American Education from No Child Left Behind to Common Core State Standards

Throughout this part of the semester we have learned a lot about No Child Left Behind and also, the new Common Core State Standards. There are many things about No Child Left Behind that were not good for the American educational system. Diane Ravitch was a huge advocate for No Child Left Behind until she found out about all the horrible things that started happening. It just wasn't fair how they were scoring schools and how they were shutting down schools. What we have now is the Common Core State Standards and they are supposed to make things better. I know some people who really like it but also some people who do not like it at all. I haven't been in it enough to really make an opinion about it.

Diane Ravitch is a great person to hear from as well considering she was all for No Child Left Behind and now she does not support it at all. She said it created mass demoralization. I really like this terminology for that. She is such an educated person in this area. I really enjoyed listening to her. She says that testing is a good thing if it is used in the right way. This is so true! NCLB was all for testing testing testing. I think that tests are good but they do need to be given in the right way. We need to start teaching our children so that they can be educated about everything when they go out in the real world. I do not feel as though modern children are not prepared for the real world and that is something that is starting to be a bad thing.

American Education: 1980-2000

Education in the years 1980-2000 was getting to the place that education is in this day. It was really interesting to read about how the government wanted education to be but how it actually was, was very different from what they wanted or imagined. The government wanted the schools to be geared more towards the vocational side of things. The education system wasn't going to change but no one was really going to do anything about it.

What was really interesting about this part in the book was all the schools that they were forming in Harlem in New York. This school district was one of the lowest scoring in the state. Someone had a great idea of making a whole bunch of different schools within the district. I really liked how they made the different schools and the children were able to choose which schools they went to, they weren't forced to go to a certain school. This made the scores at the schools go up and the district wasn't at the bottom any more. I think that if we were to do something more like this now, children would be more apt to stay in school and actually enjoy going to school.

Sometimes I wonder why our school system is how it is. What would happen if we were to change something and not go with the norm. Would the children in  the school systems be more able to succeed? Would children want to go to school and be willing to learn?

American Education 1950-1980

As I was reading Part 3 "Separate and Unequal", it really made me think about a few things. I really liked reading about this section and it really opened my eyes. I never thought that "Separate but Equal" was at all equal. How could it be equal when all the other ethnic groups were being discriminated against and being segregated from all the white people? It was not equal, not even one bit. Even though my skin color is white, I would like to think that I would have been friends with the colored people. One of my best friends is colored and I have never judged him for having a different color of skin. I find it really hard to believe that these people were discriminated against. It makes me really sad to think that the white people thought that they were dumb and didn't want to put them in certain classes because they were a different color. There were a few colored families that fought this and tries to put their children in these colored schools. The parents didn't think it was fair to make their children walk two miles to school when there was a white school just around the corner. There was a part of the book that mention something about the colored children were scared to go to the white school. Why would someone want to go somewhere where they aren't accepted or even wanted? I agree with this. When schools were desegregated, the white children didn't treat the black children well at all. The teachers that were black were let go. Even though things were being desegregated, blacks were still being discriminated against. It makes me so sad to read about how horrible they were treated. People were fighting for their American rights and they were being punished for that. I love to hear about the people who triumphed over all this evil. That, even though all the odds were against them, they were still able to succeed and make a wonderful life for themselves and their families.