Madeline Allen
Megan Keaton
English 112
28
March 2013
Kennedy, Robert. “Why
Private School.” Private School Review.
N.d. 20 May 2013. Web.
Going to a private school means many
extra opportunities for a child. More often than not, they will be more
academically challenged, have a smaller class size, more exposure to arts, more
funds to their education, a harder push towards college, higher sense of values
and the list continues to go on and on. Private schools are most known for
their high tuition costs, however little to no scandal as to where that money
goes. Children rarely have to come home and ask their parents to buy a book or
other school supplies like the children from public schools do. Also at private
schools children have a better chance to interact with their teachers more
often, because of smaller class sizes. The opportunities for excelling in arts
and college continue to soar in private schools. Again, because of the funding
private schools are able to add music, dance, and theatre programs to their
curriculum at the snap of a finger. “According to NELS, students who had
attended private school in 8th grade were twice as likely…to have
completed a bachelor’s degree or higher by their mid-twenties” (Kennedy n.p.).
All in all, private school is a very attractive option for a parent deciding
which school their child should attend.
Kennedy does a very good job at
explaining his argument. He pounds his audience with facts and statistics. In
his first paragraph he lays out all the problems and costs a parent has when
picking a school for their child. He talks about expenses and for the rest of
his essay he is able to explain why private schools are worth that scary
tuition bill.
Because I have never attended
private school, this gives me an inside scoop as to what goes on in it. All the
benefits help me understand why this side of my argument can be so strong. It
also gives a great source of statistics for both private and public schools. I
feel like after reading this article I would want my child to go to a private
school if I could easily afford it. Using certain quotes from this article will
make the private school argument much stronger.
- “Private schools typically have more demanding graduation requirements than do public high schools.”
- “In general a student given the opportunity to attend private school will most likely reach a higher level of academic achievement.”
- “Private schools have the ability to create their own curriculum…administrators often develop programs that emphasize the arts.”
Doss, Ann. “Education
Advocate: NC On The Wrong Path.” Charlotte
Observer. 21 March 2013: 2
pages.
Web.
Dianne
Ravitch is Education Advocate and Author of The
Death and Life of the Great American School System, made a speech at UNC
Charlotte. Ann Doss covers the story in the charlotte observer. The speech she
mad focused on “major public issues,” including the amount of new state tests
and how they are going to benefit testing and technology companies and hurt students.
There are 35 new tests coming to schools this spring. MecklenburgACTS and
UnTest, two local activist groups run by parents and UNCC students joined
Ravitch to urge parents and members of the audience to resist this new
“reliance” on testing to rate teachers. However Ravitch was able to praise the
Superintendent, Heath Morrison for also taking a stand against excessive
testing. She even added him to the honor roll of her blog after she read a few
of his comments in a previous article in the Observer.
Doss
does a good job of getting her point across, even though she is basically
covering the story of Ravitch’s speech. Her thesis is “Increasing charter
schools, giving public schools letter grades, abolishing teacher tenure and
piling on new tests – all moves that
have been passed or proposed by state legislature,” is strong and give the
audience a good outlook as to what the article is about. Doss is able to add
other information to make the cover story stronger by stating the new amount of
standardized tests.
This
source will help me most with quotes that I can add to help make my paper
stronger. Because Dianne Ravitch is so involved with education throughout the
country I will be able to practice ethos by quoting her. She is a writer and
author, as well as an advocate and former official in the U.S Education
Department. This argument works well for the private school side of my paper
because it makes public schools look bad.
·
“Its
an effort to turn public Education into a profit making venture”
·
“Parents
are the sleeping giant, but when the students awaken, everything changes.”
·
“There
are so many terrible things happening in your state that I feel like a
fireman.”
Mack, Julie. “Back to
School: Why Public Education is Awesome.” MLive.
01 September 2012.
Web.
28 March 28, 2013.
The
article first starts out telling a story about an adopted teenage boy from
Central America adjusting to life in Michigan. Almost no one spoke his
language. He grew into the idea of public school and actually became very
enthusiastic about it. He couldn’t believe his schooling was free. Mack
continues to talk about how the boy was thrilled to be so lucky. Then she
twists the article and calls out all the bad press that public school gets.
Then she goes on a complete rampage talking about what public schools do for
our country. She describes public schools as “one of America’s gift to the
world.” Public school is the primary way
to instill core values and a common culture to a nation of immigrants. Public
education not only helps individuals one by one, but also communities as a
whole. “A well-educated populace has more productive workers, higher incomes
and less dependence on public assistance programs; it’s linked to lower crime
rates, improved public health, and more stable families” (Mack n.p.)
