HW 44 - Big Expectations for School

In class we've discussed the tendency for institutions to become the battlefield for cultural wars. School, in particular, serves as a focus of these struggles as one of the few institutions that involves virtually all members of society as public citizens - as we the people - rather than as individuals, as consumers, as solitary internet clickers.

Other institutions (marriage, media, transportation) are experienced privately - the public institutions (Congress, courts) tend to involve minimal participation by most members of society. School combines massness and publicness and therefore serves as a battleground for most every public controversy in society.

The functions, purposes, and benefits that people claim for schools also highlights the key role of schools as a public institution. People say that if schools did X, every kid in the US would have a better future, less racism, less poverty, more creativity, more Google-type businesses, be skinnier, love poetry, better gender training, etc etc.

President Obama has spoken often of the importance of education. Please consider his speech, at the beginning of the school year this year, and note the benefits Obama claims will result from school success. Note how Obama offers a vision of school (our biggest public institution) as essentially a stage for each individual actor to achieve success.

Obama schools speech video (20 minutes)

Obama schools speech transcript

Consider this argument about the benefits of a liberal arts education - what benefits are claimed? Or this Thomas Friedman column - which at the bottom argues that schools provide crucial support for decent and prosperous societies. The Friedman article, in part, speaks from a long tradition of efforts to capture schools - essentially democratic public institutions for citizens - as tools for indoctrinating and training youth for capitalism. Others have always focused on the benefits of intellectual and social awakening that schools can enable.

Please respond in a 2-4 paragraphs to at least 3 of the above sources. Criticize or celebrate the arguments made in those texts in terms of your own perspectives (tentative or solid) of "What school is primarily for." Address the issue of what schools can plausibly accomplish and limits to the change that schools can make. What should be the top priorities of schools, who should get to decide that, and what can we reasonably expect from schools?

Please post by Friday, March 12, by 8:30am.