Response to "Public Education Matters''

Throughout reading the “Public Education Matters” article, I came across some facts that I found to be very interesting. For starters, when I began reading the article I came across the section which gave the percentage of students enrolled in public and private schools. I realized that the article did not include children who were home schooled in these statistics. Although the statistics of children who were home schooled were noted later in the article, I felt that it would have been helpful to understand where children who were home schooled ranked next to students enrolled in private and public schools as well. Another part of the article that I found of interest was the chart in which displays some countries and whether or not they have a national curriculum and a national exam. The United States was one of the countries that did not have a national curriculum or exam. I found this surprising because I don’t understand how the No Child Left Behind Act can really be effective if the guidelines we use can change between states. Perhaps this is why, several pages later, it is noted that the government has not reported the NAEP scores in math since 200 and in reading since 2002. I personally disagree with the testing methods, however if that is what is going to determine a student’s achievement, then the tests and standards should be the same across the nation.