Criticism Of Reviews

Author of the New York Review of Books, Diane Ravitch, developed a persuasive argument pertaining to the animosity towards education. This source is quite demanding in that the author foresees only one problem that is holding education back; that being the establishment of a tenure system. Without tenure, Ravitch believes the search for higher quality education would not be as scarce as it is today. Ravitch says, “The problem is not money. Public schools already spend too much. Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions. Students drop out because the schools fail them, but they could accomplish practically anything if they were saved from bad teachers.” She attacks the teachers’ union and blames them for the great discrepancy between charter and public school education. Through the creation of more charter schools, these types of schools are likely to hire teachers with higher degrees in education and who are passionate about their work. From both Davis Guggenheim and Diane Ravitch's’ perspective, the issue is not the deficiency of money, but rather the merit of teachers who are incapable of providing students with a high-ranking education. Throughout the article the detrimental force of tenure serves as an overwhelmingly difficult obstacle to overcome. Ravitch exclaims, “There was a time—which now seems distant—when most people assumed that students’ performance in school was largely determined by their own efforts and by the circumstances and support of their family, not by their teachers.” Her interpretation of this widely problematic circumstance reinforces the idea involving the way in which education was scrutinized has changed significantly for the worse over time. The seemingly irresistible topic of education has been further examined by other critics and seen as problematic and recurring issue in America. Studying and interpreting the reasons behind the decline of students’ grades and the increase in dropout rates has become the newly imposed conventional approach for our country, so the quest for a solution should be coming to an end very shortly.

There is no timetable on Superman’s return, although, what we do know is that time is of the essence. Watson Scott Swail’s book, Finding Superman: Debating The Future of Public Education in America, provides an explanation about how to respond to questions regarding failing public school education and the steps needed in order to prevent a further downtrend from occurring. The author argues that there hasn’t been an urban public school that has been one-hundred percent successful in developing a prosperous public school in a poor community. Along with Goldstein’s bold approach, Swail follows along a similar path in that the movie does not always illustrate the truth. Geoffrey Canada’s interview in the film gives the audience a sense of hope when watching the film. Although after conducting an individualized research on how inefficient public school education has historically been, there is no promise that a single individual will improve education as a whole. Does this thought stray away from the idea of having a “Superman”? There is no right or wrong answer to this dilemma, but there are circumstances that provide us with substantial evidence in regards to both the hindrance and reinforcement of education as a whole. Swail says, “Understanding that not all students learn at the same level and pace, we need to move away from our age-based K-12 system and move toward a more diversified approach to learning.” This approach can commonly be associated with that of teachers, because it is often up to the teachers’ discretion on how to conduct at a certain pace. In charter schools funded by the government, it is more likely to find teachers that are willing to take the time out of their day to attend to students that are falling behind in their classes. Urban public schools would supplement a more organized method if they didn’t have the high number of insufficient tenure teachers that are getting paid despite their poor performance in educating students. This system of unfairness has lead to much speculation behind the corruption of public school systems as well as influenced a continuous search for answers.