Category: American Education System

Commercialization of Education in Standardized Testing

The commercialization of education is defined as private ownership of educational institutions that make investments for the motive of earning profit. Recently, the commercialization of education has proliferated on a global scale because of the reliance of standardized testing for acceptance into higher educational institutions. Marketing tactics used by corporate entities have shifted the priority of society from viewing students as learners to consumers of education who have monetary value. Standardized testing is one of the ways in which students are targeted by academic advertisements in the educational market. The utilization of standardized tests has been criticized regarding whether or not students should be subjected to education as a business product. Private for-profit corporations marketize standardized tests, unethically exploit students in their mission to earn profit, and negatively impact student learning.

Marketization of Standardized Testing

Private for-profit corporations are composed of independent businesses or organizations that focus on maximizing profits rather than on community welfare. These corporations, which have become testing companies, have focused on profiting off of education through the marketing of standardized testing. The biggest example is Pearson, the largest education company in the world, earning billions of dollars every year from the curricula and standardized tests they provide on a global scale. Pearson profits by encouraging new standards on standardized tests, which have been labeled as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The government awards states that adopt the CCSS with grants through the Race to the Top (RTTT) program (Lee and Yin Wu 2-3). Because of this, the demand for standardized tests increases as more and more states are paying Pearson for their standardized tests in order to implement the CCSS, increasing Pearson’s profits. Not only does Pearson provide the standardized tests, they also influence the Common Core State Standards themselves as they are regularly reviewed, revised, and updated. Stated on their website, Pearson has a “close association with key authors and architects of the Common Core State Standards” (1). Due to this, Pearson can constantly change the CCSS causing states to keep paying them for their standardized tests, altogether marketizing them.

Along with Pearson, other private for-profit corporations are using corporate advertising of their resources for standardized tests. Professor Frauke Hachtmann from the Department of Advertising at the University of Nebraska states that an example of corporate advertising can be found in the materials provided for school curriculum (575). The testing corporations provide company branded materials as a way to increase the emphasis of their tests and exposure. By doing so, they are able to extend their power and dominate the business of making and scoring standardized tests while the demand for them continues to increase. With it, revenue made by corporations progressively grows, consequently increasing their lobbying and marketing power. A report by In the Public Interest, an education research and policy center, found that Pearson and McGraw-Hill, another large education company that provides educational material, help fund the Foundation for Educational Excellence, a national organization focused on writing state education reform (1). The report disclosed emails between the companies and the organization that revealed them to be collaborating in the writing of state laws that benefit corporate funders (2). This demonstrates that private for-profit corporations use their increased lobbying power resulting from their increased profits to influence benefiting reforms in their favor, further commercializing education by marketizing standardized testing.

Ethics

The methods in which standardized tests have been marketized by private for-profit corporations has led to ethical concerns. The marketization of standardized testing has constantly been criticized for being unethical in society because it diverts from the morally driven motive of educating students. Recently, students are viewed as “consumers” and education as a “consumer good” (Porfilio and Yu 2). This view has pervaded the standardized testing market, encompassing schools as testing corporations advertise to students, unethically exploiting their reliance on standardized test scores to get into higher educational institutions.

For-profit companies and their unethical advertising had challenged their jurisdiction in influencing school curriculum (Myers 70). Pearson, as previously stated, has the power to change the Common Core State Standards that standardized tests fall under. Their influence in the rewriting of the CCSS and its curriculum, and then later monetizing off of changes made, are regarded as unethical because it is viewed as the exploitation of education for profit. Other ethical concerns regarding school curriculum can be found with the insertion of corporate advertisements of trademarked brands. Instructional Technology Professor Lynne Schrum, from the University of Georgia, describes an example with the use of products such as Oreo cookies, Big Macs, and Barbie dolls, inserted in the math problems of a McGraw-Hill math book (1). This is viewed as unethical because the trademarked products do not add beneficially to student learning and are there for pure advertisement. Testing corporations claim they do not receive compensation by including them from the brand companies, but it is believed by ethicists that further investigations should take place.

Effects on Students

Along with the ethical challenges, the marketization of standardized testing by private for-profit corporations has resulted in negative effects on student learning. Because of corporate standardized tests, students are exposed to uniform tests that are meant to give all students an equal opportunity. Howerever, Peterson claims that each student has a different style of learning that is disregarded when standardized tests are implemented in school curriculum by corporate test providers (4). This suggests that academic success is achieved with the loss of a diverse learning experience. Because students learn only for the test, they do not actually retain any information because their way of learning is not considered.

Student learning continues to be negatively impacted as private for-profit corporations control over standardized testing increases. Education researcher Megan P. Miller from Longwood University explains how with widespread corporate tests, the curriculum provided by the corporations dominates, resulting in separate individual curriculum to become disadvantaged (24-27). Where individual curriculum had once been an advantage in meeting the demands and needs of individual learning communities, corporations give an unfair advantage to those who use their marketed curriculum. An example of this can be found in a report by the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, who found that some passages found in Pearson textbooks were on the Pearson-designed statewide test (1). This shows that corporations focus on earning profit at the expense of student learning by disadvantaging students who do use their materials, which contradicts the equal opportunities they state their tests provide. These private for-profit corporations continue to negatively affect student education through the marketization of standardized testing.

Conclusion

Commercialized standardized testing has become a global marketing tool for private for-profit corporations. Overall, the values of education can be directed back toward the intent of student welfare rather than unethical profit-making. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh, recommends new government policies can be made to regulate private for-profit corporations and develop curriculum requirements in order to lessen their market control over them (18). Corporations should be transparent and share information regarding their marketing methods in education to diminish the possibilities of exploitation. Additionally, corporate control on standardized testing could be reduced by measuring students based on the academic skills they have learned rather than just solely on test scores by test providing companies (Moses and Nanna 67). In doing so, education in society can become less commercialized and less susceptible to corporate exploitation, focusing solely on the education students.

Works Cited

1. Hachtmann, Frauke. DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska -Lincoln InternationalAdvertising Education: Curriculum and Pedagogy. 2014.
2. In the Public Interest. “Maine – In the Public Interest.” In the Public Interest, 2015, https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/maine/.
3. Lee, Jaekyung, and Yin Wu. “Is the Common Core Racing America to the Top? Tracking Changes in State Standards, School Practices, and Student Achievement.” Education Policy Analysis Archives, vol. 25, no. 0, 2017, p. 35, epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/2834/1896.
4. Miller, Megan. A TEXTBOOK CASE: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN TEXTBOOKS, STANDARDIZED TESTING, AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. 20 July 2015, https://digitalcommons.longwood.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1128&context=etd.
5. Moses, Michele S., and Michael J. Nanna. “The Testing Culture and the Persistence of High Stakes Testing Reforms.” Education and Culture, vol. 23, no. 1, 2007, pp. 55–72, 10.1353/eac.2007.0010.
6. Myers, Sarah. “The Ethics of Spending to Increase Standardized Testing Outcomes.” Seven Pillars Institute Moral Cents, vol. 5, no. 1, 2015, sevenpillarsinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/The-Ethics-of-Spending-to-Increase-Standardized-Testing-Outcomes-EDITED-1.pdf.
7. Pearson. “Literacy Programs | Pearson | Scott Foresman Reading Street – Common Core.” Pearsonschool.Com, 2020, www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PS186j.
8. Peterson, Marshalita S. “The Ethical Dilemmas of High-Stakes Testing and Issues for Teacher Preparation Programs.” Journal of College and Character, vol. 6, no. 7, 1 Jan. 2005, doi: 10.2202/1940-1639.1484.
9. Porfilio, Brad, and Tian Yu. “‘Student as Consumer’: A Critical Narrative of the Commercialization of Teacher Education.” Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 6 Aug. 2014. ISSN, www.jceps.com/archives/510.
10. Schrum, Lynne. “Education and Commercialization: Raising Awareness and Making Wise Decisions – CITE Journal.” Citejournal.Org, vol. 2, no. 2, 2016, www.citejournal.org/volume-2/issue-2-02/social-studies/education-and-commercialization-raising-awareness-and-making-wise-decisions/.
11. Singh, Kishore. “Protecting the Right to Education Against Commercialization, Report of the UN Special Rapporteur.” Right to Education Initiative, 10 July 2015, www.right-to-education.org/resource/protecting-right-education-against-commercialization-report-un-special-rapporteur.
12. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing. “Pearson’s History of Testing Problems | FairTest.” Fairtest.Org, 2014, www.fairtest.org/pearsons-history-testing-problems.

