The flat world Summary

Haojie Chen

B EDUC 205 A

2/26/2022

The flat world and education summary

CHAPTER ONE: “The Flat World, Educational Inequality, and America’s Future”

In the first chapter, Dr. Hammond shows the reader that our current schools are a very outdated way of preparing students for future jobs in factories. In the coming 21st century, this way of teaching is definitely not enough. Educational institutions need a change, they need to expand the educational foundation for young students and the accumulation of educational knowledge and skills required for rapid development. Dr. Hammond has explored all over the world, and she found that education in some countries has kept up with the educational needs of students. Compared with California in the United States, it shows that American education is very weak.

She pointed out that President Reagan's reform of education was wrong, and education policy should not be politicized. During the Reagan administration, education had a very large impact on people of color, because the economic level, insufficient facilities, and unequal investment caused them to no longer acquire the basic skills of society.

Dr. Hammond insisted that the United States is a strong country, so we can not leave the education of citizens, so we must have a good education of citizens. She points out that an equitable approach to education is one that meets the most basic survival needs of students; equal funding for all schools; adequate compensation for teachers' wages; establishment of a 21st-century learning goal; and healthy teachers without discrimination or prejudice and a good learning environment. environment. So that young students can learn the basic skills of entering society in school.

CHAPTER THREE: “New Standards and Old Inequalities: How Testing Narrows and Expands the Opportunity Gap”

In the third chapter, Dr. Hammond believes that the school's curriculum and education are too focused on grades, and the courses in the class are all prepared for exams, which is commonly known as exam-oriented education. Such education ignores students' writing, reading, critical thinking, and computer skills. Completing the school's subject areas in such a hurry will have an impact on the future, that is, students' ability to innovate in the future will be very low. But private schools teach in a deeper and more holistic way, so they can bring deeper thinking. If learning is solely for the purpose of achieving test scores, then such educational purposes are wrong.

According to Dr. Hammond, sanctioning some low-performing schools is a way of deceiving the public that after sanctions, schools will improve their performance to avoid sanctions, but the fact is that sanctioned schools are not improving, but are getting resources, higher education More inequality has emerged in teachers and advanced courses. Dr. Hammond also pointed out that imposing sanctions on underperforming schools can lead to higher rates of study abroad and dropouts. Rather than just sanctioning the school, the government should introduce better classroom practices, higher teacher quality, better teaching resources, and improvements in state-of-the-art technology.

Dr. Hammond also used "Texas Miracle" to illustrate the phenomenon that the Texas government, in order to cater to President Bush's "no child left behind", sent students who did not perform well or dropped out of school, so that they could no longer participate in TAAS. Unfortunately, the underperforming students are mostly people of color and their graduation rates are very low.

Dr. Hammond also showed that in Texas and certain cities across the country, African-Americans and Latinos tend to be assigned to inexperienced teachers, while good teachers tend to be assigned to white students. As a result, the educational gap between people of color and whites has grown, creating an even greater educational gap. Therefore, Dr. Hammond concluded that "substantially upgrading the quality of curriculum and teaching" is the only solution for classroom learning success.