Education; Inclusive, Exclusive, Growing Pains
This Week's R&R is a "mock" Quiz question. Please be sure to post your responses in the Week 4 comment thread (below) so we can have all commentary in one place. Please read the following articles and watch the brief debate on education by NYC's mayoral candidates. Select one idea from each mayoral candidate and answer the following question:
To what extent does the candidate's idea contribute to making schools more egalitarian? Are there shortcomings to his argument? Identify/explain.
Each canidate contributes at least one idea or more to making schools more egalitarian. The first Bill stated that the government fails to invest in early childhood education and after schools which is one thing we should be doing. He also suggested that we reduce classroom sizes to give children the proper attention needed to learn. The second Bill proposed the idea of "turning schools around" by increasing services,focusing on teacher development, having a chancellor district to allow focus on these issues as well as having an intensive curriculum. Then John goes into proposing the idea of having the 1% pay more on their taxes and reducing the amount of tax payable for the people who are not included in the 1%, being that our tax system is one steady rate instead of increasing and decreasing for each financial type. He would use the money earned from this new idea and put it towards restoring schools. Briefly Sal goes into saying he would like to focus on children 0-3years of age because thats where education starts. The only shortcoming to these arguments are having the people that make up the 1% be okay with paying more taxes for school systems. Majority would find it absurd to be paying more taxes when in some cases education might remain the same. They might also find it unfair that they will be paying more higher taxes while the lower class people pay less and will be getting the full benefits education wise.
ReplyDeleteEvery candidate had one main idea in this debate that they tried to convey that public schools are equal to all or egalitarian. The first candidate Anthony Weiner wanted if there was extra space available to add a gifted and talented program to attract people , and or additional resources for a chem lab or expanded library instead of using the space for a charter school. A charter school could come in and compete fairly for this as well. Mr.Weiner's argument is strong and giving public education equality. The second candidate Bill Deblasio's argument was proposing a higher tax for the wealthy so that we could have more funding for full day pre-k and to reduce class sizes, which is not being fair to the wealthy but punishing them.The third candidate, Bill Thompson does not want to close anymore public schools but instead keep them open, increase services and teacher development. He wants to fight Albany for additional funding for these schools. Mr.Thompson needs to investigate more about his idea because it will cost the people a lot more money or higher school tax in some areas. The fourth candidate, John Liu wants the wealthier to pay a bit more tax and a reduction to some lower to middle class so that this could help the economy recover. The final candidate, Sal Albanese's main idea was to get funding to open wellness centers for 0-3 year olds. Do we really need to start teaching babies when they are born to 3 years olds? That is a waste of our tax money and his argument was weak and too short. All of these candidates have strong arguments and believe they could help restore our public schools but two out of the five seem to understand the true meaning of egalitarian.
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