Throughout generations, public schools have faced a number of issues, ranging from structural issues in schools to mental health issues within the student body. The primary issue I have chosen to address is standardized testing within public school systems. This is a crucial issue because I believe that standardized testing is not an efficient manner of determining whether a child should proceed to the next grade level. Not only do the students face pressure to do well on standardized tests, “…teachers face pressure to improve scores and…schools serving low-income students are more likely to implement a style of teaching based on drilling and memorization that leads to little learning” (Morgan 2). These exams do not show a student’s true academic capabilities due to the fact that they are under extreme pressure to perform well. Furthermore, standardized testing is extremely expensive and is not worth the money. Standardized tests became a K-12 mandatory policy when it became evident that the educational system was not meeting the needs to have a competitive workforce in the economy (Teaching To The Test).

One idea that might resolve the issue of standardized testing can be to take away the standardized tests and reallocate the funds into a better way of evaluating students’ dexterity. Schools can make testing students a regular practice in school to keep them on track for their education. Furthermore, the schools can implicate the idea of using portfolios that keep track of assignments throughout the year such as presentations, projects, and assessments and look back at the progress that the individual has made over the year. Another option that the schools can implicate is to hire assessors to evaluate the student’s and teacher’s productivity. In order for these changes to be implicated in the school district, they would need to reallocate the money used for the standardized tests to different parts of the school that would benefit the students. These new solutions would be better than what is in place right now because standardized testing creates a high level of stress for a lot of students and this new solution does not dictate whether a child passes a grade level off of one test. Another reason why taking away standardized testing is the best option is because of the amount of money that it costs schools to contract with testing companies. In order for these solutions to work the school would need to redirect the testing money toward assignments for the children throughout the year and a percentage to the teacher’s salaries.

In order for this issue to be resolved the teachers at the schools and the Texas State Legislature would need to be actively involved. The main audience is the Texas State Legislature due to the fact they are in charge of how much schools spend each year and are in approval of standardized testing. The teachers would be involved in this issue because if changes are made, their salaries would change because funds could be redirected to a certain percentage of money to their salaries. Some of the things that would stop these groups of individuals from agreeing with my proposal would be that some of them would have different opinions on this topic and think that standardized testing is beneficial to students and does not waste money. The companies that have a stake in this issue would be the provider of the standardized test so obviously they would have a negative impact if standardized tests were eliminated from schools. The most effective way to reach and propose this problem to the Texas State Legislature and teachers would be a professional letter with factual information or a video with actual students confessing how standardized testing makes them feel.

To make sure my letter is intelligent and factual, the only sources I will use in the letter would be academic journals, factual magazine articles, and possibly statements from different people that have taken standardized testing. In order to find this research, I will go through different databases and different books not limited to those options. My greatest difficulty when it comes to writing and research is not finding the exact information I want and reading all of the different articles and then still struggling to find the information I want to use in my essays. To help with the difficulty in this semester, I will attempt to search for specific topics and utilize the new databases that are provided to the student body, as well as ask friends for referrals to scholarly websites or articles that they believe were beneficial to their research.

When looking at the Chinese and American education systems you will notice many differences. Many view Chinese education as very strict and because of that it lays the foundation for success, whereas the American educational system is viewed as a way to stimulate a student’s inner creativity. In Chinese education, they focus on how students use the knowledge they learned in school, and on understanding knowledge systems and structures and how to use that knowledge. Americans are interested more in how education impacts their lives in society. American education focuses on independence and self-determination, while Chinese education focuses more on strictness to improve retention.

The academic performance of American students has not budged in over two decades, even though billions and billions of dollars have been put into the American educational system. Chinese students have consistently done better than their American peers in the following subjects reading, math, and science. The test results showed that students from four areas of China, Beijing, Shanghai, and the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang earned the highest level 4 rating for all testing areas. The American students ended up ranking 3rd in science and reading and only ranked 2nd in math.

The testing showed that over 20 percent of American 15-year-olds do not read as well as they should and are usually behind meaning if they are in 5th grade they are only reading at a 3-4th grade level. This testing also showed that American students’ performance in reading and math has not changed much since 2000. Seeing results like this has many saying that federal initiatives such as the “No Child Left Behind” and “Common Core” which the federal government and infused billions of dollars to has not improved the quality of education that american students are receiving. Many teachers believe that new technologies have lessened students’ attention spans over the past years and many say that technology may not always be our friend and can lead to distractions and deter from learning and may not be a helpful tool examples of this would be laptops in school.

Chinese school’s teaching techniques differ greatly from the U.S. teaching methods. In China, you will observe a classroom full of students obediently taking notes and you will only see them breaking their silence when prompted by the teacher to repeat what was just learned. This form of classroom teaching is something that is used all across China, from elementary-middle school to college. The Chinese believe that students learn best by memorizing information supplied through repetition and note-taking. Teachers use this approach to deliver and plan lessons to students. Using this technique takes away the need for additional learning tools and allows for little to no student engagement. The reason why the Chinese favor this teaching method can be attributed to cultural values and beliefs. A Chinese student’s entire education and career is focused on how well they do on the College Entrance Exam (gaokao). This test is considered one of the toughest exams in the world. This test determines a person’s future career paths and possible earnings. Because there is so much importance placed on this test the Chinese consider this one of the most important events of their lives.

There are also many differences between the settings in the classroom for both China and the U.S. One you will notice between American and Chinese is the classroom size. Chinese teachers typically have between 30 to 50 students, whereas you will typically see an American teacher having a classroom size of 20 students. Because the Chinese have larger classroom sizes, the teacher does not provide individual like in America. Something else that is different is when it comes to students moving from classroom to classroom and having multiple teachers throughout the day or even multiple teachers throughout their learning years. In China, a student may have the same teacher for sometimes up to three years but can also have them their entire elementary-middle school years.

In conclusion, we have learned and seen many differences in the teaching and learning sides of the American school system and the Chinese school system. In researching for this it shows how the education you receive can influence the world we live in and the way we view what is important to be successful.

