Author Archives: Chantel Powell

I think higher education is important but it’s hard to say who should really fund it, should it be the government, tax payers or the individual seeking higher education? I think the Government should seek to make public education affordable to all. Affordable education is just a stumbling block in making a person seek better things in life.  Government should seek and find more ways to fund higher education so that society on a whole will be better off for the future. By funding education government will help to decrease poverty in a given society the need of education is necessary or a help factor to help the growth of a neighborhood. We see that in many other countries the government takes full control of the educational system by funding school with the school and home life. Making sure parents get the knowledge they need to guarantee that their children get the best education. It is a shame that the government is taking away funding from schools and parents and students not put up a hard of enough fighter to guarantee a proper education, just move that the path that education is taking in not positive. Teachers and administration and school faculty also have to join together to make sure that children are not cheated out of the right to learn and to be educated.

President Obama is talking about education reform, but with education reform the government both federal and state has to be willing to spend the money in doing things the proper way. We cannot try to reform education without funding and spending a lot of money, but in the end if we start the process now we cannot expect to see a miracle happen today for tomorrow. It will take time but government must be willing to guarantee that funding will not be taken way from schools and that school will get more funding in order to make sure that each child gets the help that is need and that teachers are trained properly to assist in reformation of education.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/38489417#38489417 On: what is the right way to reform education?

This reading was very interest the section on Misconceptions Among Stakeholders have caught my attention. Basically it’s talking most about the relationship between teachers and parents and how trust is the most important thing between the two parties. The question arises to ask if families are serious indulge in their child education. The Misconceptions about when, how, what, and if families are meaningfully engaged in their children’s education continues to be a predominant issue in fostering

School-family connections. The misconception comes from between teachers and parents: teachers and families hold about each other’s motivation, practices, and beliefs. When there is an atmosphere of mistrust, it is difficult for educators and family members to create effective school-family partnerships to support student learning. I think that parents rely too much on teachers to be the one that’s responsible for educating their children. It’s truth that teacher are an important fact in a child’s learning because children spend most on their time in school learning out of a 24 hour day children spent  between 7-10 in school.

Parents need to not see only rely on teachers; they have to do their part to. I look at it this way, parents can plant the seed on educating their children and teacher would help care and tend the seed. But parents and students are responsible for how that seed flourishes. An example is given that family members often state that teachers or schools do not want their involvement or input, yet an overwhelming majority of families trust teachers to give them needed information. I don’t think teacher don’t totally wants parents input, it just how much of an input parents want in the class. Teacher would expect criticism but they don’t want parents telling them how to run their classroom. Parents for eg if your kid is not doing well in school, parents need to be the one to council with the teachers and see what additional help can be given to improve their learning.

 An article on Teacher-Parent partnership: http://www.pbs.org/parents/goingtoschool/parent_teacher.html

In the book: Many children left behind, reading chapter 3, I understand the point of view that the authors are trying to make in this book, their claims are that standardize testing is not an efficient way in finding out how students are performing in school. Standardize testing should not be the government best choices of figuring out how and what areas in the educational curriculum student are not being proper taught.  Standardize testing for eg don’t look at all aspect of student life: students with learning disabilities if undetected would pass these test and in cases like that should schools be penalized for that when the child need is not properly met. With the system of Standardize testing their are also cheating scandal that are arising because of standardize testing and the need for school to show that they are performing good. Teachers are being caught in order to prove their creditability.  Also they look at students who have been performing good throughout the school year but fail when taking the test, does standardize testing look at how the student improves throughout the school year?  The authors look at the state of Oregon and how they are cutting out programs such as music and foreign language and using that money on data collection and testing program.

Standardize testing seem to be crippling schools because teacher cannot teach the child properly. Teachers are now teaching to so that the student could pass the Standardize test.  The authors touched on tests alone do very little to increase the capacity of schools to deliver better educational services. They   can also provide a kind of counterfeit accountability that sorts and labels kids on the basis of multiple choice questions as a substitute for the much more difficult and more costly process of real school improvement. The authors say that the key to schools doing better is not in testing but it lies with students and teachers. I do agree with that because one should look at a student potential and their improvement and find resources to help the student to keep growing.

