Don T Send Your Kids To The Ivy League Summary

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Intro: The social norm of education in the United States requires reform and is striking the economy negatively. Author William Deresiewicz, in his article, “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League”, published in 2004, conveys an argument for change in the American education system within Ivy League institutions. He shares his personal experiences of being a teacher at an Ivy League university and the terrors that students face socially and mentally. He also covers very important topics such as students who come from less fortunate families and vice versa, weighs out the drastic educational differences and challenges faced by students solely based on their socioeconomic stance, and the negatives of Ivy League education levels. Deresiewicz makes …show more content…

In support of this, author Carmen Lugo-Lugo in her article “A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer-Service Representative: A Latina In Academia” introduces her personal experience with students as a teacher at a university and introduces the topic that she teaches at a juncture where students see their teachers as no one more than a customer-service representative. She claims: “Universities are restructuring academic and administrative units and running them like departments within a corporation.” (Lugo-Lugo 195) Her statement reiterates Deresiewicz’s, in which he believes Ivy League schools lean towards running everything more like a business, rather than a learning center: “Application numbers continue to swell, endowments are robust, tuition hikes bring ritual complaints but no decline in business.” (Deresiewicz 7). Lugo-Lugo compliments Deresiewicz since she Additionally, Lugo-Lugo provides that “Within this new structuring of the academic institution as a corporate marketplace, students begin to treat their professors and other university workers as clerks or cashiers at a department store, who are there to serve and satisfy their every need.” Lugo-Lugo explains the manner in which students communicate with their professors. Additionally, Deresiewicz argues “students are regarded by the institution as ‘customers,’ people to be pandered to instead of challenged. Professors are rewarded for research, so they want to spend as little time on their classes as they can.” (Deresiwicz 3) Lugo-Lugo provides support and helps clarify the argument of Deresiewicz. Both promote the idea that institutions should refrain from keeping their systems corporatized and rather focus on communication between students and professors. Synthesis 2: Deresiewicz-Ravitch:

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