The Shortcomings Of Education In James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me?

The issues surrounding education have not always been easy to identify. Year after year, the structure of American education keeps changing from one standard to the next. It focuses mainly on the needs of society as a whole, and not specifically the aspirations of the individual which is most evident in cities full of minorities. Public school education in urban cities clearly depicts the struggle of having limited choices, because of their poor status. Consequently, conflicts arise and have become vividly clear. These problems can be identified by the limitations on contradicting values, the effects of segregation, the impact of dull textbooks, and the influence money has on American education. Every individual has his or her own set of

James Loewen’s, Lies My Teacher Told Me, criticizes the shortcomings of American education that is associated with inaccurate histories in textbooks. First, the fact that students do not have high regards when it comes to American history textbooks, proves how unreliable the education system is. In addition, textbooks are often to blame, because they are too dull, and are rather—boring (Loewen 384), which is why it has become a requirement for students to read books, because no one wants to read those uninteresting books. Even history textbooks, they cover redundant materials which make the subject more and more uninteresting to the students. It makes the students less motivated to learn. Moreover, he also argues that the problematic issues lie within the bureaucracy. They make the decisions on what the students will learn or which textbooks they will be reading. So far, they have not done a good job. At times, history textbooks were often censored and handpicked. It may even be completely different from the rest of the [history] textbooks. These censored textbooks, often keep the students in the dark when the controversial issues are removed (Loewen 389). It really undermines the freedom of speech and emphasizes that, often, key pieces are left out that is critical to the historical event, such as exemplifying that many of his college students have never even

The Brown v. Board of Education turned over the Plessy v. Ferguson case, as it was deemed unconstitutional. Unconstitutional, because separating children by race was fundamentally unequal and it violated the fourteenth amendment. This was a crucial historical event that made it possible for blacks and whites to attend school together and end segregation. At least that’s what was expected to happen. In the year of 2002-2003, Chicago was found that 87 percent of the public schools were black or Hispanic, and less than 10 percent were white (Kozol 405). In New York, 75 percent were either black or Hispanic. This indicated the opposite effect of what had been dealt with 30 years ago. Yet resegregation is still happening. It shows how deeply segregated minority students are in the poorest and most isolated areas of America. Furthermore, nothing has been done to alleviate it, because the major cities have no knowledge of this reality. In the past, it had been significant to the whole nation, but now it seems that they have turned a blind eye. On the other hand, there is a link between education, segregation and poverty. Minorities, compared to wealthy white Americans, cannot afford to send their children to private schools. They do not have access to higher education, such as college or an adult school, that the wealthy whites have. This puts a limitation on