Mike Rose's Criticism Of The Education System

Gowtham Yerneni Flawed or flawless: this is the argument that encompasses nearly every facet of our lives, and our education system is certainly no exception. Education is arguably the single most important tool for success in one’s life, so it is a priority that our education system is flawless. Critics, such as Mike Rose, do not believe America has reached that point yet; however, I believe that their criticism is too narrow minded and that our education system is much better than they perceive. The controversy over America’s schools stems from the belief that students and educators are ignoring certain characteristics of learning due to their rigid focus on economics. In other words, public discussion of education heavily revolves around a student’s economic readiness. In his excerpt from Why School?, Rose argues that because of this heavy focus on economics, we have lost focus on “ the traditional purposes of education—intellectual, civic, and moral

In his excerpt, Rose states, “our public talk about education has been shaped by a concern about economic readiness and competitiveness.” Later, he continues with, “Consider how little we hear about intellect, aesthetics, joy, courage, creativity, civility, understanding.” It is clear that Rose finds a distinction between economic readiness and the deeper characteristics of learning; however, I do not. I believe that economic readiness includes deeper values of learning such as curiosity, moral development, reflectiveness, and willingness to try new things. In today’s society, people need all of these traits and much more to climb the financial ladder. So, when people discuss education in terms of economic readiness, they are not excluding these characteristics of learning from their discussion; they are merely stating them implicitly, rather than