Hadia Awan - LTED 380

Blog Post #5                   This chapter of the book focused on the education system in the 1980s until today. As I was reading, I was shocked to see where the practices that are implemented and enforced in schools today came from. The idea of learning standards/objectives and standardized testing came from the business world. The fact that the United States was behind other countries in terms of the economy was always blamed on the education system. Therefore, at this time, the business world decided that in order for the country to produce capable workers for the labor force, they needed to be taught those specific skills in schools. To further implement these ideals, learning standards were created for schools to meet, specifically in areas of math and science. What is interesting is that studies show that literacy is the skill set that is needed across all subject matters, yet the focus still remains on STEM subjects. After integration, predominantly white schools in predomi

                This particular section of the text focused on racism in the mid 1900s. The motto that was promoted at this time was "Separate but Equal"; however, there was nothing "equal" about the segregated schools. The white schools received more funding and had better resources while the schools for minorities, specifically black Americans, lacked the tools to make its students successful. Unlike kids today, the children at the time wanted to learn and saw it as an opportunity to become better people and help their families out of poverty. They would protest for more homework in order to enforce the skills they had learned. They truly wanted to learn for the sake of learning and did not take their education for granted as we many times do. When it came time for schools to  desegregate, the black children went to their new schools knowing that they would be threatened, harassed, and possibly physically harmed. However, they decided to go in order to enact chang