Public Education

"A world-class education is the single most important factor in determining not just whether our kids can compete for the best jobs but whether America can out-compete countries around the world.  America's business leaders understand that when it comes to education, we need to up our game. That's why we’re working together to put an outstanding education within reach for every child" - President Obama

Just as Bush did, President Obama has created a program to help fix our public school system.  The theory is that by giving money to the schools that develop the most innovative techniques for fixing our education system schools will become better because they will be forced to compete against each other.  I do not, however, think that this program will work.  I think that for our public schools to truly be fixed our government needs to be less involved with them instead of more involved.

Everyone knows that, compared to other developed countries, American students test lower then many other countries’ students.  Because of this fact, the federal government has concluded that American students must not be as smart as students from other countries.  This assumption does not make sense.  A student’s test scores only show how well they know the material the test is on, not how intelligent they truly are, so assuming that by bringing American students’ test scores up we will have more intelligent Americans is a naive idea.

Our education system does have many problems.  Every year hundreds of thousands of students head off to college unprepared for the work they will be given.  I think that this problem stems from the government’s increased involvement in trying to fix the educational system.   Teachers are told their students must know certain things by certain times and are given a specific curriculum to follow.  This does not give teachers the freedom they need to accommodate for individual students needs.  I think there needs to more focus on how to learn material, not just what to learn.  If a student knows how to study on her own and when to ask for help, then she can learn virtually anything.  The government’s focus, however, is not on how a student learns, but what they learn.  If the government was less involved with regulating public schools then teachers would have more freedom and would be able to teach their students how to learn, not just what to learn.  

Even though I think the government should be less involved in public education I know that it would be foolish to say the government should get completely out.  Public schools are funded by the government so it makes sense that the government would want to have some say in how they are run, but problems occur when the government gets too involved.  For our public education system to be fixed the government will have to realize that it’s increased involvement is actually hurting education, not helping it.  Unfortunately, the day the government realizes this is probably a long way off.

Response to "A Time for Change"

In a post by one of my classmate’s A Time for Change he discusses what is wrong with American politics today and some of the things that should be done to change them. He states that politicians are greedy people who care more about their own agendas then the people they represent and concludes that we need to get rid of political parties and this will result in better candidates running for office.  While I agree that many, if not all, politicians are care more about being elected then the people and that we need more choices then just the two candidates our current parties provide, I disagree that eliminating political parties will fix our government and it’s politician’s.

My classmate seems to imply that one of the main obstacles in the way of having good politicians is the fact that we have only two political parties and says that people should not be “stuck voting for the lesser of two evils.”  I agree that we should believe the people we vote for have our best interests at heart and shouldn’t feel like we’re voting for the person who will do the “least damage.”  I don’t agree, however, that eliminating all political parties will be what fixes this problem.  Political parties do not create politicians who care more about their own agenda then their people, the politicians themselves create this.  

Now, I do think eliminating political parties - or at least making it easier for third party candidates to run - will help this issue, but it doesn’t fix the heart of the problem, corrupt people running for office.  So how do we solve the issue of corrupt people running for office?  I don’t think there’s anything we can change in our government that will help.  As Lord Acton said "Power tends to corrupt."  There is no law we can pass that will force a person not to be corrupt, he must choose that for himself.  I think the only way the problem of corruption in politics will be solved is if someone who truly cares about the people steps up and is elected, paving the way for others to follow.  But this can only happen if we, the people support them.  If we want to be a change come about, we must be the ones to start it.

My classmate makes several good points and I agree that something has to change in our government, but I disagree that simply eliminating all political parties will cause the changes American politics need.