I vaguely remember that before going abroad, Mr. Zhang my English teacher in China, once asked a classmate a question in a certain class of study would you go abroad if you had a chance? I boldly answered this question, I said: ‘Yes, because I want to experience different cultures and civilizations’. What a particularly simple and immature reason.

Recalling my educational experience in China, I may be the only Chinese who is bad at mathematics, so I have to admit that I am a loser in this course. Not because I didn’t work hard enough. On the contrary, I paid the same effort as most students but still got lower grades than these people, I guess I’m just not good at this. So I feel mathematics has become useless to me except for bringing me torture and anxiety. These frustrations have even obliterated my passion for learning mathematics. When I came abroad, the situation was different. American mathematics courses are very simple for me, but that doesn’t mean that I can close my eyes and still get a perfect score, especially since I didn’t know many Mathematical terms in English in my first year. However, relying on the previous foundation, I started to become a bit arrogant and felt that I could do everything. I don’t listen to the lecture and don’t like to do my homework at all. Of course, retribution soon appeared. At the end of the term, I found out that I messed up many simple questions on the exam. Holding the final math score, I questioned my math cells again in the cold wind. I told myself that I couldn’t give up so easily and I should be used to receiving setbacks and I resolutely decided to do well on the next math course. I corrected my study attitude, took notes every day finished every exercise in the book, and finally got a good score, although this math class is much more difficult than the first one.

Mathematics in the United States is not as difficult as in China, but it is enough to gauge whether you have spent your time and worked hard for it. Also, It teaches you more about the attitude than how to figure out what kind of image that function corresponds to or what kind of equation an ellipse is. It eliminates people who don’t work hard, not people who are not talented enough. Except for the math genius, I believe that most people have experienced countless sleepy nights for the numbers, piled up a stack of exercise books at their feet, and kept asking teachers questions in self-study classes. Like I said at the beginning, my grades were not good, but when I decided to put my heart into studying mathematics, I saw that time was probably the most earnest in my life, and there were no other entertainment activities except for normal social needs.

Later on, I saw people on the Internet saying how crazy the kids in the United States were that they could date each other and start a relationship, and then concluded that ‘this is youth.’ I commented under the original post ‘But they didn’t experience the kind of life that worked hard for their dreams.’ Then I found that I was wrong. They are not without experience instead, they experience it a little bit later. In high school, they also have 99.7% of students graduated with a very high GPA, and they also have a lot of extracurricular activities to find their hobbies. As a Chinese student, what did we sacrifice because of math? How many people didn’t even know what they liked in their senior year? How many people blindly follow parents’ advice when choosing a school? How many people still feel the future is blurred even after entering college? When I graduated from high school, I was confused because we were always paying attention to the results. Many relatively average people do not know what they should learn.

Under such a Chinese education system, many children have no chance to learn and practice. Naturally, they dare not think about what they can do. They spend countless hours learning mathematics, but they also waste the equivalent time doing what they are interested in and good at. We eliminated 70% of the ‘not brave, not earnest’ people with the math exam, but at the same time, we eliminated more future singers, painters, novelists, lecturers, and debaters with it. What is taught in school is the correct standard answer. Doubt or criticism is not allowed, and analysis and demonstration are not trained. Teachers don’t know this because it’s never been in books. The logical thinking ability of students in science classes often only has scientific means (techniques and skills), there is no scientific method or scientific spirit. What is the spirit of science? In my opinion, the spirit of skepticism, criticism, analysis, and positivism is the sum of these four spirits. Without this, no one can think independently and everyone loses self.

Why do I go abroad? I clearly remember that a class meeting was for students to talk about their dreams. What I said was very vulgar ‘I want to be an artist and then travel around the world with paper and brushes’. Under the Chinese education system, I only know that this is an unreachable dream. But here, this dream does not seem so far away. I have a lot of opportunities to learn and explore and that lets me know that I am approaching there step by step. Even on this path, there will be setbacks, stagnation, and failure, and I have at least seen that my dream is not so far away. Even though I did take a detour, I’ll get there in the end. At least it tells me that no matter what the reality is, you can think about it. If you dare not even think about it, it will always be a dream. We want to live in the present, but we have to look far into the future.

I do not mean to vigorously criticize China’s education and consider the current system to be nothing. For example, I still like the concept of ‘class collectives’ in Chinese education, there is a lot of time in the day with the same group of people and taking different classes in the same classroom. many classmates have become very important friends in my life. The American education system does not have such a concept instead each class has its classroom and students will be going to a different classroom during school hours. Although there are many friends, our relationship only stays with classmates.

Every country’s education system has its drawbacks. I am grateful that education in China has taught me how to learn, but I am more fortunate that education abroad has taught me how to think independently.

Politics in Education

The American Education System has always had a close relationship with politics. Over time, this relationship has become increasingly complicated as the education system relies more on a government that does not consistently fulfill its needs. In this essay, three different aspects of the education system in America will be evaluated. The Every Student Succeeds Act, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and the Mississippi Curriculum Test, Second Edition. All three of these have been influenced by politics or influence politics. The changes made by lawmakers affecting all three of these aspects of education have shaped the current learning atmosphere that students are in today.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law on December 10, 2015. It replaced the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). This law was a facelift for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The ESSA was signed into effect by President Obama to remedy the nation’s low high school graduation rates. The ESSA act focuses on promoting equity in the classroom, meaning that students who are disadvantaged are given not just the same opportunities as other students, but also aid to help them advance. The ESSA act also takes a hands on, community wide approach to the education system. It includes preschools for all districts, as well as interventions in the community such as promise neighborhoods. The ESSA act picks up where the NCLB act left off. The NCLB revealed that lots of the students doing poorly were from underserved communities. However, while it revealed this, not a lot was done to change it. The ESSA takes the next step in reaching out to the community. The ESSA provides a lot more autonomy to schools. They are allowed to chose their curriculum, their teacher requirements, and how they allocate funding. However, they are still required to do formal, statewide testing that reports to the National Assessment of Education Progress statistics.

However, allowing schools to have this autonomy makes some nervous. The Phi Delta Kappan report on ESSA expresses lots of concerns about maintaining equity. They question, “One has to wonder, now that ESSA has relaxed NCLB’s many federal requirements, will states take advantage of their newfound flexibility to design educational systems that better meet the needs of all children? Or, absent any real pressure from the federal government, will they make little effort to address disparities among subgroups of students?” The schools’ newfound freedom could potentially provide great aid to in-need districts, however, do they have the resources to do so? However, a different article in Phi Delta Kappan points out that ESSA has not relinquished all control. Instead, ESSA provides a “rigid flexibility” (Phi Delta Kappan), allowing schools to have flexibility while the government still has a firm hand in the system. In an article written for the Phi Delta Kappan, Andrew Saultz points out that while ESSA has prompted change, it hasn’t fixed the underlying issues. “ESSA was written to fix the problems of NCLB, but it did not fundamentally alter the relationship between local schools and centralized offices.” ESSA’s goal was to fix NCLB, but it didn’t fix the schools. That is the where the majority of the fault is.

