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Diane Ravitch's The Essentials Of A Good Education

931 Words4 Pages

Intelligence is not standard anymore. In fact, few schools truly understand how to effectively teach a variety of students the curriculum for their future careers. Therefore, to encompass every student’s needs, schools feel obligated to prepare students to be ready for college and their careers. To receive funding, the state requires the implementation of standardized tests in the schools. Naive policy makers believe it is essential to prepare for an exponential amount of time for these tests; however, unbeknownst to these policy makers that the outcome of the students through this rigid system is not actually preparing students for their future; consequently, it just forces students to barely survive school without getting much benefits out …show more content…

Students begin to be treated, awarded or disciplined, as a grade, not by applying what they learn to everyday life. Funding should improve the school, not to blame budget cuts for deterring students of resources to help brainstorm for themselves and apply themselves to different forms of learning through the arts and other classes that are not graded. Furthermore, the standardized testing’s main purpose is for the funding, but why have funds if the students are not growing? In her essay, “The Essentials of a Good Education,” educational historian and policy analyst Diane Ravitch utilizes logos and criticism to develop a claim that breaking away from solely preparing for standardized testing, which has become synonymous with intelligence tests, is the only way for a school to be truly beneficial is by not letting budget cuts discriminate from the arts, listening to affluent parents and comparing it to the schools today, and determining what education should truly be applying to enhance the community. Moreover, standardized tests are determining basic intelligence; therefore, schools should focus on a variety of interests, but these tests eliminate the possibility for this to …show more content…

It makes sense to feel obligated to fall on budget cuts and have standardized tests, but it has been continuing to go on for centuries. Ravitch uses the Economic recession of 2008 where budget cuts were crucial. With the focus on No Child Left Behind, “The federal law demanded that all students be proficient in mathematics and reading by 2014, and every state was required to test those subjects.” As schools begin to lose money, only mathematics and reading is necessary and the schools switched to focusing on practices for standardized tests. Although this is logical, the funding never became sufficient enough for classes that were not tested to return to schools. Schools are deemed superior if the students received high test scores on the standardized tests, even if it is the school’s primary focus. Logically, the students are not actually learning so the school is not actually fulfilling the educational needs of the students. Even after budget cuts, schools spend excessive amounts of time and money on preparation for the tests, cutting back

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