school 1980-present (ish)

This section of the video series highlighted some of the best and worst moments for education. In this era, schools were more inclusive and taught a higher majority of the American Public than ever before. The flip side to this is that while our schools were arguable performing better than they have ever performed before, the schools were used as a scapegoat. Perhaps this is based on my opinion rather than fact, but i believe the school system was unfairly blamed for our countries economic hardships as a way to shift the blame from the parties it belonged to to parties the American Public would be more likely to look at as dis-favorable given the level of authority the President wields in comparison to the power given to schools. Also, this period saw a number of scholastic peculiarities rise. For example, trying to use an outside company to govern the practices in a school was attempted and thankfully rejected by the American Public. Charter schools became a bigger issue in this period of Education (and are increasingly an issue today). The combination of this controversy and the blame pointed on education from the "nation at risk" resulted, eventually, in the formulation of the No Child Left Behind Act. The act, though attempting to achieve something all educators want to see, all children taught adequately, fails in its practice. The act has two main problems in my opinion. For one, it allocates funds in a manner that makes no sense. To remove funding from schools that are "at risk" is simply irresponsible and will only result in a decline for those schools. Secondly, the act focuses too much on a few subject areas and deprives students of a well rounded education.