you are constantly pressured to exceed your ability and perhaps feel the weight of failure day after day. The art of teaching today has become not one of finding the most creative and thought provoking methods to interest children as they learn new material about the world they inhabit, but instead one of becoming proficient at ensuring that students are proficient test takers. If we were preparing students for a life of standardized tests, one might be able to argue for the necessity of these tests. However, since a person’s value in the workforce is measured in almost every way other than by the taking of standardized tests, it seems that these tests are nothing more than a political tool envisioned to ensure the debasing of real and lasting education at our public schools.

Kristy Mariano Reflection Paper February 8, 2011 Religion in Public Schools

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">“The Bible as Literature” was a course offered at my university during my senior year. Having never read The Bible, and having felt a certain insufficiency in my ability to notice very nuanced allusions to its content in some of my favorite literature, I decided to audit this course. What I found striking was the difficulty that religious students in the course had with reading this particular book as if it was just another piece of literature. They could not bring themselves to discuss this book in terms that did not include belief, faith, obedience, and subservience to God. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to and watching the professor of the course squirm as he tried, for the millionth time, to explain to students that this was not a course in which we were going to be debating the existence of God and that a literal reading of the text was insufficient. Most of the time the professor failed to get through to the students who would continue to rattle off about inane quotations that they had memorized in Sunday School, and continue to read this book as if it were handed to them directly from God. These were adults in a college class that they had chosen as an English elective. In fact, the course was limited to English majors who had taken previous 400 level courses. I cannot imagine trying to teach such a course in a public middle or high school to children who do not have the intellectual tools necessary to understand such a distinction. Allowing religion into the public school classroom is a can of worms best left covered and buried where it has been for the majority of the last century. The proponents of allowing religion back in the classrooms purport that secular humanism is a religion that encompasses atheists and agnostics. They claim that instead of remaining neutral about religious affiliations, or the lack thereof in school, “The public school environment has increasingly become hostile to believers, limiting their freedom of expression while allowing secularists and nonbelievers license to incorporate their beliefs into the curricula” (144). This may be somewhat valid argument if it were found that teachers and educational materials in the classroom were espousing that to believe in religion is wrong. However, by avoiding the topic of religion in schools neither the believers nor the nonbelievers should be offended during a discussion. The most notable attempt to have a religious idea discussed in the classroom is the newly renamed and marketed creationism argument. It is the argument of those who would like to see intelligent design, as creationism was cleverly renamed, taught as a theory of scientific note alongside the theory of evolution that teachers should be teaching the debate surrounding the two ideas. However, would this not also mean that a teacher talking about mythology should tell students that the Christian Bible is also a myth? Mythology, of course, does include in its canon all of the religious texts ever written. It attempts to explain things in nature that could not be understood in a time when scientific knowledge was small if at all existent. Should we be teaching seventh graders that the Greeks and the modern religious people all over the world are both attempting to understand the world in terms of Gods due to their lack of scientific understanding? I highly doubt that this would be a lesson tolerated by the religious parents in public schools. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">It is interesting that nonreligious parents are told that they are supposed to allow their children to be taught that religion is equivalent to science, yet do not want their children taught that there is a massive debate about religion in and of itself. They would like to pick and choose the courses and the manner in which Christian ideology is infused in the public school curriculum. Of course, who would not want their beliefs taught to their children? The venue for this teaching is at the crux of the argument. Sunday schools exist for a reason. Places of worship exist so that like-minded individuals may convene to discuss and learn from their traditions and beliefs. Why is it so important that religion should be taught in public schools? Most often, it is not religion that people would like to see taught, but their religion. I have never heard of a Taoist taking a case to the Supreme Court because his or children were not being taught that everything in the universe is imbued with being. I have never seen a court case that involved a Scientologist who felt that the first amendment and equal protection clauses were infringing on the rights of his or her child to be taught about the extraterrestrials that inhabit their bodies and the electric shocks that they will need in order to rid themselves of these beings. Most religious groups are content to take care of the religious training of their young outside of the public school. This is the most commonsense approach to having a truly unbiased representation of knowledge in the classroom. It would be wrong to provide children with false statements about science in an attempt to appease the religious zealots who still send their children to secular public schools.