Chapter 4

In chapter 4 the section that interested me the most is “Rebuilding trust”. The authors talked about school and the local board needs to keep their eyes on its real constituents.  The only way to give students the best education possible schools need to build students and parents trust. The road to building trust is not easy and everyone needs to be involved in the growth. Schools faculty members need to adequately come up with a way to build trust between parents and the school and also students and teachers. The authors state that micromanaging at point is unnecessary and school need to accept that asking explanation and tough criticism is not micromanaging. School boards will need to become more active and passive in order to build trust with the school.

Questions

Do you think that rebuilding trust in school is difficult task to be accomplished?

We have been talking about standardize testing in class for a while, doing believe that standardize test is just a negative impact to the educational system or is standardize testing a good start to finding out where students and schools are lack and need extra support?

In this chapter of the book take us through the struggles within the education system to guarantee that everyone receive a good and proper education. Whether a child is in a public or private institution the same learning opportunity should be allotted to both students. The chapter point out some good thing about public education in the fact that public education is wholly consistent with a desire for excellency and that public school are doing surprising well in managing with limited resources to educate an increasingly diverse student population.

Many people argue that the government should not be involved with make major school decision: as in how a school should be run. As the author stated that people think that the government should play the role of support. The government should work with parents, teachers and students to help the public school improved as stated in the book. I can say if I totally agree with that idea. I do think that if the government funding education in states that they need to have a voice in the educational system. If schools are failing government need to step in and see what going on, but they should finance more money to deal with failing school. As I have stated in class the need to stop thinking in a box and they need to look to the future. Society need to grow and show improvement we can have families recycling poverty. Making poverty a never ending cycle in the poor community.

Government need to step in and provide extra help to those students that really needs the guidance. Teacher need to do their part to on improving a student life. Parent need to do their part in making sure that their child gets the best education. The say goes one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. I don’t think that all teacher are bad but I do think the reason why government enforce the no child left behind is because school are doing so badly and they are only trying to help with the failing system.

Do you think that NCLB is unnecessary and is a waste of time? Should government just be supporters of the education system and have little involvement in the improvement of school organization: from administration all the way down to students in the classroom?

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12tue3.html?ref=nationalassessmentofeducationalprogress : This article is basically look at how congress views NCLB act of 2002.

In this chapter of the book take us through the struggles within the education system to guarantee that everyone receive a good and proper education. Whether a child is in a public or private institution the same learning opportunity should be allotted to both students. The chapter point out some good thing about public education in the fact that public education is wholly consistent with a desire for excellency and that public school are doing surprising well in managing with limited resources to educate an increasingly diverse student population.

Many people argue that the government should not be involved with make major school decision: as in how a school should be run. As the author stated that people think that the government should play the role of support. The government should work with parents, teachers and students to help the public school improved as stated in the book. I can say if I totally agree with that idea. I do think that if the government funding education in states that they need to have a voice in the educational system. If schools are failing government need to step in and see what going on, but they should finance more money to deal with failing school. As I have stated in class the need to stop thinking in a box and they need to look to the future. Society need to grow and show improvement we can have families recycling poverty. Making poverty a never ending cycle in the poor community.

Government need to step in and provide extra help to those students that really needs the guidance. Teacher need to do their part to on improving a student life. Parent need to do their part in making sure that their child gets the best education. The say goes one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. I don’t think that all teacher are bad but I do think the reason why government enforce the no child left behind is because school are doing so badly and they are only trying to help with the failing system.

Do you think that NCLB is unnecessary and is a waste of time? Should government just be supporters of the education system and have little involvement in the improvement of school organization: from administration all the way down to students in the classroom?

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12tue3.html?ref=nationalassessmentofeducationalprogress : This article is basically looks at how congress views NCLB act of 2002.

In this chapter we cover a lot, from the point President Nixon coming into power and making big changes in the educational system, where the school curriculum changing to accommodate all ethnicity and not just the Protestant Anglo-American culture. Also Nixon administration’s promotion of career education committed the school to educating students for Jobs. “Go to school to get a job” would become the major justification for supporting the school system. I guess Nixon administration way of looking at the education system as a way of getting students ready for the job market has a positive outlook for the economy. Encouraging student to go to school in order to acquire a good job is and is still a good driving force for promoting a wealthy economy and an improving society to decrease the level of poverty.

