Acknowledging the Trade-Offs

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/02/are-top-students-getting-short-shrift/acknowledging-the-trade-offs-in-differentiation

Summary:

·         Acknowledging the Trade-Offs deals with the disparities that exist in education when it comes to educating both the middle of the pack students and the advanced ones. The article claims that America’s education system is leaving advanced students to “fend for themselves” while most of the attention is focused on closing the achievement gaps and helping struggling students.

Central Argument:

·         The passage’s central argument is a bold one: “We are shortchanging America’s brightest students, and we’re doing it reflexively and furtively”. In the article the author claims that today, we are forgetting about advanced students’ needs and ignoring them. He states that we are doing this automatically and in secrecy. 

Assertions:

·         “Truth is, few teachers have the extraordinary skill and stamina to constantly fine-tune instruction to the needs of 20-or- 30-odd students, six hours a day, 180 days a year. What happens, instead, is that teachers tend to focus on the middle of the pack. Or, more typically of late, on the least proficient students.”

This assertion strengthens the author’s claim by explaining what one of the main problems is on classrooms and how that in turn affects the advanced students.

·         “In the past decade, would-be reformers have focused relentlessly on closing the “achievement gaps,” leaving advanced students to fend for themselves.”

This assertion strengthens the author’s claim by giving what the root of the problem is for leaving top-students to “fend for themselves”: the desire to close achievement gaps.

Rhetorical Strategies:

·         Logos

In Acknowledging the Trade-Offs the author uses Logos to strengthen his claim. Through the use of facts he is able to point out the disparities that he claims exist within the education system.

Ex. “The Brookings Institution’s Tom Loveless has reported that, while the nation’s lowest-achieving students made significant gains in reading and math between 2000 and 2007, the progress by top students was ‘anemic’ .”

“In 2008, a survey of the nation’s teachers found that 60 percent said struggling students were a “top priority” at their schools, while just 23 percent said the same of “academically advanced” students. Eighty percent said that struggling students were most likely to get one-on-one attention from teachers; just 5 percent said the same of advanced students.”

·         Counterargument

The author has one specific paragraph in the passage where he brings up a point that could be used as a counterargument to his claim. In this particular paragraph the author summarizes a previously determined claim by the RAND Corporation: low achieving students benefit when placed in mixed-ability classes, but then also uses the data to strengthen his own claim.

Ex. “RAND Corporation scholars have previously determined that low-achieving students benefit when placed in mixed-ability classrooms (faring about five percentage points better than those placed in lower-track classes) but that high achievers fared six percentage points worse in such general classes.”