Author Archives: Devon

This is a particularly important topic for students our age. Everyone, rich or poor, is concerned with the cost of education. As the readings show their is a trend toward more expensive higher education, more high school graduates, and less funding. This is a bad combination because it means public universities are expected to provide more for less… State financial aid and other initiatives to make higher education affordable are also failing to do so. Different things contributed to this such as the general economy not doing well and as stated in one of the readings, the lack of accountability. I found the accountability topic interesting when discussing the price and accessibility of higher education, because I normally only think of accountability in terms of quality, and not cost. The Accountability triangle that discussed state priorities (political), Academic Concerns (professional), and Market forces seemed very logical to me. I was wondering what the class thinks could be the easiest, or most feasible area of accountability to correct in order to make a better functioning system.

Another thing that was shocking to me is the graph of student state funding in the “Challenges for Financing Public Higher Education” reading. I could not understand the general trend toward less per pupil funding in higher education (specifically between 2001 and 2004). I would have thought that during such times people would put more emphasis on making education affordable, but it seems the opposite. I do not know if this is due to a lack of budgeting interest in terms of how state money is allocated, or if it is due to the higher number of high school graduates who are now utilizing this budget… I wonder if their is any more appropriate way to allocate these funds. Do you think that financial aid should be solely based on financial need, or also on grades, ethnicity, the school you go to, or any other factors that could make the system more “Fair.”

Personally, this reading was interesting because I never really realized the importance nation wide in the decline of higher education moneys. I have heard recently many stories of colleges doing poorly. For instance my friend at a College in Santa Fe actually had to finish school elsewhere because the college just one day closed due to funding, also I heard that Iona College recently filed for bankruptcy… Then I saw the numbers in this reading saying places like Nevada have lost up to 60% of their funding. This is apparently a huge trend which I was not really aware of, and should probably be made more public in order to have people begin to attempt and correct this problem. I know even the small changes in my financial aid here at CUNY Baruch are a big concern to me, so it would probably be wise on students, educators, and universities parts to attempt to work on these issues together in some way.

This article was very interesting because it focused more on home issues, and the problems that could be fixed outside of school doors. One thing that stood out to me in the beginning of the article is that not only did the author say that parental support was important, but that encouragement and expectations play a large role. I personally thought this was crucial wording because when I went through school I had a single mother with multiple jobs, so a lot was left on me. I always knew that I had to do well, and I did. Sooner or later my mother came to expect good grades of me, and this worked out well for the both of us. I like the fact that the article mentions parents such as my mother who are viewed as “uncaring” or the like, but are really just unable to participate at every little thing. I would like to say that that fact I knew my mother supported me, and expected a great deal from me, led to my academic success even though it was not the “traditional” manner of supporting a child. The fact this author takes this motivation into consideration when analyzing these studies is smart and observatory, because it could be just as beneficial. I was curious about how the class feels about this. Obviously everyone in the room has had some sort of academic success due to the fact we are all in college, but I wondered what level (or style) of parental involvement did they receive? Do you think this directly contributed to your success? I personally did not think my mother contributed to academics up until recently when I was old enough to put all my past behaviors in perspective.

Another thing about the article that stood out was one small, but very strong, statement in the conclusion. “When any one of the system’s parts is missing or out of
sync, the entire system falters.” This sums up our entire semester. We have argued about funding, parental involvement, location, playgrounds, food, equality, and the list goes on and on. In the end one thing can throw off the entire system, and if I had to pick one at the top of the list it would be parental involvement. This is not to say that babying your child and reviewing their homework everyday for their life is the key to success–far from it. What I am suggesting is that most lessons, morals, and skills in life can, and should be learned from the parents. If parents are sensible enough to instill good life lessons and habits than their child can mature to be a better and more well rounded person. Plain and simple. Anyway, I was wondering if the class agrees with this standpoint, or do you feel that socialization, and institutional lessons are more important?

Between past classes and the given readings I can see many problems with the school system involving who holds power, how to measure performance, distribute funds and the like. After all this thought and discussion I am still left with no single answer. In terms of school power and being centralized with large schools or smaller with more personal relations, I would definitely chose smaller because I have experienced this (growing up in a HS with ~400 people total. The issues involving Measurement though such as standardized testing, I simply cannot come up with a feasible better option. After thinking the issues over I would like to know if anyone from the class could. There must be a better way to at least classify and define student who “fail” these tests, rather than give up on them due to their Limited English Proficiency or the like. These practices limit children and cause a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy effect. Also, even if children were not aware of their classifications the board and teachers are which could potentially be way more influential in their futures. I wanted to ask the class of they had any suggestions regarding these topics for the country and myself to think about.

