Article Analysis

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First Name Last Name

Professor Lindsey Barlow

English 1302-33003

13 February 2017

Education and Where It’s Headed

Everyone is reliant on the education system to be functional, as school is a forum for people to learn how to prosper in the world. There are many topics in politics and in the U.S. media surrounding educational systems. One increasingly meaningful problem since the Regan era is private vs. for-profit education. Every year, we come one step closer to abolishing public schools in the U.S. altogether. Ellen Bosenberg discusses the multi-faceted issues surrounding education in her article, “Privatizing Public Schools: Education in the Marketplace.” Ultimately, her article does a good job attempting to get to the root of the issue, yet is weak in other areas like providing good evidence, describing the potential outcome of privatization, and discussing how it is currently at play in the world.

Titles are very important to a written piece because they help define its credibility and generate immediate interest. Unless the piece is satirical in nature, the title in a political text should be gripping, yet scholarly. The title of Bosenberg’s paper does that in a way, but only to an informed reader. The author states the topic “Privatizing Public Schools,” which on its own would be very dry, and follows it with “Education in the Marketplace.” The second part has one stop and think about how education has been entering the market. Most of us know in the back of our minds this has been going on, but if one isn’t fully aware, the title might be enough to turn one off. This article is sort of like the T.V. show Frasier; it is interesting, but could use some more hype in its preview to gain more attention.

An author’s claim should be clearly stated, yet subtle enough to point out that it is not the end-all be-all message. This lets the audience rally behind the belief or argument, or if they are in opposition, the claim would hopefully inform them of the side of the story they possibly had not explored. When the claim is political in nature, it will inevitably will lean left, right, or potentially way off to one side. When it comes to Bosenberg’s claim, the author does an okay job, but is also a little too vague. Her claim is that, “The privatization of public schooling is cause for considerable concern,” which is extremely general, but for the most part sums up how general and all-over-the-place the article actually is. She does indeed recognize the reasons for concern in the article, but fails to address why it deserves considerable concern now (Bosenberg). The issue being discussed has been tossed around since the late seventies, and is just re-surfacing in the media lately. Why should we be concerned now, if not in the past? I feel like this article could have been written twenty years ago, without the current citations, and gained just as much attention. Yes, this means the claim stands the test of time, but is the author just fishing for hot-button issues?

The opposition in an article regarding a social problem can usually be deduced without stating it exactly as they are discussed frequently in politics and the media. It is beneficial to the reader to hear opposing arguments from each side, but there are not always two clear sides to every problem. In her article, Bosenberg does not clearly state the opposition, but she explains the privatization in the education field as attributed to, “Two distinct yet mutually accommodating discourses (among others) that advance the right-wing agenda for education are neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism.” She is putting blame on two radical political groups, then considers the issue within education a “right-wing agenda,” which puts the blame more on the side of conservativism.

The common ground between the arguments is especially important to note because it shows the author is not completely one-sided. The claim the author makes in this article, in itself, implies a common ground by saying, “The privatization of public schooling is cause for considerable concern” (Bosenberg). The author is implying that even though privatization is already coming to fruition, we should address the problems as they come. Bosenberg also gives a statement to show that privatization could potentially yield reform that would benefit us by admitting, “this dismal scenario offers opportunities to develop transformative educational relationships. Parents, students, teachers, and researchers can organize around issues of concern such as school privatization, and work together to improve schooling.” This quote is important to note because there are obviously two sides to this argument, especially if one knows a libertarian. At the end of the quote, however, the author urges all those orbiting the education field to “organize around” privatization to improve schooling. This implies the author’s belief that the rally against privatization should start from within the system. There is not enough in the common ground to urge the reader to take a second look at the positive side of privatization.

To make a point really concrete the author must list evidence, or else they would just be stating their own opinions. When analyzing evidence for a political issue, some people more readily consider economic arguments of cost/benefit outcomes, while others tend to judge it ethically. First, Bosenberg provides evidence for the so called neo-conservatist “right-wing agenda,” when she connects to the voucher system. This program has been implemented in several other places, and is a stepping stone towards privatization here by saying the vouchers had “resulted in a program in which most (70 percent) of the school choices available were religious schools” (Bosenberg). This provides great evidence for the argument because, per the author, “Neo-conservatism exerts ideological hegemony by shaping the discourse of schooling and influencing curriculum content.” This basically means the neo-conservatives are trying to put religion back in schools, and inevitably into society, by means of their influence. One should, however, note that her statement regarding the voucher program was in regards the Milwaukee school system, and thus, really just the start of the conversation that needs to be had about how much momentum this conservative agenda has gained. She goes on to talk about a situation that spanned several years where the state tried to privatize education and found that “the state’s takeover of Philadelphia’s schools and the involvement of Edison Schools Inc. with the district reveal strong public sentiment against such moves” (Bosenberg). This is the preface for a story as to why the people of the state felt that way, and Bosenberg includes evidence as she relates this story. One piece of this evidence states, “’data reveals that in nearly 90 percent of Edison schools—61 out of 69 schools-for which results are available, students perform substantially below standard levels set by the state compared to other students in the state”’ (qtd. In Bosenberg). This is a strong sounding piece of evidence, although upon closer review, there could be some more clarification in the numbers as to why those were the only schools available and how many potential numbers there could have been, if the state had really taken over. This last bit of evidence regarding Philadelphia’s school system also proves the author’s point that, “Neo-liberals are primarily concerned about exercising their rights in a “free market” economy,” because they successfully passed legislation in the state to commercialize the entire school district (Bosenberg).

Just after last year’s elections, the debate over privatization is a trending topic and is steadily gaining momentum. There is no clear winner, as both sides of the argument could offer positive economic and ethical points. In her article, Bosenberg seems biased on the issue because she does not list any disadvantages of public schooling or list any positive attributes of privatization. The author here did a very good job at articulating and discovering the roots of the issue, but she is very clearly against privatization of public schools. She offers decent evidence to illustrate her claim, but the evidence is only a micro sample on a macroscale issue. I would recommend this article for someone who is trying to understand why privatization in education is trending, but not as information on its viability.

Work Cited

Bosenberg, Ellen. "Privatizing Public Schools." Privatizing Public Schools. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2017. <http://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue5p2/boesenberg.html>.