However, as Saultz points out in his article, taking on the entire American education system is a huge ordeal. Balancing the relationship of state autonomy and government control seems to be the main functional issue with the American education system. ESSA is a step forward from NCLB and is making progress gradually. Mississippi’s graduation rate is at an all time high (MDEK12). The Office of Early Childhood Education in Mississippi went from one staff member to twenty four. While ESSA may not be a perfect solution, it is showing drastic improvement. Without a nationwide political intervention, there would have been no change or a decline in graduating students. In this instance, a political intervention is slowly but surely making a change.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only nationwide method of evaluating students in America’s public schools. This helps show the drastic differences in education level that occur in America’s schools. It also shows growth or change in each district’s progress over time. This program does not report on individual students, however, it does formulate statistics on specific groups of students, for example, students from urban areas. This allows the government to ensure all needs of all different types of school districts are met. In 2002, the NCLB act caused drastic change to the NAEP. The NCLB act changed the “background” or pre-cognitive questions to be less biased. Every question on the questionnaire had to be pertinent to an academic environment.

The NAEP was not created to become a new framework, it was simply created to measure students’ and districts’ progress over time. (National Assessment Governing Board) The pre-cognitive questions provide an insight to why results from schools allegedly given the same opportunity could be drastically different. However, the NAEP does not study that data—they just present it as it is, for districts and the government to decide what to do with it all. Additionally, the NAEP serves exclusively as a means to present data. It has little influence from politics and outside sources. However, it is used heavily to influence political decisions. It’s existence provides a “report card” (MDEK12) for America’s politicians to evaluate.

The Mississippi Curriculum Test, Second Edition (MCT2) is the state test program created in adjournment with the NCLB act to keep schools accountable and track student achievement. This test was first put in place in 2007(MDEK12). The MCT2 reports back to the NAEP as Mississippi’s results. It is specific exclusively to Mississippi’s public schools.

This test has had a direct impact on how teachers in Mississippi teach. (Cole) In a study conducted by John Alexander Buchanan, it is revealed that teachers placed in a high stakes testing environment are more likely to have less successful teaching style and students are more likely to be less engaged in learning. The MCT2 is a politically mandated test for districts to receive funding. (MDEK12) Additionally, teachers’ job security is directly tied to how students perform on these tests. This creates a stressful work environment. Principals have been caught helping students cheat on the tests in order to help their school get a better rating. (MDEK12) Funding and jobs are so directly linked to this test that it has created an environment where principals would rather directly inhibit a student’s educational experience by cheating on a test for them than create an environment where it is safe to fail. Linking the state’s funding and employment opportunities to state tests creates a high-risk environment for both the students and the teachers.

The MCT2 was created in adjunction with NCLB to allow politicians to have an overview of how Mississippi’s schools are performing and receive funding. However, as NCLB moved out, Mississippi’s politicians opted to keep the MCT2 as a form of evaluation. This creates a test-focused school environment that is placing more pressure on teachers to teach to the test and not to the students. When complaints arise, the solution seems to be adding more tests, or changing when they are given. Before Kindergarten, students are given tests to evaluate if they’re ready from what they’ve learned in preschool. This test obsession isn’t helping teachers or students prepare for kindergarten—it’s simply checking boxes on politician’s checklists for maintaining the school districts.

Politics and education have a complicated role. Education today relies on politics entirely to keep schools open. However, because of this, politics have taken a lot of schools’ functionality away from them. They are so focused on meeting the test requirements left behind from NCLB that there has been a drastic shift in how teaching happens and what curriculum it’s structured around. This change is slowly being remedied by the ESSA, but it can’t undo years of politics overnight. Additionally, ESSA is heavily dependent on states agreeing to the change, which many local politicians do not. Slowly, politics are adapting to aid schools, however, they are still currently test oriented instead of teacher and student oriented, which is proving to be ineffective.

The chaotic crowd swarms the hallways desperately attempting to get a final breath of freedom before being consumed by the endless sharpening of number two pencils and the excruciating levels of stress that dominates the standardized testing environment. Standardized testing is the machine that programs children’s brains into a robotic, identical, and non-inventive way of thinking. This type of testing has been a key factor of American education since the 1800s. The idea of annually measuring a child’s intelligence by certain curriculum in a high stakes environment is a prevalent idea often incorporated into American society today regulated by the government. Recently, the assessments have evoked a national debate. A multitude of people are arguing that standardized testing should be eliminated and has the American education system speeding into a downward spiral. Carmel High School should implement the elimination of standardized testing because it creates a stressful environment that damages students psychologically and physically, they do not value creativity, and it creates a system of winners and losers.

The stressful environment of standardized testing negatively affects a person’s mental and physical wellbeing. Daniel H. Pink stated, “We’re motivated, productive, and happy… We should focus our efforts on creating environments for our innate psychological needs to flourish” (Pink 72). This quote means that in order for the most overall prosperity, people need to focus on their psychological needs and creating the best conditions physically as well in order to maintain happiness. This quote emphasizes the importance of psychological health by using certain word choice such as “productive” and “happy” to grasp the reader’s attention with words that people affiliate with success in order to highlight how to obtain these successful qualities. Pink implies that great emphasis should be placed on maintaining a healthy and well balanced psychological environment by stressing the importance of “creating environments for our innate psychological needs”. However, the standardized testing environment is unsuccessful in creating psychological success. Students are so consumed with performing well on the test because of numerous detrimental factors that they are besieged with stress and anxiety that can interfere and hinder their ability to take the test. This contradicts the environment that Pink stated is needed “to flourish” because academic ability is placed as a top priority at the expense of mental and emotional health. The author highlights “happy”, “motivated”, and “productive” to emphasis these necessary skills for success. The standardized testing environment does not resemble these qualities. I conducted a pool in our class asking the number of people that dislike standardized testing and 97% reported they disliked it. This shows how people are not going to be motivated, happy, and productive because the environment is not enjoyable. According to an organization called Parents Acoss America, the author stated, “Parents, teachers, administrators, school and private mental health professionals report student nausea, dizziness, crying, vomiting, panic attacks, tantrums, headaches, near-fainting, sleeplessness, refusal to go to school, meltdowns, depression, and suicide threats” (Parents Across America). This quote shows the observation of the various physical consequences of intensive standardized testing. This quote emphasizes “Parents, teachers, administrators, school and private mental health professionals” to show the variety of adults that are recognizing and concerned about the behavior of children under an extreme amount of pressure in standardized testing environments. Fulton lists multiple examples to imply the multitude of harmful effects that these tests can cause which stirs fear within the reader as they see extremity of the effects such as “suicidal thoughts” and “depression”. If students were able to create their own criteria, the environment would focus more on their own psychological and physical needs. Standardized testing needs to be eliminated because it causes detrimental damage to a person’s wellbeing

Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This quote reflects a common feeling among many students. This feeling is by no means new. In 1901, the College Examination Board was created in the United States. They put in place standards for testing. The tests given would examine the knowledge of students in nine different subjects. This test was to be the same across the whole country and give each student a fair chance. From the first tests, educators and students alike have agreed on the poor method of how the tests are produced and graded. The results lead to schools, teachers, and students being ranked by their success on the tests.

The way that these tests are run does not help teachers or students. Standardized testing should not be used to evaluate the performance of a school, teachers, or students. Standardized testing is not fair and does not accurately represent the knowledge of the students or the success of teachers. Standardized testing causes teachers to teach primarily the information for tests and stray from original lesson plans. Critics have questioned if passing the tests indicates academic achievement or if it shows how well teachers are “teaching to the tests.” Teachers begin to lose the chance to teach problem solving skills and the free exchange of ideas in their education. In the words of Richard Kahlenberg, of the Education Century Foundation, “Teaching involves too many variables to be judged effectively by test scores. In addition, such a system encourages teachers to compete against each other rather than to work together” (“Education Reforms Effectiveness” 1). This proves that teachers have begun to compete with each other in certain districts. While competition normally improves people by making them strive to be better, with educators, it leads to a lack of shared resources or ideas between colleagues.

