Reflecting On My Inquiries

The process of preparing the inquiry project that was assigned in the Public Purposes of Education class has led me to look at different avenues of research. I have done the more traditional research that I am more familiar with, as well as other forms like interviews and surveys. I suppose this is where the ‘inquiry’ aspect comes in. All of this research was to be done with a purpose. In my case, that purpose was to expose the long-term effects of No Child Left Behind.

Of the many things I have learned while looking at the subject, the first and most lasting impression is that this piece of legislation is highly debated and controversial. Another thing is how, still, many people, including teachers, are unaware of all of the principles and implications of NCLB. I understand that although the concept of NCLB stands in a good place as far as what it hopes to accomplish, it is still a work in progress and it is far from being close to its original objective. If this law is to remain as the blueprint for a system of educational accountability, it needs to be seriously revised.

For starters, the view that all children across the United States need to be in a similar state of accomplishment and development may be flawed. It has been proven that even children of similar backgrounds and geographic locations develop in different ways. Also, the notion that we MUST achieve 100% achievement in test scores might be just too ambitious. While it would certainly be wrong for me to underestimate the capabilities of children across the country, I, as well as others that I mention in my report, am aware that it is a goal that leaves out the unforeseen variables that are present in the formation and development of students throughout their educational history. Test scores are no exception to this. If you consider the fact that not all students are natural and “good” test takers. Looking at all these things, it might not seem fair to base a student’s entire educational history on weather or not he or she can pass one test.
Perhaps the biggest thing that I have learned is that the area of education is a ‘touchy’ subject. In reference to NCLB, there seems to be more questions than answers, and no one is willing to step up and propose something that might remotely challenge the preconceived notions of what should be the purpose of education in our democracy.

Teaching Citizens, not "Idiots"

One of the things discussed in my Public Purposes of Education class was the word, or concept of “Idiocy”, as explained by Walter C. Parker, a professor of education at the University of Washington. In his article, Parker introduced the concept of idiocy as a means to describe our collective ‘self-centered’ and egocentric ways.

According to Parker, “an idiot is one whose self-centeredness undermines his or her citizen identity.”[1] What he refers to is the fact that, in our society, most of us live our lives trying to strive for self-fulfillment and the betterment of our own lives. Seldom do we think about how we can better the lives of others around us as well. Parker stresses that through unity and awareness of the problems plaguing our society we can take action, and collectively change our world for the better.

This concept of ‘idiocy’ connects with the essential ways in which we teach kids to become responsible, active, and involved citizens who take control over their world to preserve their rights and liberties. Parker also stressed the importance of teaching kids the importance of and the preservation of our great democracy. He presented three keys, or actions we can take to diminish, or eliminate the idiocy that plagues our society. The first one was the increase in interactions between racially and, or ethnically different students. Through the increased frequency in interactions, these kids can find commonalities among them, and eventually think of these interactions as a more common place occurrence, rather than an imposed situation that would not likely be repeated afterwards. The second key was the encouragement of teachers to make these students engage in discourse, or what he calls “competent public talk”. Parker described the third key as establishing the distinction between open and closed deliberation. (3) Through the awareness of these things, teachers can plan a social and academic curriculum that teaches students to become better educated citizens in our democracy.

[1] Walter C. Parker. “Teaching Against Idiocy”. (January, 2005) Retrieved October 27, 2008. Phi Delta
Kappa International. http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v86/k0501par.htm

Inquiry Project

Since the founding of our great nation, the question of how to structure an educational system that is equally attainable to the masses has been the topic of great debates. Countless presidential administrations have attempted to find an answer that would revolutionize the educational system and raise the standards of achievement for our students. The most recent approach by the federal government was to implement the piece of legislation known to the public as the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001”. This law is divided into 10 different titles, and it attempts to give greater control of the schools to the individual school districts, while ensuring greater accountability and teaching methods that are ‘proven’ through scientific research.

