Response to Q1

In "Pursuing an Educated Mind", the most effective part for me was the first personal account. I gave the essay a human face for me and I could visualize what Maria's education experience might have been like had she been exposed to a bilingual education instead of the immersion type. This wasn't enough to convince anyone that bilingual is superior to immersion, only that it brought a human element to the essay. Instead of the general references to students or children in 3rd grade etc, we had Maria, a real person with real problems struggling to keep up. That made me pay more attention to the essay than I probably would have.

In "Who deserves a Head Start", I really felt like it was an emotional plea for some reason. While I personally agree that the Head Start program is a good thing, I don't particularly care for reading something that seems to rely on emotion instead of fact. Under the "Why children should not be served" section there was a bit of back and forth between the proponents and critics of this program. Where the critics believe the program should be eliminated because while it may show and initial benefit, these gains "do not last and that by the eighth grade (and certainly high school) the performance of children who completed one year Head Start programs is not much better than that of children who did not." Later on in the piece proponents stated "that Head Start is designed to give disadvantaged children a boost that allows Head Start children to compete with children from more fortunate homes."

One thing that did work well and really caught my attention was on the last page where it talked about who these critics are that want to end the program. "Some may argue that preschool had no lasting effects, yet numerous studies disprove this. In addition, many of these critics that are arguing for the elimination of Head Start are the parents who are sending their own children to preschool. Why should only the privileged be able to benefit from preschool?" This last part rings pretty true with me as I've always been a strong believer in the group is stronger than the individual. I ask myself which I'd rather see, 100 exceptionally gifted children, or 100,000 well rounded and educated children. The answer is simple for me. I'll take the 100,000 every time.