This competition was spurred by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which was an act of Congress to close the educational achievement gap between students with accountability, flexibility, and choice. NCLB was highly popular at first but enthusiasm for it gradually faded. Many teachers have said that they feel the need to prepare students more for the standardized tests. This has become overwhelming and has forced them to neglect valuable lessons and subjects in their classes (“Education Reforms Effectiveness” 1). Tests have changed from seeing where students need extra help, to being used solely for judging teachers’ pay and other monetary things. According to the University of Minnesota study of exit exams, “High school graduates in states that mandated exit exams did not earn more or have a lower unemployment rate than students in states without exit exams.” (“Should We Even Require Exit Exams” 1). This shows how standardized testing doesn’t necessarily improve students’ progress or knowledge. There is no proof that giving standardized tests helps students excessively. The sheer volume of tests does not advance students’ knowledge for post-high school college or careers. By forcing students to take tests, administrators are forcing teachers to prepare students only for those tests. This is taking time away from other important lessons.

Many may argue standardized testing provides benchmarks for parents and teachers to see their students’ knowledge and progress. This data is often used to compare the individual to other students in the class, city, or country. The tests can help identify problem areas in individual students, as well as showing where school districts fall behind in certain fields of teaching. Standardized tests prevent from subjective grading. Many believe they help to eliminate bias among students and help to ensure fairness in grading. But with testing for progress, tests only show a one time snapshot of knowledge. The results do not show how far the student has come, or what they have learned. Standardized tests fit perfectly to a certain set of students who can regurgitate the information they’ve memorized. Tests have become more about memorizing, testing, forgetting the information, and repeating the process over again for the next test. Students are learning to become test-takers by memorizing rules and standards with very little learning. In states that require exit exam testing, the policymakers have set very high standards for the tests. This was designed to ensure that only well-prepared students graduate. However, if standards are set unreasonably high, this harms the percentage of students that graduate.

The end result is the bar being set lower so that the majority of high school seniors can pass and the school looks good. This allows for little to no improvement of education and still prevents a select few from not even graduating (“Continuing Debate on Exit Exams” 1). Standardized testing is unfair because there is no way to give each student the exact same atmosphere. Tests are not personalized to each student. But there is no way to adapt the tests to each student’s needs. One group of students who would benefit from personalized tests is known as the “thinking test-taker.” These are students who take their time to get to the correct answer and are punished with a test time limit. Many teachers advise their students to dumb down and quickly think to get through every question and do better on tests (“Case Against Standardized Testing” 1). There are also external factors that affect the way a student performs on a test.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress found that “the combination of four variables (number of parents living at home, parents educational background, type of community, and poverty rate) accounted for an 89 percent of the difference in states scores across the country.” (“Standardized Testing and Its Victims” 1). This shows that tests can’t account for what happens outside the classroom. Each student goes through something completely different that may affect how they test. Standardized tests don’t always take into consideration disabled or special need students. In 2008, the California Department of Education released data saying that 46% of 4,000 students with disabilities failed that year’s exit exam (“Effects of the California High School Exit Exam” 1). Due to this, an organization representing the rights of disabled individuals initiated a class-action lawsuit against the State of California. A representative of this group, Sid Wolinsky, called the exit exam requirement an “unmitigated disaster” and noted that “you can’t be a janitor in the Oakland School District without a high school diploma.” (“Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas” 1). This shows that denying diplomas to students with learning disabilities robs them of essential work opportunities after high school. There are a very limited set of opportunities for a job if you have not gotten your high school diploma. The increasing number of tests has caused testing anxiety among students.

Previous generations have taken standardized tests but not as many compared to today’s students. Today’s tests are given frequently and play a outsized role in teaching and learning. The United States tests as young as six years old. (“Case Against Standardized Testing” 1). This is despite the fact that many experts who have specialized in childhood education have condemned this idea. It is hard to find any other country who gives multiple choice tests at as young as 6 years old. According to Justin Barterian, Professor of School Psychology at Michigan State University, “Studies estimate that between 10% and 40% of all students experience some level of test anxiety that can surface as early as age seven, and women, minorities, and those with disabilities are more likely to face it.” (Rich 1). Testing anxiety has grown to be a huge issue of educational psychology. Tests produce an inaccurate representation of what students know. The more weight on the test, the more anxiety students are likely to attach to the test, causing less accurate scores to be recorded. Students have fear of failure from the pressure to perform.

Members of the opposing view, such as school district administrators, might think that more practice of tests may reduce students’ stress when having to take them. But to effectively reduce stress would take away more class time and require students taking more tests for practice. If students have poor testing history, they may walk into the test with a negative mindset, and this will influence their performance negatively. Students and teachers alike do not truly benefit from standardized testing. It causes competition between students and teachers, which causes lack of resources and preparation. Teachers are preparing students more for standardized tests than for careers, college, or life in general. Students have unfair testing opportunities and these tests have negatively affected students by placing an undue amount of anxiety on them. There are better ways to assess students’ knowledge besides standardized testing.

Works Cited

1. Alcocer, Paulina. “History of Standardized Testing in the United States.” NEA, National Education Association, www.nea.org/home/66139.htm.
2. Dillon, Sam. ‘Obama Calls for Major Change in Education Law.’ New York Times, March 13, 2010, www.nytimes.com.
3. Hernandez, Nelson. ‘As Seniors Graduate, Debate Continues on Exit Exams.’ Washington Post, May 25, 2009, www.washingtonpost.com.
4. Kohn, Alfie. “The Case against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools.” Teacher Renewal, July 2006, teacherrenewal.westga.edu/file/view/
5. Testing, Testing, Testing.pdf. ‘Obama Administration Education Policy: Are the education reforms enacted by the administration of President Barack Obama (D) effective?’ Issues & Controversies, Infobase Learning, 5 Apr. 2010,http://icof.infobaselearning.com/recordurl.aspx?ID=1958.
6. ‘Parties Settle Disabilities Assessment Lawsuit.’ Alaska Department of Education & Early Development, August 2, 2004, www.eed.state.ak.us.
7. Reardon, Sean, et al. ‘Effects of the California High School Exit Exam on Student Persistence, Achievement, and Graduation.’ Institute for Research on Education Policy & Practice, April 21, 2009, www.stanford.edu/group/irepp.
8. Rich, John D., et al. “The Relationship between Deductive Reasoning Ability, Test Anxiety, and Standardized Test Scores.” Journal of Research in Education, 30 Apr. 2011, eric.ed.gov/?q=standardized AND test&pg=5&id=EJ923912.
9. ‘Standardized High School Exit Exams: Should all U.S. states require high school students to pass standardized exit exams to graduate?’Issues & Controversies, Infobase Learning, 16 Oct. 2009,http://icof.infobaselearning.com/recordurl.aspx?ID=1980.
10. “Standardized Tests – ProCon.org.” ProConorg Headlines, standardizedtests.procon.org/. ‘Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas.’ National Center for Fair and Open Testing, May 2, 2008, www.fairtest.org..

