A Critique of Diane Ravitch’s “Education in the Post Sputnik Era”
On October 4th 1957 the Soviet’s launch the world’s first satellite called “Sputnik 1” ending the debate that the quality of education in America’s school system has been a concern. This event that the Russians beat the Americans sparked crisis in America’s education system. This crisis lead to restructuring the education system in English, History, Science, Mathematics, and foreign languages. While many programs were developed and government funding was allocated to enhance school systems and colleges, the racial revolution presented a forceful challenge to the political, social, and economic basis of American schools (Ravitch 324). As Racial and Urban crisis became the nation’s …show more content…
“They had hoped to replace current methods – characterized by teacher led “telling” and student recitation – with curriculum packages that used “discovery” ”inquiry,” and inductive reasoning as methods of learning; the rationale was that students would find the field more interesting and would retain longer what they learned if they “figured out,” through carefully designed exercises or experiments (Ravich 324.” This method is utilized today in America’s school systems. She goes on to argue the point that the U.S. Commissioner in Education is quoted as saying that “more time, talent, and money than ever before in history have been invested in pushing educational knowledge, and in the next decades we may expect more significant developments (Ravich 324). This is concrete evidence the government was fully engaged in bettering our school system. Finally she explains the loss of motivation to continue funding America’s education because of racial inequality by her statement “No matter how well or how badly schools taught reading or writing or history, poor black children still lived in slums, black unemployment was still double the white rate, and black poverty remained high. Because of this inability to solve the problem of racial inequality and with no power to demand justice, education became the targets of criticism (Ravich
On October 4th 1957 the Soviet’s launch the world’s first satellite called “Sputnik 1” ending the debate that the quality of education in America’s school system has been a concern. This event that the Russians beat the Americans sparked crisis in America’s education system. This crisis lead to restructuring the education system in English, History, Science, Mathematics, and foreign languages. While many programs were developed and government funding was allocated to enhance school systems and colleges, the racial revolution presented a forceful challenge to the political, social, and economic basis of American schools (Ravitch 324). As Racial and Urban crisis became the nation’s …show more content…
“They had hoped to replace current methods – characterized by teacher led “telling” and student recitation – with curriculum packages that used “discovery” ”inquiry,” and inductive reasoning as methods of learning; the rationale was that students would find the field more interesting and would retain longer what they learned if they “figured out,” through carefully designed exercises or experiments (Ravich 324.” This method is utilized today in America’s school systems. She goes on to argue the point that the U.S. Commissioner in Education is quoted as saying that “more time, talent, and money than ever before in history have been invested in pushing educational knowledge, and in the next decades we may expect more significant developments (Ravich 324). This is concrete evidence the government was fully engaged in bettering our school system. Finally she explains the loss of motivation to continue funding America’s education because of racial inequality by her statement “No matter how well or how badly schools taught reading or writing or history, poor black children still lived in slums, black unemployment was still double the white rate, and black poverty remained high. Because of this inability to solve the problem of racial inequality and with no power to demand justice, education became the targets of criticism (Ravich