PG Santiago
AP Government
Ms. Duquette
15 November 2010
Education Reform and Funding
Education reform is slowly moving up the list of political issues that citizens want to be dealt with as soon as possible. Both parties though unsurprisingly, have different ways of approaching the problem. The success of either these problems or perhaps a merging of these solutions could lead to a revitalization of knowledge among kids and teenagers across the United States not known for many decades. The Republican Party’s solution to fix the current education crisis is to raise the standards instead of lowering them or keeping them the same. A common Republican belief is that “if we ask more of American students, they will produce more” (Winston, Para 18). Republican’s think that there is much untapped potential in students and if pushed to a point it can be revealed. The thought process is that if the bar is raised then it will force students and adapt to the change and overall make them better students because of it. Raising the bar would give children the incentive to work harder since human nature has always had the inclination to respond to rewards. Republican’s advocate they don’t need as much money as the Democratic Party says that education needs, it just needs more money put in the right places such as achievement and rigor.
The Democratic Party’s solution to fixing the problem of education ironically comes from a fix of a Republican ideal. The “No Child Left Behind” act passed during the Bush administration was a critical point for the former president. The act put into effect that in order for a district to receive funding, all students must pass assessment tests into basic skills such as reading, math, and writing. Bringing all students to a certain level sounds good for everyone but in reality it was hurting the development of children. Setting a lower standard meant that kids with higher level thinking were not being challenged. The greatest minds in the United States were only able to come into fruition by the rigor of education but if the standards are being lowered, that rigor will not exist.The Democrat solution is to “place more importance on academic growth than the current pass-fail approach to judging schools” (Anderson, Para 2). Right now the benchmark is very strict, if a student does not meet or exceed a certain score on a standardized test for his grade it counts as a failure. However, with this revision if a student makes a certain amount of progress than the previous test it counts as a pass. They did this because there are many students who were below the original benchmark to begin with so right now it is a lot of work for some students to get to that benchmark. But if the government says a student must only go up 300 points for example he passes, 300 points from an original score of 200 or a score from 1000 is still a pass. This will allow more students to pass thus get districts more funding to get the necessary tools to teach more children. Some will argue that this is the same as the former but this revision allows students to progress at their own pace. It will challenge higher level students while also being able to bring up lower students.
Democrat’s and Republican’s have always had the same goal but the solutions have and always will be different. Just as in the Second Continental Congress there were many compromises made in order to make the Constitution. Some must be made here if the United States is ever going to be a center of learning and genius that it used to be known as.
Bibliography
Anderson, Nick. (2010). Obama: Revise No Child Left Behind law. The Washington Post, Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/13/AR2010031301137.html
Winston, David (2008). The Right Republican Strategy. Education Next, Retrieved from http://educationnext.org/the-right-republican-strategy/
It's very interesting that the democrats are kind of basing their policies off of the "No child left behind." I would think, because of all of the contraversy it stirred up that they would have completely started from scratch. I realize what they are going is slightly different, but it has the same basic principles. The Republicans Would believe that the schools are already sufficiently funded, because there's nothing in it for the rich (oops did I say that outloud), anyway it's possible in this case that they have a point. I remember Mrs. McDermott talking about it last year in language when she used the example of our school spending thousands of dollars on graduation when that money could be used in other useful ways. Your paper was good Clarence, oh...umm..PG, sorry. I kind of felt like it didn't talk about funding so much as much as the parties morals. Good job though!
ReplyDeletePG...first of all: marabel.
ReplyDeleteSecond, with the republican platform saying that a district doesn't get funding if the students don't pass exams...i automatically think to inner city schools. It's kind of a cycle...they don't get enough funding, therefore they don't get valuable materials, putting a damper on their education, therefore they don't pass exams, therefore they don't get funding. I don't really see how that solution works. It seems like it would only benefit schools that are in affluent communities. I mean, I see the point is to give an incentive to school districts to have their students become smarter, but it sounds more detremental to a student's education than beneficial. And the democratic platform sounds pretty hardcore. Good paper, i just wish you would have elaborated more on their views.
P.G.- Great essay! I think the allusion to human nature and to the Second Continental Congress were well-placed and effective.
ReplyDeleteIronically, it seems that education reform is something that few students are very informed about. We think "No Child Left Behind" and have a vague idea of the topic, but for most of us, knowledge of the subject ends there. I found your essay very helpful in remedying this problem for me.
Reading your essay has definitely convinced me even more strongly of the fact that our educational system is in desperate need of reform, as you implied in your paper when you referred to the great unused potential in American students. It is a tricky problem, and as you said, the solutions are not uniform. I wonder what compromise can be reached on this issue, but either way, I think we all agree that one is imperative.
Perhaps privatizing education? But then again, that is an entire topic in and of itself.
I agree with Carissa, it is a cycle where the schools that need funding for the education don't get it. An underfunded school has no way to teach the kids enough to pass standardized tests to get more funding but for some schools it is too easy i wonder if either party's solutions will work because the incentives to do well on state tests are more for the teachers and staff of the school than the students, unless they are really involved students. Many public school students lose interest in school early and I don't think they all care about how much money their school gets, especially if they are only going to be there for 4 years, which is hardly any time for change. There must be a way to give incentives to the students if we are going to reward student progress with the money for this to work.
ReplyDelete