Essay #1: An Argument of Standards
            
             As a potential educator, I try to keep up with contemporary issues in education. Some of the more recent issues have been methods of teaching based on Stephen Gardner's multiple intelligences, e.g. musical, kinesthetic, intrapersonal, etc. Another issue is of course President Bush's education initiative. Bush wants to send kids in failing schools to different schools, even private schools at the taxpayer's expense. When Bush was governor of Texas, a similar program was initiated. In fact, "Higher standards and high stakes tests," claims a recent publication in Kappan, "have resulted in much higher dropout and failure rates...in Texas" (Gratz).
             Yet by even stating that fact I may put myself in a contradiction. I do believe whole-heartedly that standards, in most states and districts, are by far too low. In contrast, those areas with high standards implement them with no course of action and expect immediate and promising results.
             Karl Zinsmeister, I sense, would agree with me on that point. Zinsmeister is currently an editor for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think-tank comprised of scholars from many different disciplines to analyze the actions of the federal government. In a previous issue of the AEI publication, Zinsmeister wrote an article titled "60's Rule in Public Schools."
             The article emphasizes why the American education system is, for lack of a better word, failing. Zinsmeister suggests that it may have to do with the current educators, the sixties children. He tries to point out that this current generation, if you will, of teachers has brought a new philosophy into the classroom. Instead of focusing on the necessary material to be learned, teachers focus on how sensitive the information is to the feelings and self-esteem of their students. Zinsmeister claims that, "The real problem, is that college-bound...