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The arguments surrounding the debate over centralized school funding are essentially the same as those surrounding the tax debates that can be heard between Republicans and Democrats. The primary argument in favor of centralized school funding is that by providing every school with the same amount of funding, we can level the playing field for students who are enrolled in schools in poorer areas of the country. Those who oppose centralized school funding feel that this method taxes the rich and rewards the poor by filtering those tax dollars towards increased services that the poor have not earned. Furthermore, they feel that these tax dollars would be put to the best use by giving them to the institutions and individuals that have been shown to use them to the highest advantage. In other words, those schools that currently are considered to be high achieving should have the right to continue to have more funding, and the schools that are currently failing their students should not be rewarded by being given additional funds. The crux of this issue seems to revolve around the notion of what is adequate funding for our schools, and whether or not all people deserve to go to public schools that are funded at the same level. Public education is not the marketplace. Compulsory education requirements in the United States have made sure that not just the well-to-do attend our schools, but that all of the children in the country, poor and rich alike will receive an education. It follows then, that the schools we send our children to should reflect the equality and fairness of the law itself. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">While the authors claim that “even recent experiments in increased school funding have not conclusively defined the relationship between money and student success,” it is clear that that there is a correlation between the two. While correlations do not imply causation, it is interesting that those schools that regularly outperform their counterparts tend to be those schools with adequate levels of per pupil funding. In an effort to provide a free and fair educational system to the people in this country, we must acknowledge the lunacy inherent in the idea that a failing school should be kept bereft of equal or adequate funding while it tries to improve. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The most valid concern of those who oppose centralized school funding is that local control of said funds, and the curriculum, may be wrested from the members of a community because of it. It is fair to worry about having control over what is being taught and how funds are allocated within one’s school district. However, schools already receiving federal funding are currently subject to federal standards in education. The only schools that are not subject to federal and state standards and accountability measures are those that are completely privately funded. It is easy to agree that local communities should be making the decisions about how their schools are run and where the money in them should be spent, however, this is not the current state of affairs in our schools. Whether or not the public agrees with it, both the state and federal government have already imposed many rules and regulations on the schools in this country. Since this has already come to fruition, it does not hold that this is a viable argument against equally funding all of our schools. Why should some schools be better funded than others when they all have to rise to the same level of expectations in the eyes of the government to whom they are ultimately responsible and by whom they will be ultimately judged as either adequate or failing? The answer to this question seems to be that it is reasonable for all schools to expect to have the same resources at their disposal so that they can be measured fairly on their ability to produce results. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">While it seems only fair to allocate equal amounts of money to all schools if they are going to be judged using the same accountability measures, opponents of centralized school funding would claim that this is an injustice in the making. If loss of local decision-making control is the most legitimate concern of the opposition, clearly the most detrimental argument to their cause is that certain racial and economically advantaged classes in our society are inherently more intellectually gifted than others. Therefore, it would make sense to allocate most of our educational funding to these groups since they will put them to the best use and become our future leaders. The opponents argue that “it may simply be, as some scholars have suggested, that members of some racial and ethnic groups are, on average, less intellectually gifted than those of other groups” (86). This argument, while clearly racist, is also clearly absurd in its implications. The authors argued that since some children are innately less intellectually gifted than others, “it is not “justice” to spend large sums of other people’s money on their education when the return will be smaller than if we invested those same dollars on children who have a better chance of succeeding” (86). Even assuming that the authors were correct in their claim that some children are just innately more gifted than others are, their conclusion makes as much sense as the argument that less funding will not impede the progress of the gifted. If this group, which one can assume largely consists of wealthy white and Asian students, is so gifted, then the loss of funding will not alter this fact. They will be just as successful with or without the money since the authors also feel that there is no measurable relationship between achievement and funding. