American Education Rhetorical Analysis

“My fellow Americans:

I'd like to talk to you today about one of the most important issues that touches our lives and shapes our future: the education of America's children. We've always had a love affair with learning in this country. America is a melting pot, and education has been a mainspring for our democracy and freedom, a means of providing gifts of knowledge and opportunity to all citizens, no matter how humble their background, so they could climb higher, help build the American dream, and leave a better life for those who follow.” While the melting pot metaphor has seen use to refer to the conglomerate of cultures that is the United States, it is often disagreed upon that this term accurate reflects the unique situation America has. In his own address, Reagan goes on to speak of how the American Education system has changed in the last couple decades. One thing he complains about is the separating of religion and education, claiming God had been “expelled from the classroom” and in 2017 when more than 23% of the adult population does not identify as Christian, or any sub sect of Christianity, it's easy to see that Reagan's melting pot “never was and never will be”.

There are various new metaphors and expressions created to demonstrate the cultural situation of the U.S., such as defining America as a salad bowl, but most, if not all, ostracize the "melting pot.” Often times the disparity between “American” as a nationality and as an ethnicity or race tends to nurture this conflict, where despite one identifying their nationality as American, if they do not quite fit the ideal image of an American, they are not considered by the White American majority as included in their