Johnathan Harvell

Dr. Vincent Basile

EDUC 460-001
30 November 2016
Critical Reflection #2 The Future of American Education
In the last few months, it has been profoundly announced who was going to run and

potentially win the candidacy for President of the United States of America; recently, the winner

of the race has been announced, and surprisinglyit was neither the tortoise or the hare. Donald

Tump, one of the biggest internet memes out there, has won the position for President of the

United States of America; as a consequence, now Ron Perlman and Kanye West have come

forward with their own avocation on running for the presidency in 2020. When did the

presidency become a joke? A more important question, however, is do the American people

understand the consequences of their choice for the President of the United States and how it will

affect future generations of Americans to come? Lets explore this a little bit.

Since this reflection is in regards to education, this shall be the topic that will be

explored, for it may one of the last times public education is looked at as a whole. According to

the intentions of Donald Trump and other governmental candidates, both appointed and intended

to be appointed, the Department of Education is in the reticle of destruction to make way for

what seems to be more freedom of choice for the high-middle class section of Americans, but

will result in both social and economic consequences of middle-low class Americans as well.

From my understandings and readings (although, to be fair, I dont really follow politics that

much due to the fact that I do not have much interest politics in the first place), the Department

of Education can is seen by the new administration as an constraint to current American

society both in social and economic aspects.

 For the social aspects of their intentions, some of the new legislation seem to agree that

the barrier between public and private schools is one that allows limitation for students in regards

to success. There is this developing stereotype that private schools are better than public school

due to multiple conceive reasons; first, private schools are not bound to the state laws that govern

public schools. This allows private schools to develop their own personalized curriculums,

classroom environment, and school culture/climate. With this type of freedom, teachers are given

more power to adjust their classroom management and curriculums in a manner that seems to fit

what the teachers believe that students should know from the subject material instead of being

restricted to what a school district or state legislative think students need to know out of

particular subject material. Next, private schools create their own budgets due to contributions

form students families and slight compensation from the state, which allows for private schools

to have control on where the money goes for their school. This control could allow private

schools to focus more on the students academic needs than that of what maybe public schools

may care more about, example being football and other sports. Lastly, a variety of public schools

are ran by a committee of teachers instead of a head principal or superintendent. This allows

most to all of the control to go to the teachers in regards to general decisions considering the

school and its students. Now, this may seem like a logical argument in which public schools

should be trashed by the newly appointed legislation, but there is always two sides to every story.

First, the argument in regards to curriculum. Although it may be true that legislation has

too much involvement in regards to what students should know by the time they exit high school

based on the fact that many legislation members do not have teaching/educational experience, it

is important to understand why the laws and regulations are set for public schools in regards to

curriculum. For example, lets take a senior student from public school and senior student from a
private school. With the public school student, the students curriculum has been set by the state

legislation and the students education does not differ too far from the educational experience

amongst his peers. With the private school student, the students curriculum is self-made by each

and every teacher that the student has been in class with throughout his/her high school career,

and, most likely, the students curriculum has been personalized to fit that students particular

educational needs; therefore, by personalization, some of the curriculum found in public schools

may not be found in the educational experience of the private school student. Now, both students

are planning on applying to Colorado State University for their secondary education and both

students want to major in chemistry. With CSU being a public institution, it is well aware of the

standards that public schools in the state of Colorado must abide by to pass high school;

therefore, sympathy of the university if more likely to run to the public school student than that

of the private school student. Thus, the private school student may have a harder time attending a

public university than that of a public school students. With this in mind, the private school

student can always try to attend a private university, but those university typically require

immense academic standards/grades and cost more money than that of a public university. Moral

of the story is, private schools dont guarantee a better future for their student based on

stereotypes alone, and allow further restrictions on private school students when attempting to

further their academic career into college due to the understanding of public universities to

public school districts.

Second, the argument for private schools control over budgets. As for the last few

decades, it is true that reform has been trying to get made in many states to allow teachers

salaries to be increased as well as having say in where the budget for schools go. For private

schools, this may not seem like a problem to them, and the control of the budget can be seen as a
solution, but it is important to see how control can be over used as well. If private schools are in

charge of their own budget, that means that the school can set the price for each students family

in which the student can attend the private school every year, and the price could vary every year

as well. For example, a student has been attending a private school from kindergarten to now

junior year in high school. The students parents have paid every penny for their student to attend

the same private school for every year; however, the parents have just learned that the private

school has increased their attendance price that outweighs the familys budget. What is the

family to do? The only thing that they can do is one of two things: (1) allow the student to attend

a different private school for the last two years of high school, and hope that the other private

school can match the personalized curriculum that their student has been receiving for the last

decade or (2) allow the student to attend public school with a set curriculum that may stray or not

include what the student has already taken or needs to learn before graduation. Either way, it is

not going to be an easy life for the next two years for the student. In this, it can be seen that the

control of slightly changing the budget for private school can have detrimental effects on

students and their families. For this reason, the No Child Left Behind Act was created to give

every student the chance to have the same education and public school experience as everyone

else, and, it is safe to say (despite the acts many flaws), it is still working out to this day in the

benefit of millions of students across the United States.

Lastly, the control of the school by teachers. In this readers opinion, this is not a bad

structure at all in how to run public schools, but the reform for that type of public schools

structure is most likely many decades out from now; however, although this structure could be

favored by both public and private school teachers, there are still flaws to this structure as well.

In a private school, it could be seen that the committee is made up of the many department heads
of each branch of education that resides in the school, e.g. mathematics, english, science, etc.

With this, the committee brings many ideas to the table in how to further improve the private

schools effectiveness in educating their students, but how long does this type of decision take?

With the many opinions of different content teachers, it must bring many opportunities of

disagreement to the table as well; with this disagreement, the time of making an informed,

effective decision for the school is prolonged out further, thus the students educational

experience cannot be improved for a longer time either. In general, perspective is nice, but

guidance is better, which is one of the reasons why principals/superintendent is implemented in

the public school system.

The next four years are going to be interesting to say the least. As a future educator, I am

on the brink of fear of wasting my years in college for nothing due to not having a job after

graduation, but I must have hope in the system and hope that they will think of the lives that they

will change as a consequence of their political actions. The United States of America was built

on the choices of people, both elected individuals and the general population; therefore, the

people must understand the consequences of their actions, and hope must be planted in the fact

the people will do what is takes to correct the same consequences as time progress along,

whether it be through elections or revolution.