Frederick Douglass was, and still is, a golden example of why education is so important to Douglass spent the first part of his life in ignorance. However, hislife of a seemingly endless servitude and ignorance was completely shattered by the factthat he learned to read. Once he learned to read, his life was forever changed. Heescaped slavery and tyranny and became an icon even to this day.Douglasss story more than adequately shows that a quality education is perhapsthe most important thing a person can receive in their life. Without his education, hewould not have realized the shame and inadequacy his slavery, and unfortunate acceptanceof that slavery, held him in. At least he would have had the chance to choose his fatewhereas in slavery, he was but a machine to be disposed of at the masters will. In the present, however, it is so overly obvious that our education system isquickly becoming inadequate (if it isnt already). Obviously, we cannot let it slip deeperand deeper into the abyss, but what can we do to fix it? Should we throw more money atit? Should we create more watchdog groups and set up more committees to hash outwhat we should do? It is my contention that none of those things we continue to do are going to work. I do not believe there is anything we can do, on a governmental basis, to fix the problemor stave off the descent. Changing the system from within is not going to work. The keyis to change it from without (Sarason 4).Of course, it is easy to talk about social change as a means to education reform,but talk is always more desirable than action. It is a given that broad strokes of socialreform take years and years. We do not have that time, to be honest. We need to makethese changes now.The problems with education are, quite obviously, many. And it is a well-knownfact that we cannot just fix education. We must point out specific problems first.The first problem is destroying the enormous difference ...