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Centralized school funding does not seem like a change that is likely to occur any time in the near future since it is such a partisan issue. While the onus of having to prove the equality and justice of such a funding system clearly lies with proponents of centralization, the arguments against it are, at least in this book, clearly inferior and fraught with racist and classist overtones. The current funding system in our public schools seems akin to the Jim Crow doctrine of separate but equal. It is a shame that by virtue of one’s birth to either wealthy or impoverished parents, one’s ability to go to an adequately funded, enriching, and safe school is nearly predetermined.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The school voucher proposal is a hotly debated topic in education based on the dissatisfaction of many people and groups with the public school system. The system first proposed by the oft-celebrated economist Milton Friedman calls for government funding to allow parents and students a choice in where they attend school in an attempt to negate the economic and class differences that are usually apparent in the schools both within and across districts (56). This would, according to its proponents, allow the market to decide which schools were best and which schools were no longer meeting the needs of their students. The democracy of where a person puts their dollars would help to fix an ailing public school system by forcing those that were deemed substandard by parents to either improve or continue to lose students who have the choice to go to a better school. The arguments surrounding both sides of this issue bring up the fact that more can be done to ensure the quality of education for America’s youth. However, the idea that we should let the free market take over our children’s futures and put more power into the hands of private organizations and schools is fundamentally flawed and has been proven to have a minimal effect on the performance of students. It also fails to deliver on many of the other promises of such things as lowered costs and less educational bureaucracy, which are trumpeted as the great benefits of voucher programs by its benefactors. Giving up on public schools and funneling money into private schooling does not even put a band-aid on our educational issues in this country and only exacerbates the funding, equality, tolerance, and academic achievement problems in our schools. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The primary argument of voucher supporters is the supposed increased academic performance that will naturally come with taking children out of failing public schools and putting them in to private schools. The statistics that have been calculated to compare private and public schools’ relative achievement levels, however, are not in their favor. The averages for both private and public school achievement are very close with private schools holding a small edge (69). In fact, once one factors out the points that private schools have in their advantage, such as the ability to pick and choose which students attend, having smaller class sizes and a greater teacher to student ratio, and the ability to adopt any curriculum they choose, this slight statistical advantage disappears (69). One would think that for such an advantage to be so widely proclaimed by those in favor of voucher systems they would have to prove a much greater achievement level would be produced by enacting such a system. It can easily be argued that if, instead of providing vouchers to students, federal funding would be allocated to public schools to reduce class sizes and increase the teacher to student ratio we would see an improvement in public schools that would equal that of private schools. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Allowing the market place to decide the fate of a school district’s enrollment is troubling for a few reasons. The foremost concern raised by such a system is that, since school performance is largely decided based on national test scores, the climate of schools would be one in which the ethics and morals of those in charge could be compromised due to the high stakes. Schools in Texas and Georgia, among others, have already been caught cheating on the standardized tests that are used to determine a school’s ranking as well as its funding. This has the potential to become a common practice if schools are subject to the market place. Furthermore, placing too much faith in the morals and ethics of people operating for private gains along with the gains of the public, which they serve, as recent history has shown, is not always the best idea. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">In addition to the ethical and moral issues involved in a market based educational system, the stated benefit to teachers’ salaries in such a system would become a nightmare for all. The proponents of vouchers argue that teachers would stand to benefit financially from a voucher system since good teachers would become a much more valuable commodity if schools were forced to compete for their enrollment dollars, and, as a result, teachers could ask for higher salaries. This logic is tragically flawed. Since some of these schools would be run by private organizations, one could reason that the competition could instead be to provide education at the lowest costs possible in order to generate more profit. Teachers’ salaries could plummet as a result. Even if the proponents of this argument are correct about the positive competition this program would create for good teachers, there is still no way to afford a large increase in teachers’ salaries. Either education would cost more because of the increase in salaries, or the salaries of teachers would be negatively impacted by the market economy of education. This is the epitome of a lose-lose situation. