Module IV Assignment

    Based on both my individual discussion board responses and the group assignment, the most important topics of this section are the following, risk involved by all parties involved in the educational process, the importance of financials towards education, and how every action taken entails money rather than education, as well as how to make the educational process better overall. 

Starting with the risks, one of the parties involved in the process is the students, which take the risk of attending school for many years with the expected outcome of having a proper education that will lead to success. The next would be the schools, for example, large schools with a proper image have to take many steps to ensure their actions do not cause harm to the education of the students or their image. These actions would be along the idea of maintenance throughout the school, receiving proper funding, and proper budgeting for certain already established and new programs. The other party would be the supplier, in the case of public education, it would be considered to be the U.S. Government. They supply the schools with funding (as an investment), which in turn they produce students of higher qualities and capabilities. The importance of this was mostly revealed in Part IV of the book, as we came to realize these students would be the future of the U.S. economy. 

As mentioned previously, the importance of the funding required for these schools is a large sum. Because of this, there is only so much the U.S. Government can invest towards children as well as continue expanding its influence throughout all low-income and impoverished areas. We also know that since the time of 1970s, the U.S. economy had consistently faced new threats.  “And so in some ways, our schools were doing a better job in important areas than they had ever done historically, and yet all of that was lost because of our concern over the economy, which we blamed on the schools.” (Pg. 186). Before this, Raegan talked about how civil rights enforcement (fighting against racial segregation, sex discrimination, and lack of opportunity for the handicapped.) had perhaps slowed down and halted the proper allocating of resources toward education. Not only that but also that compared to the past, there was a far greater population of people attending education. This made it even harder for the U.S. to consistently keep pushing towards funding for a solution to a future problem when their current problem would’ve been much more dangerous.

Lastly, the improvement of the educational process, “The way to do it is compete with them. Allow them the chance to compete with private enterprise, and vice versa. That’s the way you’re going to make public education better.”. This led to experiments being conducted by schools, mostly with low-income students as well as low ranking. Mostly due to the before-mentioned factors, public image, and school ranking. These risks taken could’ve easily ruined the school, causing them to cut funding to many programs, including students.