Harold Hodgkinson Analysis

Improved Essays
To put it simply, there is no easy way to have a perfectly functioning school. Quoting demographic expert, Harold L. Hodgkinson, “Improving a school is like remodeling a house. New plaster and a paint job won’t fix a leaky roof.” By this, Hodgkinson means that schools are every bit as complicated as house; that by fixing the superficial aspects of a school, such as more advanced technology or new books, you won’t erase the deeper, far more important issues, such as a simply lackluster curriculum. A majority of schools in the United States, in attempts to fix the obvious issues, resort to the tracking system. The tracking system is the act of grouping students by ability, or so they claim. Schools see the tracking system as an improvement, …show more content…
Of course, since this is happening in elementary schools, particularly in first and second grade classes, no student suspects that these names really signify groups of “smart” and “dumb”. It’s not until later grades, like fourth and fifth grade, where the students are becoming much more aware of their intellectual standing in the class compared to the other students, that they realize these groups aren’t as nice as they thought, though at this stage, this realization doesn’t concern them much. Furthermore, when one examines the effect of ability grouping on adolescents in middle school, the negative impact is even more obvious. Middle school is crucial to the development of a student’s sense of self, it’s crucial to the building of their self worth. Adolescents in middle school are grasping at straws trying to figure out how they measure up to their peers. They struggle to figure out who they are: are they pretty or ugly, cool or uncool? Are they smart or are they “dumb”? (Van Horn) At this point in time, teens are perfectly aware of what it means when someone is in an Honors class and they aren’t. In their search for their identity, the tracking system gives them their answer, on a silver platter, whether it was intentional or otherwise. (I’m not done here but its making me mad so im ignoring

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    I wrote more on the issue "Why We Hate The Smart Kids" by Grant Penrod. I'm going to argue with the author on this one because I agree with everything he is trying to teach us in this article. For many students in high school or even college, it's the best time for them, most of them only come for the sports or the debate teams. In any high school, there are many different groups like; the jocks, the boring kids, the stoners, and the nerds. Out of all the groups I have said the one that gets the most heat are the nerds.…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a result, some schools had to take drastic measures, such as firing the principal and the majority of the school staff, closing down the school, or lengthening the school year or day. An article, “Every Student Act fails too many students,” by the Los Angeles Times, mentions that the Every Student Succeeds Act has disadvantages as well. Although it has given state governments more power over their educational policies, it has also made it more difficult to pinpoint the schools that need improvements. The article further states that if the country wants to improve schools, the states need to get personally involved and provide an organized improvement plan (The Times Editorial Board, 2). All of the sources listed above, helped to form my opinion that the Every Student Succeeds Act needs to improve, or be replaced with a new policy entirely, so that every student is eligible for high-quality…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    America's standard of public education has fallen into a deep decline over the last decade. School should be better constructed to teach kids how to prepare for adult life and the real world. Many of the things taught today in school have little to no value to students after they graduate. Curriculum should involve very crucial life skills such as people skills, critical thinking, and financial management. Our Education System barely does anything to cater to those needs, which sets kids up for failure later in life.…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Speaker Alexandra Robbins is a New York Times bestselling author of Pledged and The Overachievers. She’s spent over a decade “examining… various microcosms in U.S schools” and is the 2007 recipient of the Heartsongs award for her contributions to the mental health of children and young adults (Robbins, 6). Robbins immediately establishes credibility by featuring her credentials in her About the Author section and mentioning her experience in U.S schools early on in the book. In The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth, Robbins introduces the idea of quirk theory, which states that “many of the differences that cause a student to be excluded in school are the same traits or real-world skills that others will value, love, respect, or find compelling…

    • 1497 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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.…

    • 1719 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The United States has speculated that higher education is a way to gain upward mobility. People believe that upward mobility is as promising as it sounds because it allows people to move from one socioeconomic level on to the next. Upward mobility has become important in the recent years as it helps people attain better job opportunities and to help elevate the playing field between the different socioeconomic classes that are present in America today. Nonetheless, if people want to gain the American Dream today they must have a quality education from a public school that may not even provide them with the necessary tools of success. In “Fair is Fair” and “What Ever Happened to Upward Mobility”, the authors’ argue that there are forces holding…

