A blog by and for students in the Teaching in a Democracy course at Winthrop University. This course focuses on the often conflicting philosophical, social, and historical purposes of American education.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Kill All the School Boards
The Atlantic has an interesting article that argues for increased nationalization of our educational system here.
And here is a brief assessment/counterargument from Sherman Dorn (a historian of education).
It seems that the article “First, Kill all the local school boards” by Tucker suggests an easy solution to problems with the education system, nationalizing it. In my opinion Dorn is correcting in stating this is not the main problem with the educational system. While I agree that there should be an increase in funding to schools (especially to teachers, how else will I afford the new macbook air which can fit into an envelope), I fear that the diversity of schools in the US will be dismissed and standards and tests and will rule the classroom as seen in the installment of the No Child Left Behind Act. I think any long term solutions to our educational system are much broader than “nationalizing” our schools. For example, the United States is among the leaders in childhood poverty among all developed nations. Of these nations only Mexico is worse. That’s right, Mexico which has a Gross National Income of $8,900 per capita while the United States makes $37,750 per capita (According to the World Bank). The United States also leads the industrialized nations in being the worst at getting people, once they have slipped into poverty, out of poverty. I would argue that poverty is a much larger problem in the education system then local control of school boards. This comment is a complete digression and I apologize. I just think Tuckers solution is not holistic enough and is not targeting main problems in our educational system. (I got my information from “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform” by David C. Berliner. Published by Teachers College Record, August 02, 2005.)
1 comment:
It seems that the article “First, Kill all the local school boards” by Tucker suggests an easy solution to problems with the education system, nationalizing it. In my opinion Dorn is correcting in stating this is not the main problem with the educational system. While I agree that there should be an increase in funding to schools (especially to teachers, how else will I afford the new macbook air which can fit into an envelope), I fear that the diversity of schools in the US will be dismissed and standards and tests and will rule the classroom as seen in the installment of the No Child Left Behind Act. I think any long term solutions to our educational system are much broader than “nationalizing” our schools. For example, the United States is among the leaders in childhood poverty among all developed nations. Of these nations only Mexico is worse. That’s right, Mexico which has a Gross National Income of $8,900 per capita while the United States makes $37,750 per capita (According to the World Bank). The United States also leads the industrialized nations in being the worst at getting people, once they have slipped into poverty, out of poverty. I would argue that poverty is a much larger problem in the education system then local control of school boards. This comment is a complete digression and I apologize. I just think Tuckers solution is not holistic enough and is not targeting main problems in our educational system. (I got my information from “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform” by David C. Berliner. Published by Teachers College Record, August 02, 2005.)
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