Public School Image Essay

The image chosen portrays to the reader that when children graduate from the public school system they are only qualified to take tests, more specifically speaking, standardized tests. In the image there are two men; one sitting behind a big desk reading a piece of paper and one on the other side sitting in a small chair with a huge pencil in his hand. Mike Keefe 2002, in the image the man behind the desk holding the piece of paper says to the skinny man sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk, “So, you were educated in the public school system- What does that qualify you to do?” and the man replies to him “Is that a multiple choice, true-false, or fill-in-the-blank question?” When the audience reads this it leads them to believe that having your kids graduate from a public school is a bad idea because all they do is take tests. In the public school system there are a lot of tests that are mandatory to take, to both see the children 's growth and to see if the teachers are doing their job. Children are only taught things to take a test over it, but are they really learning, or retaining the information studied, or do they just memorize the answers to the questions to pass the tests, to pass high school? …show more content…
Mike Keefe, the cartoonist who drew the image, is a very reliable and trustworthy person. He has done many cartoon drawings for The Denver Post. He was their primary cartoonist from 1975 to 2011. His cartoons are mostly straight to the point. He is a credible source to take the image from because he isn’t showing any biases toward the subject of standardized testing. In the image he constructed it simply shows how children, after graduation, who go to public schools are only taught to answer questions in those three formats; multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and true- false. Although this isn’t the required effect for the standardized test it may be more true than most people believe it to