People were concerned about the quality of American schools due to the increasing global competition. Scores are much lower in the U.S schools compared to other nations and therefore, those nations were a possible threat to America. There were also debate over who should control public schools. Lessinger talks about how the community shouldn’t have any control over the schools. He used the model of a hospital by saying that the participation of the community to make decisions in surgery and such was absolutely insane and dangerous. He talks about how this model can be applied to education and how we need professional knowledge to make decisions in the school. I agree with Lessinger’s point of view. I feel like there needs to be educational experts to make decisions and we shouldn’t leave these decisions to the public. Also, schools were required to annually publish standardized test scores. I feel like there is an increase of pressure to the teachers and students, and the pressure can be a good thing. Standardized tests can motivate teachers and students to push for better grades. Although standardized tests can not always measure a student’s real intelligence, (due to bad test taking skills and such), it is the best alternative.
The goals of the schools were changing as time went on. In the beginning there were the common schools where the main goal was to reduce class warfare. However, we are now more focused on reaching our goal of educating our students to compete in the global economy. I think it is amazing how schools started and what the goals for schools were.
This last chapter pretty much summed the entire book up and mentioned topics from the previous chapters. It was interesting how even though there was a big cultural divide between the Republican and Democratic parties, they both had that same goal of trying to improve schools for the sake of competitive advantages.
Do you feel that the goals of the American schools (being globally competitive) should be the main goals? Or do you feel like we have lost the true purpose of education?
Do you feel that the goals of the American schools will change over time again?