As I was reading Part 2 of The School: the American Public Education I really enjoyed it and found it interesting while reading it. This part of the book discusses plenty of things that are about focusing on the education system. To summarize part two, as education became more popular so did America, people were immigrating to America. School became a place where you could catch an illness and the overall material of the school was outdated and just purely bad conditions. There was an idea/ rumor that came from John Dewy, "Gray Plan"  was in place making students move from class to class and adding classes such as nature classes, auto mechanics, home economics, and more. Some people did not like this plan and stayed with the more traditional curriculum. After that, there was Ellwoood Cubberley idea that we need to recognize that some students should move on to college and further their education.  Students were then placed into classes based on their scores on the I.Q test, but it didn't think about the immigrant students in America who scored badly because of the language barrier so Americans were set for success as the immigrants ended up in the military or industrial type job. My group discussed this part of the book because we agreed on most of our answers and I found it very interesting how the curriculum changed over time. At the end of part two, it states that schools were segregated between black students and white. The first fifty years of the 1900’s had a lasting impact on education today, though they weren’t able to make the large strides necessary toward equality in education, we still see remnants of this era today. I.Q. tests are still used. John Dewey’s idea of educating the whole student has come and gone and come again as we see our students moving from class to class as he envisioned, and schools providing meals for students whose families cannot provide them. It is clear that in 1950 our education still had a ways to go before getting to the point we are at now, segregation still needed to be overcome, before we can progress. In my group Nayely’s view is very clear: public schools helped immigrants by teaching them English and giving them a real chance to succeed in America. Her idea shows how learning English and other basic skills can make a big difference for immigrant kids, helping them fit in and build better lives. Also George Ghattas’s, brings up an important issue about IQ tests, noting that they can judge people unfairly by race, class, or ethnicity. While this is a valuable point, it is a bit more complicated than Nayely’s straightforward idea. 



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