The Failure of the American Public Education by John Hood: Article Analysis

The article “The Failure of the American Public Education” by John Hood, her states that “A school cannot successfully impart the needed skills, knowledge, and perspective to its students.” This is due to the way schools operate today; schools are focused more on their reputation than what their students are learning. I agree with the article because schools focus on their reputation, set low standards, and education kills creativity. First, schools that focus on their reputation tend only to want to raise people to the average level. This isn’t allowing the above average or advanced students excel to their true potential. These students are told to just keep it up but, they should keep being pushed to do better. Instead of just getting every student to try and reach the average lets focus on getting them to go above the average or simply raise the average level. Let’s face it no one wants to be average, people like to feel unique not part of the crowd. Second, school’s academic standards are low requiring students no to think to a certain complexity like they’re supposed to. In the article “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” by Francine Prose, she states “much has been made of the lemming like fervor with which our universities have rushed to sacrifice complexity for diversity.” Francine thinks that the work students are doing on books in class limits student’s abilities do to the simplicity of the work standards. Next, with these low standards the education system limits the creativity in students. “Everyone is born a creative person but, we get educated out of our creativity instead of into it.” As said by Sir Kin Robertson. Robertson expresses how the education system tries to make everyone university professors by having the same hierarchy of classes. “They focus more on the core classes like math, English, science, and social studies instead of art type classes or classes where you can express yourself.” Finally, I agree with the article because schools are focused on their reputation than their students. This limits student’s abilities they will need now and abilities they will need in the future. Schools need to focus on the individual not the crowd or groups.