What’s Wrong with the American Education System?

In many fields, the United States is often referred to as the world’s best nation. It may be one of the greatest, but in education, it’s far from it. Of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 34 nations in total, it ranks only 14th in art, 23rd in science, and 24th in literacy. Despite America’s status as a country, America’s education is failing because of the large emphasis on technology entering the classroom, decreasing government funding, and the flaws of the students, parents, and teachers.

Parents have a very massive influence on a kid’s education, which leads people to blame the parents for an inadequate schooling system. The MetLife Study of an American Teacher says, “Parents report that schools with high parent engagement perform better on a range of measures.” Parent engagement usually pressures students to do well and meet their parents’ expectations. Unfortunately, in recent years parent involvement has diminished. The same study concludes: there are significant declines in the percentages of teachers and parents reporting that most or many parents take too little interest in their children’s education, fail to motivate their children or leave their children alone too much after school. When parents stop emphasizing the importance of education, a student is less likely to excel in their school work. The lack of motivation from their parents can lead to students who do not greatly concern themselves in their education. The outcome will most likely be lower grades and students who do not care about their school work.

Teachers’ demeanors can offer assistance or harm their students’ inspiration, accomplishments, and well-being. Recent studies further emphasize that educators’ negative demeanors can hinder scholarly accomplishment and supplement students’ mental state and physical indications of stress. Instructors who utilize mortification or mockery can leave a child feeling disparaged. Teaching characterized by fear and terrorizing can be destructive to the student’s future academic success. Teachers who are harsh in their display of authority or are indifferent toward their students or lessons can leave a lingering feeling of negativity with the student.

Another key issue with the American Education System is the lack of government funding in some states. School funding varies due to the fact that more than half of the financial support for public schools derive from the local property taxes. This means that the amount of funding that the community provides varies according to their wealth. This is only the case when is comes to America. Other countries provide equal per-student funding from general tax revenues for all schools throughout the country. When there is inadequate funding for the school it will show in academics. Schools that are predominantly white and upper class have the best programs, with great buildings and amazing academic scores. However, schools with the majority being minorities are almost always run down and lackin in more than one way. Whether it be not having certain programs or the buildings being in bad shape, students that come from poverty stricken communities tend to have lower academic scores. The government funds on things that do not need more money in. For example, Louisiana State University has the money to build a $28 million dollar football locker room but does not have the money to fix its library. I ask myself, “Why is our education system more focused on profits from sport teams, textbook manufacturers, and other groups than the quality of students’ education?”

Research shows that money matters for student achievement. Funding for education should not only go into the academics portion of the school but also for resources that students can utilize to help themselves. At the moment we have an institution that is having a hard time meeting the funding requirements for academics let alone support networks at schools. For example, in the article “Homeless on Campus” Eleanor J. Bader speaks about how common it is for college students to be homeless and how much more difficult their lives become. This topic is something that does not get enough coverage by college institutions. Bader gives examples of many students struggle with homelessness and talks about how they overcame those struggles. She brings light onto this national problem and suggests that colleges should do more to help these battling with homelessness and other non academic issues. Mary Jean le Tendre, a retired Department of Education administrator and creator of the LeTendre Education Fund stated, “As far as I know, no college has ever asked for help in reaching homeless students”. I agree with her and I too believe that funding for schools should help with problems such as this one. Colleges should offer more affordable housing and cheaper meal plans for their students. Not only will this benefit the struggling student, but it would also increase that college’s academic scoring since obstacles that stop struggling students from increasing their academic scores will be out of the way. Now we just have to tackle technology.

Technology can be seen as helping force in education, but can also be regarded as an issue within classrooms. Many educators view technology as a helping source for students. It has expanded access to education because now books, images, and other information are available at one’s fingertips due to the internet. In the traditional classroom, the educator is the essential wellspring of information, and the students inactively get it. This model of the instructor as the ‘sage on the stage has been in academics for quite a while, and it is still used to this day. However, now in numerous classrooms today we see the instructor’s job moving to the ‘guide on the side’ as students assume greater liability for their own gathering and learning of information.

Technology can be a great way to have students on the same level at school, but what about at home? Some students have no access to internet at home and inevitably fall behind. Also, technology can enhance cheating. Imagine how much easier it is to cheat now with the increasing use of technology. Cheating in the education system is not new. As long as there have been some sort of academic assignment, there has been cheating. The way that cheating looks have changed over time, though, particularly now that technology has made it easier than ever. Cheating in classrooms is a big reason why technology is an issue with education, but so are our phones.

In the article, “Does Texting Affect Writing?”, the author Michaela Cullington describes texting as an activity that everyone takes part in multiple times a day. The author then goes on to describe what textspeak is and how it is being used. In the following paragraphs, Cullington depicts teachers’ concern with textspeak leaking into their students’ writing. She then provides examples from teacher’s experience with students having textspeak ooze onto their essays. The way we text and converse with our friends on our phones can cause problems with our learning and can lead to us messing with our academics.

The American Education System is not perfect by any means. Technology makes it easier for students to fall behind and cheat. Parents’ and teachers’ attitudes can have lasting effects on students and their academic scores. Government funding for schools should be equal throughout all schools and help struggling students on all campuses. As a nation, we need to ask ourselves, “how can we, as a nation, improve this messed up organization we call the education system?”

Work Cited

1. Admin, ERN. “The Effects of Unequal School Funding.” Educational Research Newsletter and Webinars, 30 Sept. 2002, https://www.ernweb.com/educational-research-articles/the-effects-of-unequal-school-funding/.
2. Bullock, Richard H., et al. “Homeless on Campus.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019, pp. 764–769.
3. Bullock, Richard H., et al. “Does Texting Affect Writing .” The Norton Field Guide to Writing, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019, pp. 131–138.

Should Exams be outlawed in favor of another assignment?

Exams often do little more than measure a person’s ability to take exams.

A test or examination is an assignment intended to measure a test-takes knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness or classification in many other subjects.

Imagine if failing a test was considered to be a failure for your whole life.

Even though standardized tests can help schools evaluate progress. However, scores do not provide a true picture of a student ability. So therefore it should be outlawed.

Standardized tests are special examinations designed to measure students ’ intellectual competency or academic potential. These tests, which feature strict uniformity concerning content, administration, and scoring, have become a key part of the American education system since they were first introduced in the nineteenth century. Some of the most well-known and widely taken standardized tests include college entrance exams such as the SAT and ACT and licensing exams like the United States Medical Licensing Examination. In addition to offering information on individual students’ abilities, standardized tests provide valuable insight on the overall academic performance of entire student bodies. Such information is frequently used to ensure accountability among schools and teachers . Standardized testing is a controversial subject, however, with critics typically arguing that such testing is too often misleading, ineffective, and even biased. ‘Standardized Testing.’ Gale Student Resources in Context, Gale, 2017. Student Resources In Context.

Standardized testing is a flawed concept that has many disadvantages.

