Chapter 18 shows the vast inequality that exists in funding public education.  This chapter tells the classic story of the school in the richer community that has everything needed and all the extras that creates successful students and the school down the road that is in a poorer community that doesn't even have books, let alone all the extras of the richer school.  Definitely, students at Groundview immediately start out with a disadvantage that students at Mountainview don't have.  Since school funding is based on the income of the community,  the only thing, besides changing laws, is to encourage the advantaged schools to share their resources with the disadvantaged schools.  Allow the school without the pool to use the pool at the school that has one.  This doesn't solve the problem completely, but at least it gives the students from the poorer schools exposure to these things that they might not know even existed.  This exposure lets students possibly find something they are really interested in that they might not have known about if they weren't exposed to it.

groundview mountainview

The "Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century" article echos an existing sentiment that American kids are growing up much earlier than in the past.  Middle school is a time of many firsts and great change in students, but in recent years these firsts and changes have been occurring earlier in students lives.  This article is a all encompassing call to action the reform the policies of middle schools to adjust for these changes.  Five characteristics associated with being an effective 15-year-old are offered and in my opinion cover the majority of what an effective and healthy person should be.  I think by now it is well known that the middle school experience is much different than it was in the past and changes do need to be made to adjust for these differences.  The one question I have is this:  How to implement these changes?  Do you change the state and national standards to address this problem across the entire nation or do you assess each school individually and develop changes based on each school's need?  I think the latter is the better distribution method.  The types and degrees of changes are going to be unique in each district and, although this is a more costly plan, each district needs a individual plan.