No Child Left Behind is something that consistently arises in class discussion. Many problems have arisen over what went wrong with this plan, things such as over-reliance on standardized testing. This chapter brings up issues such as this. This one quality of the NCLB act requires teachers to cover specific curriculum, and therefore engage most of their focus in preparation for a test. This leads to a whole bunch of problems such as a national curriculum, or standards in a sense, and furthering the justification for problems based on performance. Although the testing is designed to see where funding and help would be needed it also helps to isolate the problem by dumbing down teaching style and curriculum, and pinpointing the poor performing schools. This could cause more stratification, because those with the means to go to a different school could opt out to leave when test performances are made known. Do you think that less foreseen effects, such as the increase of stratification I just mentioned, have come from the No Child Left Behind? Also, we spend a lot of time talking about the negatives of the No Child Left Behind Act, can you think of any positives of the Act which you would carry over into newer legislative reforms.

After finishing up the Spring book a few things still stand out. The book touches on many issues, and gives insight into the causes behind modern problems, but the one thing I wondered about throughout was the lack of leadership and accountability in the system itself. I feel like every level of the education system is continually being changed. Parents blame teachers, teachers blame parents, principals, superintendents, and then even the upper echelon members of the board of education get involved. Add in politics and different reforms and the whole entity of education itself becomes a mess. It is because of this jumbled around control and accountability that I am not the least bit surprised about the overall “failure” of the modern system. I find myself wondering if a less bureaucratic and more centrally controlled system could be more manageable. I am not in favor of this method personally, but I couldn’t help but thinking of it as a plausible solution. Another question I had in regards to the Spring book wrap up is, after having heard so many stories for the causes of modern problems what does the class think could be the best fix to implement, would you go Kozol’s route and immediately enact more funding to education, or would you begin with curriculum changes.

Kozol brings up many interesting points in the reading. The subject matter was all to familiar, because in my introductory Sociology class we read a chapter dedicated to Jonathon Kozol and this book, it was titled “Still Separate, Still Unequal.” I went back to see what I could remember of the book, and turns out I did a power point presentation on it. The Historical significance tracing back to civil war and Brown vs. Board of Education is deffinitely important to take into consideration, but the newer statistics and dates are equally, if not more so important. In my sociology class we discussed how modern schools are in a movement of re-segregation. Schools which were once segregated by force or law are now beginning to retreat back into segregated bodies by other means. For instance, in my powerpoint I salvaged some statistics from some segregated schools in the 2002-2003 public school year. This was directly from the chapter in the Textbook “Sociology Matters” by Richard Schaefer.

This book seems pretty intense upon first impression. One thing I noticed is that the author definitely did their research. Obviously they have a PH.d as shown by the cover page, but all of the reading material seemed familiar to me. The definitions came straight from sociology class, the stories from English, the group interactions from social psychology. What I began thinking of from this realization was that education, at least the upper education I received, has gone a long way of informing newer generations  about the inequalities Tatum speaks of. The problem I see in this though is that by the time I started to learn about it it was already to late. I do not see myself as a racist, or even as holding many prejudices, but some things which Tatum wrote about definitely gets you thinking. For instance the part where young children drew Native Americans, or “Indians.” The kids didn’t even recognize the real term, but when prompted to draw an Indian, feathers and tomahawks were the first thing in mind. The source of this stereotypical image… Peter Pan. Institutionalized discrimination is all over, and a few college courses can never help someone unlearn that. All it can do is enlighten the person, and hope that they attempt to work against it. Tatum mentioned some social psychology terms which I recently learned about. One of the things about racism and prejudice though, is that self monitoring, or focusing on TRYING to not be racist is much harder than it seems. It takes conscious thought, time, and restraint. So I wanted to ask, is there any way to lower the amount of institutionalized discrimination in modern media. Do shows like Dora the Explorer, Sesame Street, or Ni Hao Kai Lan aid in minimizing racial differences or do they contain racial undertones as well? I also wanted to post a link that was given in my Social Psychology class that goes pretty well with this chapter. Tatum wrote that many people say they don’t have a prejudice bone in there body… and she suggests they take another look. This link is for if your interested in looking again. It is an Implicit Association Test. It tests to see if you have any implicit beliefs (that you may not even be aware of) about race, sexuality, weight, etc… Check it out if you want to.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/