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The voucher system promotes giving parents choices in the form of a government grant to allow children to attend a private school of their choice assuming they are unhappy with their local public school. This handout comes with the illusion that, in doing so, poorer students would see increased academic performance and we would have lowered costs for public school. In essence, citizens would supposedly end up paying less for more. The Milwaukee example, however, shows just how wrong this sort of thinking can be. The residents of Milwaukee have paid more taxes due to the funds public schools lost as a result of the voucher system they enacted. The tax increase was necessary because public schools needed to be recompensed due to the loss of funding from the state for these students (65). Whether a full or partial voucher system is enacted, the result is the reduction of funds from public schools. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">. The issue of school funding is always divisive and will likely be an eternal problem when it comes to any school system. Voucher proponents would claim that a loss of funding in public schools is not a problem since schools should be funded based on merit rather than on the basis of their mere existence. This thinking, and the voucher program as a whole, can be seen as an overt attempt to do away with public schooling in America. Instead of doing away with public schools, we should all embrace the following idea that was articulated by the character Sam Seaborn on //The West Wing//: “Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense.” Once we agree on this sentiment, then we can all start spending our valuable time and money on the realization of this lofty and admirable goal.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It has long been understood by educators that they are slaves to many masters when they are at work. Teachers feel responsible for the individual growth of each student in their charge. They feel responsible for ensuring that each of their classes as a whole succeeds as the year progresses. They are responsible to their department heads, school and district administrators, each child’s parents, the state and federal departments of education, the taxpayers in their communities, the country as a whole, and lastly to themselves. It is overwhelming to consider that an educator’s list of employers could contain the name of every taxpayer in the country. It is overwhelming to feel responsible for the individual growth of even one-year’s worth of students. The question of whose interests a school should serve is one that can only be answered democratically. The schools in a country should serve the interests of the country, the state, the community, and the individual families that it serves. Considering the bickering heard on any news program at any hour of any day in this country, it is impossible to see how a school could ever serve the purposes of all of the people in the country. In a country that houses as many disparate political views as it does citizens, a consensus of what would best fit the needs of the country must be agreed upon by all those who are concerned. This is how laws are enacted in the country, and it is how our schools find a way to serve all of the masters to whom they are beholden. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">When compulsory education was first enacted as a law in Massachusetts in 1852, and later in the rest of the country, it was done with the belief that a more literate citizenry was to the economic benefit of the country at large. This belief was certainly not shared by each individual in the country. However, in order to ensure the prosperity of the union, it was mandated by the government. Education regularly tops the polls in terms of issues that citizens are the most concerned about in this country. It follows that people are very divided and very eager to voice their opinions about the education that is being provided to children. The federal government regularly decides to give grant money to schools that begin programs that focus on areas of education that they deem to be the most financially important for our future. For instance, the science and math initiatives that have taken hold in the past five years are a direct result of the government’s belief that these are the areas that will be of the most use in the technology driven economy of the present and foreseeable future. Businesses have long held a large sway on the curriculums in our schools. When we were a more agrarian society, classes in farm management and animal husbandry could be found at nearly every school in the land. As technology has shifted, so too have the priorities in our schools. Arts and music education have fallen to the wayside since they are not deemed important to the economic situation of our students or our country. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The opponents and proponents of arts education will argue endlessly about the necessity or lack thereof of such training in the current economy. However, the fact remains that our schools are the places where the workers and leaders of the future are produced. This is the reason that schools will never be without controversy in the public discourse. This is also why schools must remain democratic in their adoption of curriculums. It would be wrong for our schools to serve the interests of any particular interest group. Rather, they must remain embroiled in controversy to ensure that the voices of all are heard, and that the decisions of what is taught and how it is taught are made by all those concerned.