Through this inquiry report, I plan to bring to light the complexity that is No Child Left Behind, and how it has fallen short of its original aim. Not only how the measure is failing to achieve its goal of attaining 100% of student achievement on standardized tests, but how some would say that it is also hindering the everyday process of classroom learning. In order to prove this, I plan on looking into the findings from previous research that have been published in major educational journals, as well as other printed materials from known publications in the area of education. I also expect to introduce inquiries made during my field experience into the body of my research.

Good Article on No Child Left Behind

The Pew Research Center for the People and the People and the Press (2007, June 13) No
Left Behind Gets Mixed Grades. Retrieved November 3, 2008, from
http://people-press.org/report/337/no-child-left-behind-gets-mixed-grades
Annotation: This article outlines the different opinions of parents of different racial and ethnic groups on NCLB and its overall outcomes. These groups of parents were also broken down by level of education, political party affiliation, and even weather or not their kids attended public or private school, as well. Although they found some good aspects to the NCLB legislation, such as students getting more individual attention, as well as greater accountability for the allocation of funds, the overall coconscious was that, although schools have improved what, it has not been as significant as expected, or as widespread as expected. And that precisely was what many of the parents thought was wrong with NCLB; the fact that there is no “one size fits all”. About 30% of the parents agreed that there was too much testing being conducted on their
children, while about 5% felt that brighter, more gifted, students were being ignored. Among college graduates, the main thought was that the fundamental flaw of the legislation is that it overemphasizes the importance of testing.
I think that this study does a great job of finding out what people think of this controversial law. It gives a broad range of ideas and findings sampled from different people in different social situations. Overall, the percentages are used well in mapping out the data being analyzed.

Citizenship Education and the Role of Teachers

I read a publication in my Curriculum class a couple weeks ago called “Educating the ‘Good’ Citizen: Political Choices and Pedagogical Goals”1, written by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne, which illustrated what they called the three kinds of citizenship that exist in our society. These three categories are then used as a model within which to educate our kids. The first category of the kinds of citizens that we can educate our students to become is the Personally Responsible Citizen. This is the kind of citizen that conducts his/her self in a personally responsible way: honest, caring, and just. The second type is the Participatory Citizen. This is the person who knows how government agencies work, and who decides to become an active member of his/her community. Lastly, there is the Just-Oriented Citizen, who sees beyond the established structures to identify social problems and find ways of fixing those problems.

What we see when looking at the guidelines of the No Child Left Behind principles, as well as the Character Education Program, under the Safe Schools and Citizenship Education principles (the information on this can be found in the Education website). Under both of these principles, the main focus is to teach students to be caring, respectful, fair, trustworthy, responsible, and giving. They are also taught civic virtue and citizenship2. These qualities are mostly outlined under the Personally Responsible Citizen.

There is nothing wrong with teaching our students to be just and responsible citizens, but are we short-changing them by not teaching them to go beyond that? Shouldn’t we also foster the kind of thinking that can elevate them to become more Participatory and, or Just-Oriented citizens as well? I believe our job as teachers has to go beyond teaching the basics, which are obviously very important, but maybe we can go a step further and encourage our students to think, and to question, and to get the most out of their education so that they can influence society in a positive way.



1. Westheimer & Kahne. "Educating the Good Citizen: Political Choices and Pedagogical Goals"
April 2004, PS Online www.apsanet.org.
2. www.ed.gov

Policy and Accountability

During my Public Purposes of Education class, we have discussed the linear history of educational policies, starting with the formation of the Office of Education in 1868, which later became the Department of Education in 1980. The main purpose for such government office was to address the education of the newly-freed population. This issue, as we all know, gave way to the landmark legislation of Brown vs. Board of Education, which made segregation in public schools illegal.

Through the diplomatic issues of the 1960’s, the focus of the education debate shifted gears. The government was no longer looking towards education as a means to provide equal opportunity to every American, but as a means to compete in the international theatre. They began a never ending “obsession” with proficiency in the core subjects of science, reading, and math. It seems like every piece of legislation that was passed from the 60’s onward stressed the need for accountability, and the emphasis of the three core subjects.

