For more than two decades, Americas public schools have been expected to cure societys discontents. In the midfifties, we demanded that our schools create a harmony among races that existed nowhere else in American life. In the midsixties, when our young were engaged in a rebellion that seemed to threaten virtually every ideal we embraced as a nation, we insisted that the schools restore social order and preserve the status quo. In the midseventies, we instructed our schools to go one step further to look first to the wants of the individual, to nurture a childs discovery of self, while at the same time distracting him from his attempts to reduce his school to rubble.
Clearly, this prolonged and illadvised effort to make the education system the principal tool for social change has contributed to such problems as the sharply increased incidence of functional illiteracy.
To rehabilitate our schools, we must look to the hard realities of why our system of public education is not working and learn from them.
Schools are asked to do too much. Racial, economic, and sexual inequalities, poor parenting malnutrition crime, and a lengthy list of other social disorders unquestionably affect an individuals capacity to participate in society. But while education can enhance the students ability to cope with, and to change, the conditions of life around them, it cannot, in and of itself, make them better. In thrusting the schools to the forefront of social change, we have diverted their energies from their basic purposeeducation.
The issue of acculturation of ethnic minorities provides a case in point. Greater emphasis has been placed on bilingual education in the public schools as the number and variety of ethnic minorities have grown in the nation. We are insisting both that the schools improve the way they teach English, so that language is removed as a barrier to learning and that they increase the number of courses taught in students native tongues, so that the pace of learning begun in their homelands continues uninterrupted. The conflict that such demands create can be seen in Chicago where as a condition of $90 million in aid, the federal government extracted a pledge that the public schools offer bilingual courses in 20 languages, from Arabic to Vietnamese.
While we do not yet know what affect the study of major courses in a native language has on a childs ability to learn English, we may be allowed the suspicion that it will prove as counterproductive as it sounds, In addition the burden these extra courses place on the schools is obvious.
Once we stop asking the schools to do too much, they can get on with solving the more acute problem of performing their basic task — that of education — more effectively.
1. The main idea the author expressing in the first paragraph is that
A. Americas public schools should restore social order and preserve the status quo when the young were engaged in a rebellion.
B. Americas public schools were instructed to go one step further to look first to the wants of the individual.
C. Americas public schools had been expected to cure societys discontents.
D. American public school was demanded to create a harmony among races that existed nowhere else in American life.
2. The underlined phrase “status quo” in paragraph 1, Line 5, refers to.
A. situation or state of affairs as it is now, or as it was before a recent change
B. possession that is thought to show somebodys high social rank, wealth
C. persons social, legal or professional position or rank in relation to others
D. figure of a person, an animal
3. What causes such problems as the sharply increased incidence of functional illiteracy?
A. Because public schools stop doing too much which are not their basic task.
B. Because there are too many ethical minority students in the United States.
C. Because public school provide bilingual education.
D. Because public school divert their most energies from their basic purpose — education.
4. Which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. Public schools are asked to deal with too many social problems such as racial, economic, and sexual inequalities.
B. With the growth of number and variety of ethnic minorities in the USA, the public schools offer bilingual education.
C. The students of ethnic minorities are taught in native tongues in order to keep their identities.
D. Once the public school stop doing too much, they can perform their basic purpose — education more effectively.
5. It is suspicious that the bilingual education will prove as .
A. satisfactory B. counterproductive C. beneficial D.harmful