    • 1003 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Grant Penrod’s “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids”, makes the argument that academic achievement should be rewarded just as much as athletic achievement. He continues with the fact that today’s society tends to praise non-intellectuals, such as famous celebrities and athletics, while the intellectually skilled individuals get left no recognition for their accomplishments. I agree with Penrod that there is a hatred and inattention in society for those who are smarter than others, and that public examples and currency obsession contributes to anti-intellectualism. It seems that the disapproval comes from the stereotypical image of nerds being “too smart”. It is true that “nerds” or “losers” will be picked on and bullied.…

    • 858 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Helen Keller once said, “the character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Standardized test scores shouldn’t determine whether or not a school should exist. The problems may not rest in the school, but rather in the students. Teachers might not have the resources to teach students, personal problems might stop students from succeeding, or the school, in general, the standardized test can be more biased .…

    • 1323 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bad Boys Analysis

    • 1831 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Students are placed in educational pathways based off of a test they take. According to Conley “they test students for ability, talent, and social and moral character. Then they eliminate students who aren’t up to snuff while promoting the best and brightest… tracking is intended to create a better learning environment, because students’ goals are matched to their curricula.” (Education, Conley). Tracking has its advantages and disadvantages.…

    • 1831 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There are many people in this country that feel our education system has many flaws and that students are not getting the most their school experience. Two people that are well known for pointing out these flaws is John Taylor Gatto and Mike Rose. John Taylor Gatto really criticizes the function of public schools in, “Against Schools”. He believes that public schools are taking kids and not allowing them to mature and training them a certain way. Mike rose in, “I Just Wanna Be Average” explains why High School is really tough on some kids and uses his own experiences from his past that paint a clear picture why this is true.…

    • 188 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The movie that I have chosen about contemporary American high school social life is the 1985 classic, The Breakfast Club. I chose this movie because I believe it displays an accurate representation of the sociological discussion from Milner’s article. Milner talks about how norms are important when it comes to shaping a student’s status in schools. Everyone knows the famous quote from the breakfast club “You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.”…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Child Left Behind Flaws

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages

    No Child Left Behind, the education legislation passed in 2001, mandated nationwide proficiency in all students across all grades by the year 2014. The implementation of No Child Left Behind has created issues because of its high-stakes testing, budgeting issues, and proficiency issues; these issues directly relate to concepts in the field of Science and Technology Studies. The largest issue stemming from No Child Left Behind is high-stakes testing. No Child Left Behind requires that all students in grades three through eight take standardized tests to determine their proficiency.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Educators and politicians are faced with “improving student success.” However, student success and school reform have been viewed in the same manor for the last few generations and nothing has changed. Educators and politicians need to look at the problem from a different angle; perhaps school reform will have a positive outcome. A problem with the planning and implementation of school reform are the incentives and punishments often associated with reform. Educators and politicians need to take incentives out of the equation and make changes because they are needed and because these changes…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There are many assumptions as to the different factors keeping students from succeeding in school. The author, Paul Tough, takes it upon himself to write about what has and has not worked educationally for students in How Children Succeed. The examples, stories, and research give light to the many variables that can negatively affect a child’s educational path. The author’s focus seems to be the importance of the students environment at home and school because it is the most influential factor. Some students are born into very stressful home environments and may have a harder time succeeding in school due to their home life.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Social Promotion is a very controversial topic amongst all social classes. Advancement of ones child to the next level should be an accomplishment of the previous grades requirements and not a mandatory movement into the next grade level. This single action teaches students many things about life and one of them is there is no requirement for success, its merely given to anyone that shows up wanting it. There are many underlining reasons behind why a school would or would not promote this educational style but those that promote it in my opinion do not have the best interests of the students in mind. This is a cop out for an education system to hold any kind of a standard.…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays