In the book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System”, Diane Ravitch, the former assistant secretary of education examines her career in education reform. Ravitch’s book will be used to answer the following questions.
According to the author what can we do to improve schools and education? The author stresses that there is no silver bullet that will magically fix the United States schools and the education system. However, the author does give four steps that will improve schools and the education system in the United States. These being: a vision of what good education is, quality curriculum, well educated teachers, and family involvement. We will look at each in the order listed. Ravitch says a vision …show more content…
The Gates initiative encouraged the small school movement; this promised that its schools, most with fewer than four hundred students would promote rigor, relevance and relationships. In this environment, the students were doing well in language arts, but not in mathematics. This initiative caused school to seldom have enough students for advanced courses, career and technical education, sports or band. This type of transformation led to only twenty percent of those who started in ninth grade to graduate. In the end, the small schools were shut down and redesigned. (pg. …show more content…
The author does not directly answer this question but appears to support schools being run like a business as she seams to support charter schools. These schools are organizations that obtain a charter from the state to teacher a number of students. Charter schools can be managed by nonprofit groups or for profit businesses. A Charter school is a publicly-funded school that is established independently of a local school board by teachers, community groups or private companies, and because they receive taxpayer funding they must comply with certain state and local regulations.(pg. 126) Although, charter schools have more freedom over curriculum, hiring practices, discipline, and are not required to join existing union collective bargaining agreements. This business style of education has proven to be an effective way of educating the students, and have achieved outstanding results. The KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) is an example of one of the most impressive charter schools. (pg. 135) Although charter schools are run as a business, they do not fall under the same requirement as the public school for who they should accept and thus they are not a model to which we can structure our public school
According to the author what can we do to improve schools and education? The author stresses that there is no silver bullet that will magically fix the United States schools and the education system. However, the author does give four steps that will improve schools and the education system in the United States. These being: a vision of what good education is, quality curriculum, well educated teachers, and family involvement. We will look at each in the order listed. Ravitch says a vision …show more content…
The Gates initiative encouraged the small school movement; this promised that its schools, most with fewer than four hundred students would promote rigor, relevance and relationships. In this environment, the students were doing well in language arts, but not in mathematics. This initiative caused school to seldom have enough students for advanced courses, career and technical education, sports or band. This type of transformation led to only twenty percent of those who started in ninth grade to graduate. In the end, the small schools were shut down and redesigned. (pg. …show more content…
The author does not directly answer this question but appears to support schools being run like a business as she seams to support charter schools. These schools are organizations that obtain a charter from the state to teacher a number of students. Charter schools can be managed by nonprofit groups or for profit businesses. A Charter school is a publicly-funded school that is established independently of a local school board by teachers, community groups or private companies, and because they receive taxpayer funding they must comply with certain state and local regulations.(pg. 126) Although, charter schools have more freedom over curriculum, hiring practices, discipline, and are not required to join existing union collective bargaining agreements. This business style of education has proven to be an effective way of educating the students, and have achieved outstanding results. The KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) is an example of one of the most impressive charter schools. (pg. 135) Although charter schools are run as a business, they do not fall under the same requirement as the public school for who they should accept and thus they are not a model to which we can structure our public school