Now, I am not making any form of scholarly review or assessment of educational policy in the United States. I am simply attempting to make some sense of the mess in which our educational system lies. It seems as if, out of all of the objectives planned by the government for public education, the purpose hidden behind these objectives is everything but the betterment of kids and the nurturing of productive and educated citizens. Weather it is the emphasis of the sciences and mathematics in global competition, to the need for “accountability”; I parenthesize the word accountability because it refers to the accountability for the federal funds that are put into public education. To me, accountability should be shown for how our students are treated and short-changed in some communities, while in others, children thrive and have better opportunities. Education is the way in which we prepare our kids for their future, and in a sense, for our future as well because they will be the ones making the major political decisions when we no longer can.

Different Counties, Very Different Schools

In my Public Purposes of Education class, this week, we took a look at something called NCLB (or No Child Left Behind) Report. The state of New Jersey, I don’t know if other states do this as well, makes it available for people to view information on the different public schools in the state. The reports contain information regarding demographic data, graduation rates, and weather or not the school is making annual yearly progress, or AYP. When looking at schools within the same county, the reports seem to look somewhat alike. But when you compare schools from two different districts, especially when the difference comes down to income and other demographic data, then you can see how these different schools are not all performing at the same rate.

For example, a school, without using names, in a school district where the median household income is of approximately $65, 000 a year has a higher performance on tests, a higher graduation rate, and a lower drop-out rate than a school in a district where the median household income is of approximately 26, 000 a year. Considering the fact that schools in the state of New Jersey receive the majority of their income from means other than federal funding, these means being property taxes and so on, the implications are astounding. The schools that are in lower income areas are probably subjected to lower income coming from property taxes, as compare to an area where the homes are valued higher. Adding insult to injury, when these schools fail to make AYP for a certain number of years in a row, which is probably likely for a school that lacks the funds and the support systems to compete at higher levels, then the little funding that they do get from the federal government is cut. This makes absolutely no sense to me.

As a result of these No Child Left Behind policies, these so called “at risk schools”, are forced to spend the majority of their time trying to prepare these students to take these exams, and tutoring them to pass them. This puts an enormous strain, or I should say drain, on other subject areas like History and the Arts. Some schools are forced to make radical schedule changes to accommodate for the teaching of just Reading and Math in preparation for these exams. And, let’s say these “at risk schools” end up losing a part of what little funding they already get. These budget issues affect everything from classroom resources to the improvement, or lack there of, of facilities and the salaries that their districts can afford to pay their teachers.

These situations are always disturbing to look at, especially when we tend to ignore the things that happen in places where we don’t live or frequent, and in schools in which our children don’t or would not attend. And while I don’t have the answers to the same questions I bring up in my own mind about this issue, it seems as if not even the “super smart” people in our government know them either. I think that if they did, our educational system would not be in the level of deterioration in which it finds itself right now, or in the least, be somewhat better.


1. The information regarding NCLB Reports can be available through the US Census Bureau: http://quickfacts.census.gov, key word NCLB Report cards.

Cultural Diversity and Teaching

At the end of the twentieth century, researchers began to predict that within a decade, minorities would account for the greater number of students in the United States. In their publication called Current Issues and Trends in Education, a book generally used for training new teachers, Jerry Aldridge and Renitta Goldman point out that “studies on immigration, migration, and fertility patterns have indicated that by the year 2010, about 38 percent of people younger than the age of 18 will be Black, Asian American, or Hispanic”1. Yet, why is it that despite of the changing demographics of our schools and the increased cultural diversity within them, the diversity of our teachers continues to lag behind?

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, during the years 2003-2004, about 83 percent of public school teachers were White. Teachers of minority backgrounds accounted for 16.9 percent, to include Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and Native Pacific Islanders2. This means that while our schools are becoming more culturally diverse, our teachers are not. That difference can ultimately lead to situations where students don’t necessarily identify with their teachers and therefore feel disadvantaged. These fundamental differences can be anything from diversity of background and experiences to language issues. We have to face the fact. Depending on the district in which we teach, most of our students will speak a language other than English.

So what is the best course of action? Perhaps we should encourage up and coming teachers to be fluent in a second language. Increased communication between students and teachers makes teaching and learning a whole lot easier. It also makes the educator more relatable to his or her students. But perhaps solutions lie in another place, as well. If we can encourage our minority students to aspire to the noble profession of teaching, maybe we can change this percentage difference and make it more equitable all around.