Standardized testing fails to yield any valuable information about students’ long-term academic growth. Worse yet, pressure to perform well on standardized tests puts an incredible amount of stress on students and teachers alike that only serves to inhibit learning ‘Standardized Testing.’ Gale Student Resources in Context, Gale, 2017. Student Resources In Context. This shows that standardized testing are ineffective when testing a person’s intelligence because, if you’re taking a test under so much stress and pressure, how is that an effective way to determine how smart you are ? When people are under pressure they do not perform really well, this is scientifically approved. Some kids do well with a certain level of stress. Other students fold. Brain research suggests that too much stress is psychologically and physically harmful. And when stress becomes overwhelming, the brain shifts into a fight or flight response, where it is impossible to engage in the higher-order thinking processes that are necessary to respond correctly to the standardized test questions. So standardized testing is obviously not the way and therefore it should be banned.

Even though standardized tests also tend to be more objective than tests that teachers create and administer directly to their own students. But it fails to yield any valuable information about students’ long-term academic growth. So a test that tend to be more objective that teachers tests also has no impact on a student’s academic “Callahan, R. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency: A study of the social forces that have shaped the administration of the public schools. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press”. This is definitely not the best way of testing a student’s ability because you wouldn’t know if it’s effective if it doesn’t have any impact on the students and therefore should be outlawed.

Standardized tests (SAT) are ”incredibly imprecise” when it comes to measuring academic ability and how well students will perform in college “Study of Standardized Admissions Tests Is Big Draw at College Conference. The New York Times. (Sept. 29, 2008) Lexile Measure: 1460L. COPYRIGHT 2008 The New York Times Company”.

It is not worth it. The SAT teaches children a narrow range of test taking skills, not ones that will prepare them for selective colleges, entrepreneurship or active citizenship. The SAT teaches kids to view reading as a meaningless assignment rather than a source of ideas or inspiration.Tampio, Nicholas. ‘Commentary: Time to Ditch the SAT.’ The Report, from U.S. News & World Report, 13 Apr. 2018. Student Resources In Context. Well what is the point of the SAT, is it fair to let a test determine whether or not if you should get into college or not, or whether if you’re smart or not ? This just doesn’t make sense and standardized testing needs to be banned.

Standardized achievement tests are deeply flawed, and test-based accountability has been terribly damaging to public education. “The paradox of standardized testing Phi Delta Kappan. (Nov. 2017) Lexile Measure: 1360L. COPYRIGHT 2017 Phi Delta Kappa.”

This is outrageous because some students know that their test scores may affect their future lives so they do whatever they can just to pass them, including cheating and taking performance drugs. It shouldn’t have to be like this there are many other ways, standardized testing is not an option so therefore it should be outlawed.

Standardized testing have negative impacts on students mentally by bringing their moral down which could possibly leads to worst. Standardized testing creates winners and losers. The losers are those who get labeled as “ low students, learning disabled kids, reluctant learners.” Even the winners are trapped by being caught up on a treadmill of achievement that they must stay on at all costs through at least sixteen years of schooling, and more often twenty years. The losers suffer loss of self-esteem, and the damage of “low expectations”. The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion (Tarcher-Perigee). Students are already going through so much stress during senior year, more specifically getting into college. So they should not be challenged again that with Standardized test to determine if they’re going to college or not or to lower their self esteem if they have a bad score so Therefore the standardized testing most definitely be banned.

Throughout the text, there was more than enough evidence to prove that standardized testing does not provide a true picture of a student ability and should be outlawed. We went over many effects and disadvantages such as failing to yield any valuable information about students’ long-term academic growth, negative impacts on students mentally by bringing their moral.

So now do you want to do things a different way, try a new method or do you want to keep abusing the future of this country by stressing them out and lowering their self esteem?

The history of education in America’s colonial and early republic was a nationwide transition to a common public school powered by multiple factors. One major factor was the need for a democracy to be self-autonomous and for the population to be educated to keep a stable government. Another ruling factor was that people want to pass on their beliefs and traditions. This drive to pass on the former way of life led to the integration of religion in schools causing the discourse between different ethnic groups and religious groups. One of the most important driving forces in the creation of a public school was the idea that from equality of man there is a need to educate to bring the individuals full potential. In all of these reasons for schools and the effect they implemented they show how the modern school was made and how we can react to problems that we face in America’s education system today.

In colonial America, there were 3 distinct types of educational institutions. For the common public, there were the common schools in which its foremost goal was to teach students to read and write. Grammar schools were for the elite and their goal was to create the leaders of the colony and confirm the elite’s status. Colleges, including Harvard, were a higher education that allowed common people to obtain a higher class and to confirm the elite’s status. Common schools were mainly used to instruct students using repetition and memorization. One of the main manuals or primers of the day was the New England Primer, which comprised repetitive Christian phrases and prayers. They likewise used an instrument called a hornbook, that was comprised of a piece of wood or horn-shaped into a paddle that was engraved with the alphabet, phonics, and a prayer. Common schools were first ordered mandatory by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the ‘Old Deluder Satan’ Massachusetts Act of 1647. It ordered all communities of more than 50 households to assign a teacher to conduct a school to impart the ability to read and write. This law of the land lost its effect in 1780 after the drafting of the constitution of Massachusetts, which included public education for the state. The main goal of common schools was to educate the population on the fundamentals of society, so they can properly obey their superiors with letters or documents and to educate the population in reading, so they can read the scripture of religion, which was namely Christianity. As quoted from the New England Primer, “A: In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all. B: Heaven to find; the Bible mind. C: Christ crucify’d, for sinners dy’d”. This excerpt was memorized by the student and displays how the only task for these schools was to teach the basics of Christianity, and a rudimentary ability to read and write. These schools were funded by local funds and required support from local taxpayers.

Grammar schools were designated for the elite. Their studies mainly comprised of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other various languages that that would help confirm the status of the scholars. The study of classical writers, at the time, was believed to develop character in aspiring pupils. Some writers and pieces include Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ and Plato’s ‘Republic’. These grammar schools were funded by paid tuition by the student.

Another emerging institution in colonial America were colleges. The first of these establishments was Harvard College. Founded in 1636 in Massachusetts, Harvard College’s mission was to “…to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity” and to ensure an educated ministry for the colony. An uneducated ministry was feared because an illiterate leader and an ignorant minister were predicted to destroy any church. Over time the number of graduates in theology diminished and by the American Revolution, a small portion of alumina became ministers. The next college of the time was the College of William and Mary. Opening its doors in 1693, the college was set to “inspire lifelong learning, generate new knowledge, and expand understanding”. The College of William and Mary grounds were located in Virginia, and its alumina mainly comprised of Virginian aristocrats. Other colleges that followed include St. John’s College, Yale University, Washington College, University of Pennsylvania, Moravian College, University of Delaware, Princeton University, and Washington and Lee University.

In the creation of the new republic, a new societal drive was sparked. Now kindled in the freedom of Americas individuals’ equality and refinement were valued, and people sought to create a better life for themselves to fulfill the “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. In this people sought to create a refurbished country of educated intellectuals that would help govern the democratic republic that was newly created. Their reasoning was supported by the idea that rulers needed to be of the people in a democracy, and that in this republic there needed to be educated to teach the subjects to choose their rulers wisely. The whole government was set on the idea that the country was educated and the rulers had the merit of the people. To suffice this need for teaching the idea of a publicly funded education was created.

One of the leaders in this new ideology was a man by the name of William Channing. Channing was born in April 1780 in Newport, Rhode Island. An educated Unitarian with an M.A. from Harvard. He was a proclaimer of a self-made person in which education was a way to create one’s self and find the image of God in one’s self to find his full potential. He also advocated for a universal education because the treatment of public learning above another would be a crime against nature. Channing was one of the leading reformers in the Transcendentalism movement, which was a belief that to find the meaning of life and nature you must look not out, but into yourself.

