The Essentials of a Good Education

Essay 1: The Essentials of a Good Education

     For 12 years, I was dulled into submission by the public school systems of Chicago and Los Angeles. I endured statewide standardized testing applied on top of the quizzes, midterms, and finals my subjects required on their own. My teachers had been students in these outsized institutions as well; some had been teachers for decades and seemingly gloried in the memories of the mountain of monotony that had surely transpired. I have no knowledge of what my God-given potential might be, so warped as it’s become by the drumbeat of learning. Creativity in my adulthood has been limited to photography and painting, writing, some woodworking, web design, and mechanical engineering. Never once did I learn to play an instrument. The facts of the matter are clear, and Diane Ravitch conveys them well as she connects the mechanisms of education to the mediocrity of government. In Essentials of a Good Education however, she continues from there with great passion but to little apparent purpose. Her work avoids substance and instead panders to the biases of her audience; we will explore here some of the tools she applies in place of reasoned debate.

     She opens on clear and dire terms, framing her argument clearly and concisely. Having achieved mediocrity, she explains, it becomes necessary to locate another measure of the quality of schooling. As the crutch of the bureaucracy, the standardized test can no longer be relied upon as an effective barometer. The measure of a nation’s education has thus been reduced to the level of a politician’s understanding, and children are yet unwilling to settle for so little. A new yardstick is necessary, and the design of one can be informed by discrepancies in the existing regime. This position feels truthful, and connects to any reader’s inner nostalgia for a return to the “good old days”. Researching the origins of our educational institutions in Principles of Secondary Education a century ago, Harvard professor Alexander Inglis cites “recognition of the need for a form of secondary education of broader scope and better suited to contemporary needs.” (171)

     Ravitch approaches the task by asking what the “educated” or the “demanding” parent would want from a school for their kids. The use of hypophora, of asking questions just to answer them, is misplaced in this instance. She uses the hypothetical parent’s ideals as her reference, but the reader has no stake in the wants of a figment. To better connect with the pathos of the audience, her own ideals – or those of a sympathetic proxy – should be employed. Those expectations can be backed up with personal experience and carry more weight than they do as an idealized wish list.

     In support of her underlying argument, it’s entirely likely that the broader the education provided, the more character-building an experience school would tend to be. Yet there is no effort made to convey this empirically. What of the average incomes of the alumni of such “un-standardized” schools vs not? Longevity? Criminality? By making use of such data, her position would have been supported by the weight of the real world. What’s presented instead are characterizations and shadowy associations. Ravitch’s referencing a hypothetical student database merits mention here as just such a provocative anecdote. The warehousing of any form of personal data is concerning, and the subject applied to children warrants thoughtful exploration. Essentials presents the idea superficially and sensationally- your precious kids versus, well, who exactly? Is it the government, or big business, or both together and to what end? She never explains exactly what she’s talking about, but you should be afraid just the same.

     The definition of education is a key point in the text that encapsulates the messiness of maintaining these subjective perspectives. Her association of education with the quality of citizenship (and thus governance) is a specific interpretation, one that is written as if it was simply the author saying so. Unlike the personal perspective recommended previously, this new working definition would be better borne of the legitimacy of consensus. “The first duty of an American citizen, then, is that it must work in politics…” were the words of Teddy Roosevelt in 1883. Her own idea of education, one which could have been framed as Presidential in aspiration, is instead offered as lay opinion. Simultaneously revealed is a potential bias on the part of the author. In the context of her argument, the quality of citizenship and thus governance are functions of the quality of education. No other valid yardsticks exist within this argument, of that the text is clear. Logically then, the only way to know if education was “broken” and in need of any of the attention the author proposes, is if you begin from the position that governance is what’s broken. Thus arises the unfortunate possibility that the author only uses education here as a timely placeholder for unspoken grievances with what her world’s come to these days. Unfortunately, her reliance on subjective perspectives and rhetorical tricks makes it difficult to overcome the weight of the points against.

     Her thesis is that our educational system needs to be guided by a more holistic light than the standardized spectrum shone by Congress. Her collection of different points arrived at through different contrivances points more to an unstated thesis however, that “Government is bad and it’s someone’s fault.” This is a less compelling argument than the one ostensibly proffered.

English 1C #73767
21 September 2017

Other Works Cited

Inglis, Alexander. Principles of Secondary Education. Riverside Press, 1918, Cambridge MA.
Roosevelt, Theodore. “Duties of American Citizenship.” 26 January 1883, Buffalo NY.