Another thing that stood out to me in this book is educating for the consumer economy. This section talks about franchised and companies gearing up to educate workers for the global economy they became a training ground for future consumers. School were used as the place for making the student or as you may say the consumers or future consumers become more aware of commercial advertising and a perfect ground for converting traditional home economics courses into consumer sciences course. As we see today a lot of fast food chains such as McDonalds and Wendy’s invading school by curriculum as mention in the book were these food chains are promoting their chains as a place to work and gain good work experience for the work force.

Standardizing testing section of this chapter also stood out to me. I know we have discussed this so much time in class. I know this is a very touchy subject because many that not all students are perfect test take, that standardize testing have some form of biasness to it and also that standardize testing is a waste of time.  This chapter talks about Leon Lessinger who believed that accountability is important for fitting and be equipped for workforce. The accountability movement spread in the early 1970s and with that drive school were force to publicize that annual test score on standardized test. During that period students found themselves taking an increasing number of achievement tests to satisfy the requirements of accountability. I wonder how that really worked out back then. I think that method of testing students to see what job they are capable of doing limits the student. I like that in today’s society student have the opportunity to go to college and take course in different areas to see what really is interesting to them.

This book Jonathan Kozol looks at the public school system throughout the United States. It takes a look at the schools in different cities such as New Jersey, St. Louis, Washington D.C., and Chicago, north Lawndale. I wasn’t shocked to read about the conditions in some of these schools because for the whole semester we have been talking about how American school system in failing but what I am appalled at is how can parent, teacher and the government allowed it to get to the point where we as a society is failing our children, our future leaders. Jonathan Kozol gives a very descriptive and unbiased view at schools in the cities he looks at or compared. He compares schools from the poor side of town to the schools across town where the wealthier children attend. He explains how schools in the very same district receive unequal funds because the districts refuse to invest money into the very places that need it the most.

Jonathan recalls his first time teaching. He began to teach in 1964 in Boston in a segregate school so crowded and so poor that it could not provide my fourth grade children with a classroom. He recalls the effects of teaching in such crowded setting and he show that it reflected in the first test he gave his class. He explains that most of his students were reading at the second grade level and math skills were at first grade level.  I guess that exam had an impact on how Jonathan urges Jonathan to become a better teacher and how to look at ways of improving the American school system. With all being said I don’t think that Jonathan Kozol gives us a proper solution to dealing with failing school but he has open our eyes to what happening to the deteriorating school system. Hopefully with all this educational system attacks being under attack and is being exploited in the news today, government, administration, teachers, parents and even student can come up with a proper solution to improving the school environment and educational system.

Video: Interview with the author Jonathan Kozol : Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN1v31R1VPE&feature=relatedk

This chapter was very interesting because most to the stuff that was mention in this chapter was brought up in class and through group presentation we were able to get a bit more in depth. The education system has evolved in so much way that what education was back then is no long what it is today. Many factors have play a part in what the education system is today. From the civil rights movement to migration of different cultural has play it part in how the system is managed today. The thing that caught my attention is how the civil rights movement affected the education system. The Major case that abolishes segregation in school was Brown vs Board, the court agreed that segregation in school was unconstitutional and which led to a major change in the education system as we know it. Now that schools were desegregated the learning environment changed from everyone. Now schools had to cater to all ethnicity.

Question: Is segregation in school today a fault of students? (is segregation in school today brought about by students)

Chapter 14 to me was basically talking about how each cultural has impacted the education system. The struggle that each cultural had to face to be consider equal and so to acquire an education that is not total bias to one cultural. The chapter explored languages being thought in schools and cultural programs being add to the school curriculum. Teaching from an Afrocentric, Native American, Mexican American or Puerto Rican perspective creates a view of the world different from that of a white Anglo American protestant culture. Anglo believed that involving all those culture into curriculum will change the mind set of students’ view of the world, especially the whites. Anglo was highly in disagreement of involving all those cultural background into the education system because they didn’t want it to affect the views of how society was portrayed to the white students (addressing issues of racism). Also with the new movement in education, women fight for the right to obtain an education. Women want access to the same curricula, examination, teaching staff and school of just as males to better improve themselves.

As discuss in class: Do you think that the children to accelerate better in school if boys and girls are being thought separately? Where boys are being taught in separate classroom from girls would have a better outcome for both genders.

