Prolouge/ Progress or Regress? T&C (Reading Analysis)

The United States will always be tinkering toward utopia when it comes to education reform. The only answer is to come up with a solution that benefits all students equally, which has been the attempted goal for many years. When comparing the assigned readings to what is occurring in today’s society, it seems that the approach to education reform has not changed much since at least the nineteenth century. There is still no clear answer on how to accomplish this goal. Society continually hopes and prays that politicians on the executive, state, and local levels will develop an answer to this issue. The question that comes to mind is do politicians, mostly on the executive level, really care about the welfare of education in the country or pretend to because it is good political etiquette? When talking about government, the text mentions President Johnson’s “Great Society”, which did not solve the issue of education reform as wanted by the American people. Since Johnson, the United States has more recently had “No Child Left Behind”, “Private School Vouchers”, and a suggestion to put more money and resources into preschools. Each of these policies has individuals who are for and against them, which again puts the issue of education reform back at square one. There is always going to be a child that does not fit into the suggested solution. Anytime a group of children are left out, it is believed that an idea or policy has failed. Individual citizens and politicians fight for the policy to be amended or thrown out for a new one to be developed. A different group is the outcast and the cycle starts again. With this being said, is education reform realistic and is there is point in arguing about it?

The text also talks about the inequalities that exist in education reform. There are differences in how each state educated their students. There are also differences within a state of how resources and finances are allocated. The government and citizens constantly talk about preparing children for the future and taking care of the next generation. How is this possible when all children are not educated equally on a state wide, regional, or state-to-state basis?