Response to "Colleen's Thoughts"

Colleen brought up many points about education that I was unaware of. Since we learned about the civil rights movement I knew about black and white schools becoming integrated, but I really just assumed that everything was better today. I have briefly heard about the “No Child left Behind Act” but I haven’t really seen the results of this because we go to such a great school. My view on education has been extremely biased because Deerfield is such a great school and has such high standards. Colleen’s video showed a library with very few books and tables pushed up against the bookshelves because of a lack of space. This is undoubtedly and unsuccessful way to approach education. President Obama talked about how educating students was an easy way to bring economic prosperity to a country, and yet there are many schools that Colleen focused on that were not great schools. There has not been enough change in reality in the schools. In theory there has been because of the legislation, but this has not been carried out. Colleen focused on a school’s bathrooms that were extremely bad, and it was for a school with %1 white students. This school is bad because it truly has not changed much since the Brown vs. Board of Education decision as this school is still made up of 99% minorities. In America it is typical that the minorities receive less funding, this is probably why they had such bad bathrooms. This to me seemed like an issue of the 1960s, but not an issue that America would still be facing today. In reality schools have not been completely integrated and the wealthier communities have better school districts. If America wants a true bailout plan I believe that we need to bailout the schools. There needs to be a great deal of money spent on improving schools like the one shown in Colleen’s video. This will not only pay off in the future, but also give all children an equal opportunity. When it comes down to it, students in worse schools have a much more limited opportunity to succeed in life; this should not be the case. Colleen brings up an interesting idea that the true Americans are the ones who have “a lack of education. They realize that some are denied opportunity, but many people who have a higher education fail to notice how privileged they are.” This made me realize that I am one of the people who fails to realize how privileged I am to come to a school like Deerfield. There are kids who do not have the chance to learn and succeed, which must be changed. For this change to come about those who have opportunity must help those without it. They must also appeal to the government for education programs to be improved. One of the most frustrating parts about this issue is that it is so easy to diagnose. Colleen wrote about standardized testing and how it can illustrate issues in the school systems. If the government would take time to see which schools had lower scores and then send more funding to them this situation could be improved. While this would cost a great deal of money it would pay off in the future when America has educated workers bringing in money to the American economy.