I have posted link: Trouble with boys which is an article about why boys are failing in today education system. http://www.newsweek.com/2006/01/29/the-trouble-with-boys.html

 In this chapter the area that my caught my attention is the section on school and war on poverty.  The federal government’s war on poverty during the 1960 was reminiscent of the beliefs of nineteenth –century common school reformers that education could reduce social class divisions and eliminate poverty. The government looked at education as a means of improving the social class of not the rich but the poor. I think that the government I a miss conception of how education was supposed to work in helping the poorer communities. I believe that education was a good way of helping to create social class and decreasing poverty among the poor but the education that was being received by the poor children was not the best.

In reading that section it seem as through education was the best thing for the poor to improve their social class but the question that arises is was the poor receive equal and poor education as the middle class and the rich in order to be better prepare for society.  We discuss in class that today the education system  failing and school in American compare with school in other countries like Japan, Finland and Canada which are doing well. We find that schools in poorer neighborhood are not performing a great as the school that are in neighborhood where the income for the household is higher about the poverty line. Education was supposed to be a positive outlook for the poor to move up in social class but people that lived in poorer neighborhood was receiving a poor education which didn’t allowed them to receive great employment opportunities, which cause a low standard of living which in return resulted in poor medical care, diet, housing and education for the next generation. Even though the government took it upon themselves to provide education for the poor they were not looking at the factors that was prevent the poor for received a poor proper education. For example poor health care, poor teaching in poor neighborhoods, parents lack of education themselves and so on.

In class before we were give an assignment to read. We looked at other countries and why their education system was improving and doing good compare to the American educational system. The country in which I look at was Finland. Finland had their problem of having a failing education system but the government startling looking at how they can improve on their failing system and one of the thing that the government tried to improve was the household of poorer student by helping their families to achieve better health care and providing help within the household, help the parents themselves to be more educated which in turn will help the student because the parent would also be getting help on improving themselves therefore making their household better off in the future and being able to help their child understand the meaning of a proper education and also help their children to do better in school by being of some assistance to them in helping them understand the material they covered in school.

Question: Do you believe that the reason why the education system is failing is because poverty is a factor in the matter? Do you think that parent in poorer communities should try to get the children to be accepted in a school in a better community to prevent their child from being a statistic of a poor education in a poor community? Do you think that the government should give more money to the failing school in poorer community rather that closing down the school that are doing poorly as they have recently been doing?

In this chapter we see how much the media as an impact on the young minds of children. Media influences system back since the early 1900 through books, radio, and movies. Through movies we see the Will Hays the president of the newly formed Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America use his new found production to establish and maintain a high sense of moral and artistic standards and stated in the book. Another person discussed in the book is John Collier, he believe that movies should be censors in teaching people about morals. He emphasized the importance of movies teaching moral lesson. Also the book talked about censorship. Censorship is basically put only the thing at is acceptable into movies, preserving certain thing, not touch specific subject eg governmental issues etc….Censors wanted movies to be uplifting by teaching the public moral lessons in a manner similar to that used by school. For eg… the censor code stress the importance of movies depicting good winning out over evil.

Another thing that stood out to me in reading this chapter is how the media influence control the thoughts of children. Teaching children the things of life and how things should be and what ought to be. Company from ever since has used kids to sell and endorse their products. One of the largest sell company that had a major impact on kids is Walt Disney. Their motion picture company aim specifically at kids through movies and as their begun to gross more revenue they designed theme parks to attract middle class families. The media also influence teenagers through magazines target at them. These magazines were corresponding to earlier concerns of controlling adolescent sexuality through high school activities. Magazine even influence the way kids perceive themselves as in what is the latest fashion to relationship advice and so on.

In today’s society we see that the media has a great impact upon the minds of everyone especially kids. Kids today play less and watch television and play more video games. It’s like in today’s society parents are using television to teach their children moral and educational lessons. I am not saying that it has negative affect but too much of anything is not good. I mean today we do have some channel like PBS that aim to help educate our kids especially in science and in math but I don’t think that parent should rely to much on those programs. Parent need to step in and guide their children, helping them to understand concepts and application. That one of the problem in the education system today children need to learn how to applied what they have learn to get a better understand of the material and television and magazines does not provide that in-depth learning. Teachers are not solely to be blame if kids are failing. The media has certainly played it part on influencing the younger mind.

QUESTION: Should government have more control on what the media portrays? Should schools incorporate more articles from magazines to help kids to understand the material that are being covered in classes? Should more movies be incorporated in the class, for eg we read the book the scarlet letter then watch the movies as a part of the assignment?