Analytical: Background Information

Education has been a key aspect to the United States since its very establishment. Over time, many speakers have demonstrated their ideals on education. First of these thinkers was Horace Mann. Mann believed in public education. He presented his thoughts in many speeches about teacher’s pay, public education reform, and the nobility of being a teacher. Mann’s reform of education laid the foundation for other philosopher’s of education as well. John Dewey lived life by the philosophy that actions should be judged by their consequences. He applied this to education by reforming the social interactions created in learning. He founded multiple teaching methods, like “learning by doing.” His values on teaching are still practiced among teachers today. They can be seen in his book, “The School and Society.” Besides his book Dewey spent a ton of time spreading his beliefs. Without input from Dewey and Mann schooling probably would have looked very different today. Schools would have been much more privatized. Even now, there are many private schools. This leads to the topic of school choice. Educators believe by creating a separation between public and private schools students feel that private schooled children are superior. This could leave public schooled kids with a feeling of inferiority and detriment school work. Also the public school system is funded by the government so if people enrolled in private schools they could effectively dodge taxes. An idea proposed to counteract this would be tax vouchers. Parents of private schooled kids would pay a set amount of money to the government. School choice could also help students by providing a familiar social environment. Ethnicity-based schools could help students find their niche. This could cause problems as well, similar to the Ebonics incident in Oakland circa 1996. Students who spoke slang were supposed to be enrolled in a class were their English could be learned easier, similar to a second language program. Members of the black community demanded that their kinsmen be treated as normal students, not fully understanding the school’s thought process. Some ethnic groups understood what the school was attempting to accomplish and praised them.