Public Education Systems

Sandy Kim
Section A02
Blog Entry #1

"Nothing Is More Important than Thinking Dialectically"

     This article, by Grace Lee Boggs, briefly discusses the public education system and how it currently is based off an antiquated system of learning. I think one important thing to note is that although Lee Boggs claims that the school system needs to change to help support people of color succeed, I strongly disagree in the sense she advocates for. She remains narrow minded by failing to note that people of "color" are not the only ones who drop out of high school. Lee Boggs also states that the public schooling system caters to only the "elite" while simultaneously keeping others out of the streets until they are ready for unskilled jobs.
   
     There are other ways of helping people of color succeed that isn't just limited to traditional schooling. While there should be some programs to help underprivileged students (of any color and not just limited to their ethnicity) succeed academically, different paths to success should be considered as well. Americans as a whole erroneously believe that a college degree is the only route to fiscal success, but fail to realize a proportion of college graduates that are either unemployed or live in conditions of American "poverty".

     Many high school students often don't want to go to school, yet society brushes it off as them not being old enough to know what's good for them. These students often end up at community colleges (and eventually drop out) or go to a mediocre second-rate college not because they want to learn. The students who are pushed to graduate high school and attend college (whether it's a mediocre institution or not) when they don't want to, are wasting public resources. Simply put, some people just aren't cut out for higher education. Why waste public resources forcing them to "succeed" academically (more often than not, they fail out of the said system) when they don't want to? Instead of forcing them to succeed academically, there should be programs put into place that will help these individuals become skilled workers through trade schools and allow them to have financial stability and success. Instead of tailoring the previous schooling system to suit the needs of the non-"elite", trade schools should be more strongly advocated for as a viable option for those students who don't want to pursue traditional schooling.

Question: Realistically, just how well would trade schools work?