Pre-Colonial America the History of the Educational

Pre-Colonial America

The history of the educational system ironically has not been changed as much as one might think since the colonial era. Of course the content being studied may be completely different and they had no IPods in the early days of America, but the idea of education is still the same. According to American Education: The American Revolution, it boils down to four questions: who will be educated; who controls the overall system; who pays for it; and who gets more education then others, rich and poor, have and have not so to speak. In other words, these issues have been the foundation of the American educational system since the 1700's and they still cause too many problems. So the complaints we hear today about vouchers, testing and rich school district vs. A poor one is simply a matter of history repeating itself, over and over again. This analytical essay reviews a more recent legislative event that affect local, state and federal control of our educational standards and is a problem for the underlying struggle for 'control' of our educational system. The objective of the system should be to provide the best education possible. Instead, we focus on winning these inherent battles, the battle of vouchers for example. "If American public schools do nothing else, we must get reading right. Our democracy depends on an educated populace." (Hooper, 2002) It has become extremely important for the students, schools, and districts to at least meet minimum requirements so as not to face serious consequences.

Analysis:

One of the first and most important aspects of this discussion that jumps out is the concept of our proposed voucher system. "School voucher programs allow parents to use federal funding for private school education." (Education Bug) I believe that vouchers would solve many existing problems in the modern day school system. As the text showed, vouchers can come in many forms including tax incentives, direct payments, school fee credits or a mix of all of these. The problem arose out of the fact that the United States never actually agreed upon a specific system for educating the nation's youth. Today there are many options in regard to receiving an education. Consider the many types of schools such as the common public and private institutions, religious-based schools, charter schools and for good measure, home schooling. This list is far from complete, but it goes to show that there are potential options available.

Vouchers work on the principle that when one person is dissatisfied with the local options in regard to the schools available and they wish to choose a different option, they are compensated for going to the different choice. "Under the proposal, parents would receive the amount spent on each public school student, or about $2,500." (Text, 122) For kids living in inner city urban hell holes, this sounds like a pretty good alternative that could provide the necessary funding to send a student to a safer and probably more educationally sound suburban school or local charter school that is better run than the public school system.

Application