Something Not About Education... Finally!

On November 17^th 2014, David Brooks wrote an article titled “Obama in Winter” in the Opinions section in The New York Times. Brooks wrote an analytic article retracing Obama’s recent choices during the election for Congress. He critiques the President’s decisions to be “superaggressive” with the new Republican majority; misusing executive powers to get his agenda taken care of for issues like immigration and the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

            I believe that Brooks intended to reach a Democratic audience, definitely more so than a Republican audience. Despite the fact that Brooks does critique Obama and his administration, the tone of his critique isn’t derogatory. He sounds frustrated and disappointed and I think he’s trying to connect to disappointed Democrats. The audience he’s trying to reach must also be well-educated in politics and current national debates. I know about the pipeline, but that’s because I read the news and even then I don’t pay close attention to the actions of Obama’s administration. An average teenager might not be able to fully relate to the article or even uninformed adults.

            In addition Brooks seems to argue that Obama’s actions will lead to massive political unrest, anti government fervor and unrest. He believes this will happen since Obama seems to be aggressively pushing his agenda into a newly seated Republican Congress. Obama’s efforts to overcome this defeat is only helping the Republican’s efforts to rid certain acts and reforms from the discussion. He even suggest that Obama is helping the Republican Party get a Republican President in the next election. I think that his argument is legit and I agree with him. Obama has been acting strangely since the vote and his actions aren't very encouraging for Democrats. The vote seems to be swinging towards the Republicans and I’m not sure that any act to reverse this will help.

            David Brooks is a very legitimate author for The New York Times. He’s been working for the paper since 2003 and holds the title of Opinion-Editor Columnist. He’s written more than a 1000 articles and has even written a book.

Surely More Poor People In Colleges Will Fix Our Unbalanced System

On October 23rd 2014, James Piereson and Naomi Schafer Riley wrote an article called "Getting more poor people into college won't fix income inequality" in the Opinions section of the Washington Post. Piereson and Riley are making comments on a decision made by President Obama to encourage colleges and universities to offer more opportunities for low-income students. Apparently, the idea Washington has is that the solution to repairing the large imbalance in our economy is related to higher education.

Piereson and Riley strongly disagree with this. They don't believe that the solution for poor kids lies in high education, but rather elementary and secondary education. They criticize that getting the impoverished into college isn't an original idea, nor is it very helpful. Many colleges have actually applied this new policy, even big schools like Yale and Harvard; and they determined that just because the prices are lower, doesn't mean it will encourage the 70,000 students to apply. For example, Harvard created a policy in 2004 that stated that "no student whose family income was less than $40,000 would pay a cent to attend; the university gained 20 additional low-income students in a class of 1,600."  So the price isn't the problem, but rather the system.

I believe the intended audience is based more towards college-bound students and families (especially those who meet financial requirements), students in general, people who work in the education field, people looking at the inequality of our nation and those concerned with the quality of education America. Though some jabs are made at political administration for their unhelpful participation, I don't believe the article is trying to get policies to change. It seems as though they wish to get people to acknowledge that change is certainly necessary. Not tiny changes or little suggestions here or there-those aren't cutting it. But big changes that mean having to throw an entire system out of the window.

I don't know very much about either author James Piereson or Naomi Schafer Riley. All I do know is that Riley has a Twitter and advertises it at the bottom of the article. I'm not sure how credible either author is-it's not as if I can click on their names and be linked to a biography about their literary works. They're staff for the newspaper; no more, no less. I believe that by being staff that that title gives them a certain amount of credibility.

Finally, their argument. I'm a little bias because I feel so strongly about education (and they agree with me) so bear with me. They claim that income inequality isn't the barrier preventing low-income high-achieving kids from going to big name schools, but rather their quality of education. If money truly was the issue than the schools would’ve seen a greater influx of 'poor' students; but they’re not. The gap isn't income and it can't be fixed by shoving more poor kids in universities like Harvard. It isn't as though they're talking without any evidence to back them up, they're dropping names like: "Richard H. Sander of the UCLA School of Law,   Caroline Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard, Washington Post’s Jay Mathews, KIPP, and Sean Reardon of Stanford University. Their sources seem reliable-most being from high-education institutions themselves. So they know what they're talking about when it comes to statistics and they do a good job using their evidence to support themselves. I believe that even someone not in the intended audience might be swayed by this article. But there is one thing that I think could improve the article. Riley and Piereson both express great dismay at the education system of today, but neither have any solutions to getting where we want to go. Every journalist has something to critique or challenge, but none offer any logical solutions. I think if they had given more than just their two-cents, but a step towards the solution we need; it would be a better article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/getting-more-poor-kids-into-college-wont-fix-income-inequality/2014/10/23/494e491a-4fc5-11e4-babe-e91da079cb8a_story.html