Analysis Of Deceiving Education By Shaan Patel

In Deceiving Education, Shaan Patel synthesizes a compelling dissertation that the government is misleading us in NCLB or “No Child Left Behind program”. Although some detractors may believe that this situation in nonexistent, the arguments set forth in the article’s dismiss such romantic critics as excessively dogmatic in their provincial ideology. One of the broader notions presented in the essay is that our government is controlling us and letting us believe what they want and not what the nation itself wants to believe, Patel adroitly delivers a cogent argument to sway his readers by using authority, word choice, and emotion. Throughout this article Patel highlights several influential sources in order to persuade readers to

give credence to his claim that the “federal government is uninformative in their depiction of the progress of NCLB Act.” He told of the Civil Rights Project that was conducted at Harvard University saying “the NCLB has made little progress in accomplishing this goal.” He was going over the fact that the achievement gap between different races and economic backgrounds are enormous.

This helps his argument and shows that there is a difference between the test grades from the variety of students. Harvard is a reliable source that he uses and he also uses the Wall Street Journal editorial “Acid Tests.” “Charles Murray’s points out “that the federalism this country was founded on by nationalizing “elementary and secondary education.” It tells of how we as a nation are being overturned. This is important because it helps the nation and its own ability to think. Similar to many adept editorial writers Patel attempts to continually expound the magnitude of his argument by asserting the far-reaching negative consequences of the government misleading the country into believing they are furthering the learning system with NCLB. “There is something inherently wrong with a government when it is willfully skewing studies to fit expectations.” Here Patel expertly explains how the government skillfully undermines the country. It is has significance in his essay, because of its skillful word choice. “However, the government manipulates statistics to fit its own predictions is trivial compared to the ethical violations it commits when doing so.” This can be seen as how the nation cannot think for itself when the government has full control over

every day thoughts. This helps the country to see the government’s true meaning behind the act itself and how it is not helping. Lastly Patel further thoughtfully supplements his argument by using emotion. He goes on to say later on in his paper that “there is definitely a major trust issue.” This explains how people as a nation struggle with trust in their leaders due to times before hand of them being disloyal. The importance of this is that even though people still trust the government they tend to be more on the skeptical side when coming to decisions that will affect them directly. “When the governing body over a group of people deliberately attempts to deceive those very people they are supposed to be the most truthful to, it says a whole a lot about the condition of the society we live in as well as the elected officials we vote into offices.” This signifies how the decisions of our leaders can sway them into believing almost anything. Undoubtedly, Patel is no amateur author. Not only does he employ authority, word choice, and emotion to build a coherent argument, but he also does so purposefully and proficiently. Patel adroit use of persuasive literary device and tactics guarantees that readers will be convinced of his conviction that it is the Department of Education’s fault for not recognizing the underlying problems with the NCLB Act that is better known as the “No Child Left Behind Act”.