What the class was about

Pretty loaded question there, Powell. Let's see, what was the class about?

Simple answer is standards, teacher evaluations, education policy rhetoric, political ideologies, curriculum, testing, charter schools, vouchers, school choice, and the occasional* anecdote about your kids.

But, of course, there is a larger picture. To me, the class was about seeing the whole picture, not just knowing things and taking a side, but being able to explaining things. Understanding both sides of the argument, and understanding that we really do not have a one-size-fits-all solution to the problems of education.

There were many things that I really enjoyed about the class, but I think my favorite aspect of the class was understanding why things end up going in the direction they do. Learning about how programs and policies get instituted is the key to understanding how you can change how policies and programs get instituted. I also enjoyed having students from different back grounds contributing in their own personal ways. I know we had someone who was in New York City public schools, some one from California, private schools students, and public school students. The diverse perspectives led us to diverse class discussion that would ultimately widen our perspectives.

The readings for the class provided good pre-texts to our class conversations, it informed us of the topic enough to create our own opinions, though I must admit they were often one sided- I know there is research out there that points to the positives of things like higher standards, more testing, the benefits and setbacks of mandatory pre-k, etc., and a little diversity in perspective- especially in regards to class conversational topics may have stimulated a little more positive in-class contention because I often felt our conversations took one idea and built on it without considering the opposites sides perspective entirely (i.e. the aforementioned issues).

That being said, I also do not see that as being too big a deal. A little diversity would be nice, but the perspectives on the things I previously mentioned are often based off of statistical data that does not provide much for conversation and can be tedious, and is often not exactly what you think it is (i.e. saying something like x amount of parents are in favor of higher standards, when no other options were provided for them to select). All in all, I think I learned a lot more than I ever expected to about education policy through our in-class discussions, and the subject has become one of my favorites especially within the political sphere. It is very likely that I write my final political science next year on the subject as well.

*By occasional I mean frequent & often.