Gatto Against School Analysis

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Saad Niazi 1130-1245pm Alexander 12 March 2013 Educational Suicide In “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto, a former schoolteacher from New York critiques the American education system, and unveils the foundationary flaws plaguing students and their origins. Gatto describes a system designed to breed complacent and unquestioning consumers for an almost fascist regime with by supporting his allegations with popular education ideas of the early nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. While Gatto does an effective job in identifying “how public education cripples our kids and why”, his allegations are extreme however his article has a slight air of truth that is highly propagandistic in style and written by a disgruntled…show more content…
Moore talks about how some presidents were missing basic knowledge in world geography, and how the most powerful leader should be aware of such base knowledge considering their high-ranking position. “In 1956 president D. Eisenhower’s nominee as ambassador to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was unable to identity either the country’s prime minister or it’s capital during his senate confirmation hearing”. Moore argues that the lobbyist today fail to add value to the general population, but more towards personal interest. “Nixon changed the rules, stipulating the federal education money be doled out in “block grants” to be spent by states how ever they chose. Only a few states chose to spend money on libraries, and the downslide began”. Moore illustrates to the audience about the libraries that are inadequately equipped with out dated books, but have modern technology in them. However in “Against School” Gatto attacks more of the influential aspects on the educational system. Furthermore both passages have a common topic of discussion just on different aspects on the deficiencies in the educational system
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