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Summary Of Against School By John Gatto

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Against School by John Gatto is an essay that attempts to persuade the reader that public education fails to educate its students. The main way Gatto tries to persuade his audience is by presenting anecdotal evidence and by showing the historical narrative to the education system of the Untied States. Gatto attempts also attempts to reach out to his audience by referring to commonalities in the public education system that have been experienced by many people. Overall the essay is persuasive but lacks any practical authority.

The first thing the author does is provide background, background on himself and the situation with education in the United States; and, this is what the author primarily does. While this provides the reader with a fundamental understanding of the situation at hand it does not give any supporting information in the form of statistics. The essays main stays are using quotes, examples, and certain common sense facts. However, in supporting an argument that states that the public education system fails the children one should expect a statistical basis in supporting that argument. Because the reader is given no information of about this crisis the …show more content…

The essay intends to persuade and provoke the reader. By using non-statistical based evidence Gatto manages to build a solid case for their being problems with the education system, however, his solution to these problems is incredibly lackluster. The solution Gatto presents is simply for the reader to teach their own children, rather than have them schooled. The problem with this is that this solution will only ever apply to people who read Gatto’s essay, it fixes none of the problems with the education system. The lackluster solution is even more sad since Gatto presents good evidence that the issues are systemic, and by ignoring a potential solution the essay reads more like a consumer warning than a serious treatise on the education

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