Episode 4

"Children may only be about 20 percent of the population, but they are 100 percent of the future." This episode focused on the educational system from the 1980's to the present. During this time, there was a push for standardized testing and educational reforms in order to make education more productive and successful for the business world. There was also a push for choices in school, as far as class go, which I think was a move in the right direction. President Bush vowed to "make America's schools the best in the world." This included vouchers to help students in low income areas attended private schools. Some of these vouchers included vouchers for religious schools, and this was highly controversial; it is hard to draw the line between separation of church and state. I think that this was a negative effort, because it took money away from funding public schools; that money could have been used to make the schools better rather than paying for public schools. The privatization of schools, while it seemed good at first, failed and the money was lost. During this time, the number of students being home schooled also rose dramatically, which I can relate to because that is what my sister chooses to do with her children for religious reasons. It was very interesting to listen to the part about the media giving equipment to the schools but they had to watch 12 minutes of channel 1 advertising. The piece about charter schools was very interesting, because the two Presidential candidates currently have very different views on these schools, and I never completely understood what they were; President Bill Clinton believed that competition would improve the school systems. Most of these charter schools were non-profit. Bill Clinton was also an enforcer of raising achievement levels through standardized testing in the areas of math and reading. I love the quote, "You can't teach a child to think in must you have something for him to think about."