Jonathan Kozol’s “Preparing Minds for Markets” offers an insight into the modern public education system and the curriculums provided by inner city schools today. The author wants to point out the flaws in the education system and expose the corporate corruption that has occurred in government funded schools. While many students in these lower income neighborhoods would benefit from some of these changes to the statutory educational agenda, forcing job training and career decisions onto elementary students is a grave injustice.
“Preparing Minds for Markets” was an extremely interesting expose about how corporate America has taken over the public education system. According to this piece, corporations are influencing legislation that corrupts …show more content…
Many of the students in these inner city are at a high risk of dropping out of high school to begin with and many will end up turning to crime or working at a drive-thru fast food joint. For many of these students, job training would be more useful in their lives than calculus or SAT vocabulary. An opportunity to get raining and have a guaranteed job after they graduate. The author neglects to express the stories of the students that benefit from this educational system. I will admit, that expecting students to determine their futures in the fourth grade does seem extremely excessive. Another problem I had with this selection, was the comment from one of the teacher’s in this school, “Even if you have a felony arrest… we want you to understand that you can be a manager someday,” (p. 334), schools should not be encouraging our youth to commit felonies and telling them that it will not be detrimental to their futures. Even if these schools aren’t encouraging students to commit felonies, they aren’t discouraging them, and telling students that they can still be able to have a successful future after being convicted of a felony is not only unrealistic but blatant lying to 10 year olds. Another comment made that I found alarming, “we must start thinking of students as workers,” (p. 334), this comment was made about 1st grade students. I understand that these schools are trying to prepare these students for the job market, however, not allowing children to have a proper childhood is
“Preparing Minds for Markets” was an extremely interesting expose about how corporate America has taken over the public education system. According to this piece, corporations are influencing legislation that corrupts …show more content…
Many of the students in these inner city are at a high risk of dropping out of high school to begin with and many will end up turning to crime or working at a drive-thru fast food joint. For many of these students, job training would be more useful in their lives than calculus or SAT vocabulary. An opportunity to get raining and have a guaranteed job after they graduate. The author neglects to express the stories of the students that benefit from this educational system. I will admit, that expecting students to determine their futures in the fourth grade does seem extremely excessive. Another problem I had with this selection, was the comment from one of the teacher’s in this school, “Even if you have a felony arrest… we want you to understand that you can be a manager someday,” (p. 334), schools should not be encouraging our youth to commit felonies and telling them that it will not be detrimental to their futures. Even if these schools aren’t encouraging students to commit felonies, they aren’t discouraging them, and telling students that they can still be able to have a successful future after being convicted of a felony is not only unrealistic but blatant lying to 10 year olds. Another comment made that I found alarming, “we must start thinking of students as workers,” (p. 334), this comment was made about 1st grade students. I understand that these schools are trying to prepare these students for the job market, however, not allowing children to have a proper childhood is