Another reformer of the time was Horace Mann, who was born on May 4, 1796. Mann was the first Sectary of Education in Massachusetts and visited various schools in Massachusetts to record living conditions in each school. Mann once concluded that the state took better care of its livestock than its students: “You crowd from 40 to 60 children into that ill-constructed shell of a building, there to sit in the most uncomfortable seats that could be contrived, expecting that with the occasional application of the birch they will then come out educated for manhood or womanhood…?”. An advocate for self- improvement, he believed that learning should not only be a collection of grammar and spelling, but a way to develop one’s view of the world. He believed that learning should be a way to cultivate a min into a budding vessel of untapped potential. Another emerging belief was the view of imagination as a beauty that needed learning to cultivate and poetry was an emerging. Manning also supported the idea of giving advanced mathematics not to use in real life, but to enhance the ability to learn and understand.

Thomas Jefferson led the coalition to bring forth a public school system that habited a system in where any student could rise to high standards and become a leader. Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, in the family of an aristocrat planter and was the third president of the United States. His system started with a common reading and writing school in which its most prestigious student would raise to higher education. With the leading students of the secondary school chosen, they would move to a college or university to create the ruling and leading people of society. These ideas were pushed in ‘A Bill for Establishing a System of Public Education’, written together with Orestes Brownson. This bill was countered by the fact a large portion of the bill’s funds was supported by the University of Virginia near Jefferson’s estate, Monticello. Jefferson’s opponent, Charles Mercer, wanted a state education; however, Jefferson wanted a local education to keep the people’s power, and Brownson wanted local control to avoid religious diversity and political discourse between parents and the state. Along with other reformers including Horace Mann and William Channing. They saw education as a way of bringing a person’s true potential and creating a more perfect being.

These schools were dependent on student funds and depended on social opinion to stay in business. The differentiating economies in the North and South created a divide in teaching policies and institutions. The South was predominately southern planters and yeoman farmers, poor and self-sufficient farmer, while the North was a small farm country with a booming manufacturing industry. In the South, during the late 18th early 19th century, most of the population was either planter, yeoman farmer, or pioneer. Most of the parents that could afford education for their children, in which most were plantation families, hired a tutor to teach them. Tutors taught a variety of classics to the student and helped shape a student that could not only read and write, but also be a leader. Much of the subject that these tutors covered were classical pieces and various languages that help confirm the societal status of the individual. For a child of a lower class, there was either to take the farm of their family and continue their work or to take an apprenticeship under a tradesman or artisan.

Schools in the North for low to middle-class families were a place to learn the basic fundamental of reading, writing, and sometimes math. These classes were mainly a way of educating the masses in reading and writing to be able to properly read the Bible and communicate by letters to the presiding government, which in turn can properly govern its citizens.

Between 1830 and the Civil War, the taxation in the South was significantly lower than in the north. This was caused mostly by the economy in which planters did not need public schools and the poor people had other problems to focus on. There was a movement from parent-paid tuition to taxing the country for the public’s education. This led to highly tax plantation owners and poor untaxed workers in the South resisting new taxes.

The life of a teacher as it is today was a constant battle between the need to control the room of students and the ability to teach the individuals the material and life lessons. Many teachers of that time resorted to crude punishments and controlling teaching. Many of the lessons were repetitive passages for memorizing, which led to many students becoming uninterested in the teachings. This led to punishment to keep students focused by the fear of the rod. Early teachers of the time did not see the teaching profession as a career, but as a way to make extra money. Men did it from graduation to their career, while many women did it to make a little money before marriage. Massachusetts opened a normal school for women to become teachers after a ten-thousand-dollar ($297,407.53 inflation-adjusted) donation from Edmond Dwight. There were 3 chosen spots for the schools and the first one opened in 1839. Over twenty-one years, thirty-four normal schools opened in sixteen states.

As hard as a teacher’s life was, a student’s life was harder. The student of this time kept a constant fear of reprimand, which led to the idea that learning was a task, not enjoyment. Since communication in America at the time was minimal, much of the subjects were outdated. Some of the conditions that the students and teachers faced in the schoolhouses were crowded buildings and ill-constructed schoolhouses. These schools of the past had a strict code of conduct on their students. Many were physically abused for their misbehaving’s, which led to many memorizing the subject material out of fear instead of leaning out of curiosity.

The new frontier of the west called for teachers in the east to come and fill the role. This led to the formation of teaching schools in America. Another forming idea in America was the formation of a feminine teaching position, and that teaching was for a woman that fit the homemaker to suet the children. These findings created long-standing teaching traditions as in a graded class, a class set by age and subject, and a uniform nationwide set of rules and guidelines in teaching. Another common practice we take for granted is testing. Before testing there were exhibitions in which students would recite poems, literature, or speeches to an audience. These exhibitions measured a student’s growth in the schools of the time. With more and more standardization of schools there needed to be a way to measure the knowledge of the student. Testing became a new way to test the knowledge of the student with the advent of easily accessible paper. After the Civil War, testing spread like wildfire and became a common practice in America.

The differentiating of denominations in schools led to conflicts between schools over whether religion should be taught in school. Many northern Protestant schools were different from the Catholic immigrants. Catholics argued over the anti-Catholic sentiment in public schools and asked for a separate school for Catholics, which led to public backlash against the use of public funds. Another political conflict in schools was the teaching of slaves or free blacks because of the resistance of slave owners that feared educated slaves are prone to revolt and sloth.

There are several themes in the education of today that have bloomed from the chaotic time in early America. One growing idea was age grading, in which grades determined the subject and teacher. This also led to the idea of sectional teaching, in which teachers taught a specific study with a division of labor. This was supported by the idea of progressive learning, in which subjects build on one another. These ways of creating an efficient factory-like school were at the forefront of the reformer’s ideas of the time. Lastly, terms were lengthened and many schools increased their yearly terms by a fourth. On average, in Massachusetts from 1840 to 1875 there was an increase from 148.8 days a year to 176.5 days a year. One lasting conflict is the discourse between the teachings of home and the subject matter of school. There were many heated debates on whether to keep Bibles in school because of conflicting versions and denominations. These conflicts have led some schools to ban the reading of the Bible. Another common theme was the fact that growing as a learner and a person is different from a repetition of words and phrases.

On the eve of the Civil War, there was a slow progression to a public educational system that was either mandatory or encouraged. Common schools were found across the nation and had become a life ritual. At the advent of the Civil War, America’s population was subdued by the war from the need to support the war, the need to support the weakened community and family, or economic constraints. These constraints led to a ‘reset’ in the US economy. Another factor was the 13th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution, freeing about 4 million black slaves, leading to “equal protection under the law” and black rudimentary education, which was illegal before the Reconstruction era. What emerges from the rubble is a newly refurbished republic, ready to create a strong public education that was unobtained by the fathers before them. This is embodied by the percentage of schools before and after. This set the stage for the major changes in infrastructure during the Reconstruction and led to the schools of today.

Through this look into the education of early America, we can see how the leaders of yesterday planed for the education of today. This brief history displays the motives for the advances in teaching. This history arises a new question, what does this education show what it means to be American and how did we become who we are from learning.