American Public Education

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1. Summarize the main point of this episode on The Story of American Public Education. America was having an economic crisis and it was being blamed on the school system. Test scores were slowly increasing, but the economic crisis made people believe that public schools were performing poorly. So, different methods, from vouchers to charter schools, were used to try to increase tests scores in America. These alternative methods worked for some students, increasing test scores. However, even with all these different teaching methods being used, the majority of students were still attending public school. With so many students still attending public schools, public schools needed to be supported in America. 2. What political events took place…show more content…
Some low income students were given vouchers that allowed them to attend private schools at the state’s expense. This program brought many success stories, but was still opposed because the money used for each child could have gone to public schools. President George W. Bush’s decision to conduct yearly testing in public schools changed the system. These test were being used to determine whether schools were getting better or worse. Children were now being taught how to take tests for most of the school year. This meant that the majority of school material was math, reading, and writing. In the 90’s, there was violence occurring in public schools. The conditions that public schools were in was abysmal. However, parents were still sending their kids to public schools with all this going on. This is because there was not really much they could do. 3. Who were the key historical figures presented in this episode and what were their contributions to public…show more content…
He did this by saying that all states should have high academic standards. He also pushed for tests that would ensure that the requirements were met. Many states followed Clinton’s advice and started conducting tests to make sure students achieved the goal that was set. This makes Clinton the president who first started endorsing standardized tests in American public schools. He was not the only one however. George W. Bush Jr. also believed that public schools need to test student’s intelligence. He proposed that all students be given tests each year to make sure academic standards were being met. So, Bush Jr. took Clintons idea, but made the tests more frequent to make sure that students were achieving what was expected out of them. E. D. Hirsh thought that many schools were not teaching students the information they needed to succeed academically. This is why he sought for core knowledge schools. These schools would only teach the essential topics, such as math and reading, in an effort to make students have more

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