George Leef's Analysis

One of the history's greatest figures, Nelson Mandela, once said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Over the course of years, this statement has only become more relevant. Maybe that is the reason why the topic of the decline of the American education has been recently spurring such a heated debate among national academic and teaching communities. In “The Chronicle of Higher Education”, Carl Singleton, a faculty member at Fort Hays State University, also presented his reflections concerning the U.S. education system.

In the rhetorical analysis essay, “Grade Inflation Gone Wild,” Stuart Rojstaczer addresses that United States higher education has gone downhill. He states in his essay that students are not being academically challenged anymore. The lack of perseverance from the students and faculty has made it easier to pass classes and maintain a good GPA. Stuart claims that, “Grades continue to go up regardless of the quality of education” (68). He believes that grade inflation is a huge issue in our society and that something should be done about it.

In Carl Singleton’s article, “What Our Education System Needs is More F’s,” he argues that students aren’t receiving the failing grades they deserve. School systems are to blame for the lack of quality in America’s education. No other recommendation for improvement will succeed. The only way to fix the American education system is to fail more students. According to Singleton, the real root of the issue is with the parents.

In his article “I Just Wanna Be Average”, Rose makes the statement: “students will float to the mark you set” (Rose, 1989, p. 3). This remark is one of the truest I have ever read. When teachers have high expectations, students tend to rise up and meet those expectations. Students want to please their teachers and be praised by them. Rose describes: “I loved getting good grades from MacFarland…

In Kurt Wiesenfeld’s article “Making the Grade”, he address the issue that students want a higher grade than they deserve. He goes on to prove this be by giving examples of previous students that he has had and what can happen when students get the grades that they want and not what they deserve. In Wiesenfeld’s article he states that about ten percent of students that take his class do not care about their grades until final grades are over. “You might groan and moan, but you accepted it as the outcome of your efforts or lack thereof,” Wiesenfeld stated.

There are multiple reasons for this to happen, such as having bad role models, spending too much money, and teaching

Gerald Graff and Mike Rose both share the important trait of “the value of non academic intelligence” because they both talking about gaining knowledge, satisfying intellectual thirst and education not taking non academic knowledge into account. Author Gerald Graff’s talks about how colleges and schools are not taking into consideration the importance of “street smarts.” We may not see this type of intellectuals as important but they are. One and all know one person who is not that bright but can solve a difficult challenge and has useful knowledge about our environment.

In the text, it is about why colleges and/or professors seem to give out A’s to students. It could also cause the value of grades inflate. Staples explains what seems to be the problem as well as showing what could be a solution. Staples wants reader to understand colleges are starting to be devalued. He goes on to emphasize why the colleges/professors feel forced to give in and give students A’s, why it will not change.

The values they set into the education system no longer interest students. The students are, however, finding that they can look up to those who did not apply themselves to education, and are getting the wrong concept of

He continues his speech by suggesting that education should be more educational and teachers should motivate their students more. He uses Senator Ted Kennedy’s evidence-- “... office released a paper not long ago claiming that prior to compulsory education the state literacy rate was 98 percent and after it the figure never again climbed above 91 percent, where it stands in 1990”. He uses this statement in order to establish a purpose that if people trust Senator Ted then people are willing to trust him. Making the audience feel that they can trust

Students that get advanced scores on tests are able to move ahead and have better opportunities in their schools, but students that don’t score well are left behind, sometimes barely moving from grade to grade. When making changes to the schooling system, Thomas Jefferson said “twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually” (Congressional Research Service, 269). The president of the United States of America, when setting up a part of the education system, said that only some of the extra-intelligent students would be taken and given amazing opportunities. He himself said that they would be taken from the rubbish,

Our educational system is failing us. The United States of America is supposed to be the “greatest” country in the world but statistics are showing that our government/educational system is failing us; children/young adults of the nation. Being a student of a middle ranked school in Arizona, I personally have had a first-hand feel for how good and/or bad teaching affects students. Just in high school I have had teachers that would just assign websites as our lesson and even teachers that sit at their desk for the whole hour; don’t even go over the mindset, homework, and maybe only show one problem so that we’ll know what the homework will be like. Until sophomore year I didn’t even know the differences between you’re, your, too, and to.

There is some underlying cynicism behind this form of education, which can only be noted once people open their eyes, and see how the schooling system functions. In “Against School”, John Tyler Gatto goes in depth and explains the problems with today’s form of school education. He states that a proper education should prepare students for society by pushing the students to be their best and teach skills needed to succeed; however, that is not the case for the current schooling system in America. Gatto claims the creation of school education in America was heavily influenced by negative aspects of Prussian culture; in result, creating a schooling system that promotes the production of mediocre intellects; thereby, rendering those students to be, to an extent, incompetent and manageable. These students are then sent to the labor force to be compliant workers that meet the demands of

Due to the fact that it’s easy for just about any one reading this to relate to a grading system cause we all have received an amount of schooling before. The

Education Reforms Education reform is legislation to improve the quality of education in the United States. Once, grades were the most important achievement for students. However, politicians and the public were concerned that our standardized test scores were not as good as those of other countries. Therefore, state and national governments started making laws to make school more challenging and to test kids more. One of those laws was “No Child Left Behind”.