American Ways Reflection

Final Exam

When I was in Seattle Central Community College, I studied the book American Ways: An introduction to American Culture where I found out many interesting facts about the American society. This book gives thorough details about the values that are extremely appreciated by the American culture, which are freedom and self-reliance, equality of opportunity and competition, and the American dream and hard work. These values have a strong impact on many fields, such as education. Generally, educators are divided between two educational reforms, which are equity and free market. The first refers to fairness in which every individual has the right to achieve his or her educational goals, regardless of his or her personal and social

Educators who represent the Free Market perspective constantly compare American students’ scores on international tests with students from other countries, like Korea and Japan. They believe that the American economy and security systems are broken due to the American students’ low scores on the international tests. In her book, Ravitch provides a brief overview of the critics’ points of view about public schools. They think that public schools are mainly responsible for helping Japan to succeed in their automobile industry in 1983. As stated by Ravitch, 15 years old students from 60 countries participated in PISA, which is a Program for International Student Assessment Program, in 2012. The students were tested in reading, math, and science. Based on the results, Shanghai students got the highest scores in all the subjects, whereas the American students’ scores put them in the 13th place in reading, 17th in science, and 21st in math. Ravitch states that Obama declares that Indian and Chinese economic companies will win over the American companies even though Indian and Chinese students did not participate in the PISA! Moreover, Arne Duncan claims that the American students’ scores in this test is a chance for the society to do something about it. Another international test was taken in 2012, which is Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Once again, reformers were not happy about American students’ scores on this test. At that time, The New York Times highlighted in its papers “ U.S. Students Still Lag Globally in Math and Science, Tests