The first thing the chapter spoke about was the 1960 UN convention in which discrimination in education was banned. The conditions that constituted discrimination were “race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, [and] economic condition or birth.” This list is so long and extensive that it is laughable. During the time sixties conditions were much more obviously segregated based on these mentioned conditions, and today’s schools are arguably just as bad due to the ways in which children are divided into different schools. The rest of the chapter also focused on the effect and struggles of integration and search for equal opportunity in American education.  One thing I asked myself immediately was, were bilingual schools effective? Though I know they allow preservation of culture, they also lead to more segregation and therefore more educational stratification… The other thing that popped out to me in this chapter was the section involving the coloring of textbooks. I think it directly applies to what we discussed in class regarding America portraying a superhero like image that always does no harm and wins. The US has always done this, and it is interesting to see the effect of how textbook portrayals of different people has defined people’s beliefs. I was more so surprised about the portrayal of women than racial or ethnic portrayals. The lose weight by smoking was probably the most ridiculous portrayal of women in the chapter. A question I had about this was, do you think that media images and textbook portrayals shape peoples beliefs about other Americans? Do you think the portrayals of people in different countries that we see in documentaries, or the news, make us believe we know their situations in the same way we relate to one another in America? Does this define the way we interact with locals or foreigners?

In the chapter the author talks about how all these attempts to reduce poverty arose following the Cold War. This was intended to lower the poverty rates and gap between the rich and poor. The funny thing I found about this is how much of a failure this is in the long run. Military money for GI’s was misappropriately distributed, and the idea of sorting youth is ridiculous if what you are trying to combat is differences in money. Also, the idea of government run programs in schools to avoid communism seems a little to government controlled to not be ironic. When it came to the Military training or college route individuals it got me wondering if the same methods would be utilized today in the event that they bought back the draft? Would America’s “intellectuals” be spared from war and the poor went to the military? I do not know if this obviously unjust decision would stand in today’s society.

Another thing I found interesting was the “Poverty breeds poverty” line from the Heller Report. I think that this is a bold, yet true, statement to make. This idea was in my head the entire time I read the chapter, because the same way we discussed how kindergartens were intended to aid parents and children, poverty is not just a child’s problem for future generations. The proper way to manage money, invest in one’s future, and so forth must be taught and understood by the parents. Not only this, but these parent’s must have access to the same facilities as the more well off individuals. It is the question of access to facilities (such as universities) that, in my opinion, is the major determining factor in differences in income. Poverty can not be totally understood by this alone, but it is a good place to begin investigation. Would poverty levels be like they are today in America if universal access to universities were provided by the government? What about universal healthcare for that matter? These differences are large determinants in SES, and as we know, SES is heavily correlated with poverty rates. Another, less reading specific question I had is, where do you believe is the best place to being fighting the war on poverty…  would you too begin with youth in the school system?

Chapter 12 was interesting because I could so easily see the parallel between pop culture, media, and kids in general. The way life was back then is no different than it is today. People put a lot of stress on education, schools, and parenting teaching children the “right” way of doing things, and profit driven media sometimes works against all these efforts. Not surprisingly, censorship became a concern amongst many in the country. It is crazy to think about censorship in today’s media compared to the early 1900’s. The goals of censorship are constantly changing… for instance in today’s media a lot of attention is put on not advocating (or even showing on tv) cigarette smoking and excessive drinking. This is a response to the fact that it is “new” information that they are both bad for you, and television and advertisements should actively combat the issue. Back in the early 1900’s though things such as youth sexuality was an issue, where today it is almost completely embraced in television shows and media. The real question ends up being who should regulate this? government or the people?

After reading this chapter I am deffinitely a supporter of self regulation. I think today’s society has found a decent balance in censorship rules or regulations. Some promiscuity is allowed on television, but not nudity. Some foul language is spoken, but not the major curse words. And in terms of what political or ideological views are expressed on air, their is no publicly known limit. I wanted to ask, if early 1900’s America could see the level of censorship we have today, and know of our “balance” of educational and entertaining programs would they approve of it? Would they want more regulation, and if so of what sort, Government or self? With all this emphasis on censorship to protect children, and school to morally guide children, what is left for the parents themselves to do? Is this reliance on institution partially responsible for the degradation of the family structure throughout time? The last discussion question I have is, do you think more censorship would have resulted in less bullying, smoking, or more morality in school children? Because I certainly don’t. I think it would have led to more sheltered children who have more of a reason to rebel.