Learning Experience Blogpost 3

Part 1 |

1. The first theme we chose to emphasize from the reading was that profit-seeking forces like neo-vouchers are threatening our nation’s public schools. I chose to emphasize this theme because Neo-vouchers present a huge financial problem to public schools by taking away their much-needed funding and giving it to private schools. This is a grave issue because our public schools need to be properly funded in order to give students the best education and create nurturing classroom environments, given that public schools are free and more popular. The other theme was about the lack of state enforcement and regulation in private schools. The problem we learned about in the reading is that taxpayers shouldn’t have their money going to private schools that their children don’t attend, as well as lack state regulation.
2. The learning goals were: You will see how undermining neo-vouchers can be on public school education. You will be able to understand the Education Saving Account. You will learn why some taxpayers may be upset when it comes to public funding.
3. For the first class activity, I asked the class to imagine they were attending a meeting for the State Board of Education. I asked the class to first see the pros and cons of Neo-vouchers. Then I had them decide if they would completely eliminate school vouchers if they could, or keep them around and why. Many students said they wouldn’t completely eliminate the vouchers because they are an equitable option for some families that are of lower class yet want to send their children to religious schools.

Part 2 | Self-Reflection

1. I learned that Neo-vouchers really undermine public school education. I also learned about Education Savings Accounts and how some families abuse the intended purpose of these savings accounts by pocketing the money or for college down the road.
2. This topic matters to me because I feel like if public schools had better funding, they wouldn’t have such a poor reputation in many areas. I know that the public school in my area had a bad reputation and influenced me and my parents to attend a private school. Perhaps if that school, and all other public schools, had access to better resources and a bigger budget, they would be able to create a safer and more effective environment for learning.
3. My contributions to this learning experience were that I identified a theme from the during reading and expanded on it by summarizing it, identifying the problems and importance with it, and creating a class activity to engage the class. I also created the objectives/goals for the learning experience.
4. My responsibilities in teaching this lesson were to read the slides that I created and ask the class questions for the activity. I encouraged the class to see both sides of Neo-vouchers and establish a stance on whether they are in favor of them or not.

Part 3: During Reading Link

Schneider, J. and Berkshire, J. 2020. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door. 

Chapter 5: Neo-Vouchers. New York: The New Press. pp. 62-78.

Part 4: Google Slides Link

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fqu5GGx_2wa4ubkQ2NbpIWR7zBbF47Hx58fLv6vwtLc/edit?not_in_iframe=true#slide=id.g4dfce81f19_0_45