Mack
does an excellent job arguing her point. She has no problem talking about the
bad press public schools get and exercising her ability of ethos by starting
out a story with a young boy and chooses to step back and looks at public school
throughout the nation instead of focusing on one, in a community. She chooses
to end her article with “What a privilege. What an opportunity. What a
country.” Three very strong statements that help the audience step back and
realize that no matter which school they go to, there is always one available
for them.
I
feel like my public school argument is falling through the cracks and this
cannot be a one sided paper, particularly when I personally believe that public
school is just as good a private school, depending on the child. This article
will help me show that public schools are extremely effective and work well for
a child.
- “One of America’s gifts to the world has been the democratizing of schools.
- “A well-educated populace has more productive workers, higher incomes and less dependence on public assistance programs; it’s linked to lower crime rates, improved public health, and more stable families.”
- “It helped turned the US into the most powerful country in the world, fueling the American dream and the vision of a Land of Opportunity.”
Freire, Paulo. Teachers As Cultural Workers. Colorado:
Westview Press, 2005. Print.
This book is almost an advice book
for teachers. It is split up into many different categories, like why he became
a teacher, to the first day of school. It is in this order, because it’s really
a collection of essays. There are many points about dealing with funding, and pay
for schools, teaching techniques, and how to run with a child’s curiosity. It’s
a view of education from a teachers stand point, a breath of fresh air from a
politician or an unhappy parent. Freire, a Brazilian education scholar, has a
love, and a hope to American education. It is shown in every single line of
this book. His main focus is the fight for education and the importance of it.
The author’s argument is very
strong. As an outside source, viewing American education, the audience is able
to take a step back with Freire and see his point of view. His format is split
into essays which are split into chapters. Each line could be ripped from the
pages and quoted to a teacher for advice. The use of ethos inside of this book
makes each audience member take a new look at education.
This book is very informational. I
probably would have never thought to use it for my paper because it’s a book
about teaching, which hardly fits with my topic. However, he talks about the
struggles of funding in education, which is a main point I am going to talk
about in my paper. He stresses points about a political battle that must be
overcome. This will be the parts of the book that will fit in with my paper.
I’ll be able to use it from a teachers stand point to make the private school
side of my paper much stronger with this quote. Also he talks about the cultural
aspect of education which goes hand in hand with my argument for public school.
- When speaking about the ability to have an education system he says “ in a cultural frame, we take advantage of a minimum of freedom to amplify that freedom” (125)
- “We would be naïve, however, if we disregarded the need for a political struggle, the need to clarify for the public the real condition of teaching profession, and the need to compare the salaries of different professionals and to point out the disparity between them” (69).
- The attribute ‘cultural,’ expanded from the restrictive attribute ‘class,’ does not exhaust the understanding of the term ‘identity’” (123).
Williamson, Logan.
Personal Interview. 3 April 2013
Williamson was ecstatic to do the
interview. She felt getting her story out, in some way, might help the ever
occurring problem of bullying inside of private school walls. She answered
questions humbly and honest. Anyone around her could feel emotion. Logan
explained how her first six years of school were carried out in a private
school. She talked about how she was bullied, by both students and teachers.
She talked about the work load. She talked about her hatred for learning, and
even more her hatred for school. She would beg her mom every morning to stay
home. She believed even though it was a Christian school, she had found hell on
earth. She talked about her friends turning on her because of the size of her
house, and the lack of cleanliness her tennis shoes had. She was a tomboy, and
didn’t fit with the girls who were decked out in girly ways even though they
were forced to wear uniforms. All students can remember making Christmas
ornaments and having their picture taken in the school hallways for quick gift
to their parents. Logan brought three of hers. In none of them she smiled. Her
heart breaking story has a happy ending though. It ends with her first day of
public school. With an in depth detail of the outfit she wore, and the
imaginary runway she walked on through the hallways. She didn’t become popular
in public school, but she had real friends, real teachers and a real life she
wanted.
Logan’s argument for the inside
“horrors” of private schools is very strong. She was descriptive and emotional.
Real pain and real happiness covered her face throughout the interview. Her
argument shows just how the atmosphere of school matters to a child and their
learning experience.
This will be the strongest point I
make. This is the entire reason I chose my topic. Logan is my best friend and
the will and fight she had to get her parents to put her into a public school
is why I wanted to learn more about the differences. I had no idea at the
begging of Megan’s class that I would choose this topic until I realized where
I ended up researching. Direct quotes from Williamson will be the most useful
part of this source.
- “I hated going to sleep, because that meant I would soon have to wake up and go to school.”
- “The words they used against me started to define my confidence. I felt like I was less, because my family has less. I know it affected my parents too. They wanted to seem rich, which was the entire reason I was forced to go to a private school in general. They wanted to be a part of that crowd.”
- “This is silly, but the first time I realized I was going to have a used textbook was kind of exciting. It didn’t have a back but it had other notes in it.”
- "I smiled, I learned, I met amazing classmates, and I wanted to learn again."
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