high school pov

1.       Write an essay explaining whether you agree with Leon Botstein’s critique of American high school.

The fact of the matter is that high schools are slipping in Source 5 you see that in the table you see how math percentage of math students who are in learning in our school system aren’t learning at all. I agree with Leon Botstein, in that our school system is out dated, and needs to be rethought.

                In source3, the author talks about how our society today has become that of an age where information is so easy to get a hold of, it has lost real value in what it means. Teachers are not helping this with the way they have commercialized the class room. In source 3 the author makes a point of how we need to change how we offer the learning material “here is Jane Austen on psychological complication, Balzac on the pecuniary, Douglass with slavery.”  This is offering a book and having it teach something, not just the media shoving down your glut.

                Source 4 talks about how they hope to improve high schools, not exactly the way that Leon offers in his essay but, it is a reform that is getting students to act more like adults and take responsibility for their actions. In a testimony form the essay Chris Marks says “you either make the most of this opportunity or you don’t. It’s up to you”. Now to change the way that schools are run would a huge task but if it were to bring up our percentages like the one from source 5 it might be worth it.

                Source 2 is Leon Botstein’s essay and he points out that with our culture today, students are growing up faster, but schools are handicapping them by keeping them in an environment that isn’t close to the real world. So he suggests that we should reform our high school system, letting students try being adults, with real responsibility. He suggests that getting rid of middle school, and junior high, and having people graduate at 16.

                They would then go either into the work force or college, making it easier to get the kids who really like learning, so teachers can teach not just to a crowd of students but to have the hope  that those students are going to institutions of learning that will keep them from dropping out.