1. Aldridge, Jerry and Glodman, Renitta. Current Issues and Trends in Education. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007.
2. Schools and Staffing Survey, http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/state_2004_18.asp. Percentage of teachers in the United States broken
broken down by race and ethnicity.

Unique School, Outstanding Students

As a young teacher in training, I’ve been assigned the task, if you would want to call it that, to visit an urban high school, in Newark, New Jersey, in order to observe and commence a series of field training exercises. I must admit that my initial reaction was, “oh my God”. I know the city, and I know that some schools there have a certain reputation for having certain deficiencies, to include difficult student behavior. In spite of all this I looked at it from a positive standpoint and with an open mind, and I must say that I was so pleasantly mistaken.

Driving into the city was quite an uneventful moment. I had visited there recently, so I was aware of the sights and sounds going on around me: from the construction on the highway, to the new stadium, to the Prudential Center Arena that was opened not too long ago. The movement of people was also as expected; tons of people pouring out of shops and the enormous amount of eateries available. You could see the crowd move almost like clock work, in synch with the changing traffic signals. Upon reaching the end of the street I was on, I could see the county court house to my left and the community college to my right which, on my directions were set as landmarks indicating that I had to make a left turn. I turned, and as I did so I looked at the street sign and realized that the street had been named after the school I was supposed to visit.

After parking my car, as well as taking a few deep breaths, I made my way to the school. I was quickly halted by the fact that I couldn’t open the front. Then it dawned on me. If the front door has no handles, then it’s probably no longer used as an entrance. So, after finally finding the entrance, I had another obstacle to take on, the metal detector. I must admit that it made me hesitate for a moment, but once I thought about it I realized that these days, most school, even some in suburbs, have installed metal detectors. Once I had regained my composure, I was able to enjoy the melody of sounds emanating from that building.

What makes this school unique is that there entire curriculum is centered on the arts, and although the core subjects (English, Math, History, and Science) have to be taught, their main focus is the arts. This makes an incredible difference because kids have to audition to be admitted, and once there, they get to do what they love every day and incorporate that into their learning of other subject areas. This means that these kids are thrilled to be there. I could see that all around me: kids singing and dancing in the hallways, students’ art being on display all throughout the school, and the sense of pride on behalf of the faculty for their students. I could also the history of it, this being the first high school of the arts in the country, all over the building, which explained why the street was named after it.

I made it a point to describe the school’s setting and location as detailed as I could, as briefly as I could, because I believe that it ties into the kind of kids that attend this school. In a place where opportunities are hard to come by, and where families are not your usual “suburban type” family, I met kids that were making their dreams come true in doing what they love, while improving their opportunities for the future. This school, and its faculty, is making that possible for them. I could sense the passion in these teachers, as well as the administrators, for wanting to inspire these kids to reach higher and achieve their dreams. And I must say that I am thankful for having the opportunity to meet these people. I have never been more glad to be wrong.

Why do we need public schools?

When we think about the question: Why do we need public schools? An automatic grin comes to our faces, as it to say, “Duh”, everyone knows that! But do we? If the purpose and the need for the availability of public schools were so apparent, then the debate would not be as vivid as it is today. We constantly question the quality, and in some cases, with the availability of so many varieties of private schools, we tend to question the need for public schools.
But first, we must take a step back and think about what the forefathers had in mind when they decided to create a system that would make education available to everyone regardless of income, and since the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education, the availability of equal education regardless of race. So, what is the purpose of education? It is to give every child a right to have an education. Whether it is for the purpose of getting a good job when they reach the right age, preparing them for going on to institutions of higher learning if they choose to, or for them to become more informed, and therefore, more involved members of society. Or maybe it is to nurture an individual that encompasses all of these important characteristics.
So when we as do we need public schools? The answer is an overwhelming yes. As Nancy Kober stated in a publication called, Do We Still Need Public Schools, written for the Center on Education Policy in Washington D.C., “In a world without public schools …. there would be no guarantees that any of the missions of public education would remain a priority”. (15)