Chapter 15 tells us about the education system started to change once Nixon came into the white house. Nixon’s administration put much more of an emphasis on getting an education to get a job, they come up with the slogan “go to school to get a job.” This was Nixon’s way to ultimately try and give the economy a bit of a push in in the right direction. One thing that stood out to be that had to do with economy was that now franchises and companies were now educating their employees which ultimately became training ground for future consumers. Courses’ like home economics were now more geared to making the students more aware of advertisings and using the feed back of the students to make the advertising. Fast food chains like McDonalds would promote themselves by saying their stores are good places to gain “work experience”.
Also chapter 15 talked about standardized testing. Standardized testing is topic that can become very heated because it is an unperfected way of measuring students. As we discussed in class there is a big emphasis put on standardized tests and students are more often judged on how they do on these tests instead of assessing the student as a whole. Leon Lessinger who preached that accountability is necessary for being able to work and function in the workforce. This started in the 1970’s and scores on these standardized tests were mad public. Students were now taking more and more of these tests to meet the criteria to possible work in the workforce. These tests become aptitude tests and now students were more limited in what they were able to do. Once they found out what jobs and areas were more suitable for them, they were pushed in that direction instead of being able to make the choice, study and succeed on their own like today.
