Week One

 In Michael Moore's essay, “Idiot Nation,” the author inspects the state of the American educational system. He offers a grim assessment of the quality of education offered in public schools. Moore uses two arguments to generally explain why he finds the education offered in public schools so dismal. The first is that education is not a priority fully embraced by ruling politicians in America. The second is that our free market system of commerce encourages corporations and other large financial interests to market to school children through the funding of school activities of questionable educational value.

Moore begins his opening argument with his experience with an an ESPN game show, Two-Minute Drill. He describes contestants' encyclopedic knowledge of sports trivia, and contrasts that expertise with his view of American ignorance of international affairs. To prove his case for American ignorance he cites a study in which “A group of 556 seniors at fifty-five prestigious American universities (e.g., Harvard, Yale, Stanford) were given a multiple-choice test consisting of questions that were described as 'high school level.' Thirty-four questions were asked. These top students could only answer 53 percent of them correctly. And only one student got them all right,” (Moore). Where this may seem a damning argument in itself, we should take note that this is incidental evidence. The study is not cited for our review, and that calls into question the academic value of such a claim. Further, we could probably find members of motorcycle clubs that would have great knowledge of the workings of their motorcycles mechanically, and nutritionists that could not fully identify the nutritional value of assorted flora and fauna from memory. Does that mean that Americans know more about motorcycles than nutrition? Moore continues by pointing out that teachers have been belittled in public media. But when investigated we can see that these are contributors and columnists in opinion sections of the mentioned newspapers. Once again, a reliance on incidental evidence. Moor rounds out his argument with a pop quiz he expects most elected politicians to fail.

Moore's second argument begins with observations on corporate interests contributions to schools. He points out that most of these contributions come with strings attached, such as the printing of logos on sports jerseys, a plan for distributing gift cards, or simply rights to sell products to students on campus. The examples he presents are too numerous to be adequately described in this response, but one study by the Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education (CACE), stands out. It found that corporate sponsorship has increased by 248 percent in the last ten years in high schools. The essay itself does not state the date the study was published, however the most recent edition of the textbook in which the essay is contained was published in 2010. This argument seems to carry a bit more water than finding specific groups who fail pop quizzes, but we should still notice the incidental nature of most of his evidence.

In essence, Moore raises significant questions about the state of public education in America, but fails to prove his case through the use of evidence. His essay is inflammatory and thought provoking, but ultimately lacking in support of a thesis. Where it would seem clear that questionable judgment has been executing the education of our children, Moore presents no greater plan for our kids education, other than a list of subversive actions that would point out what we already know about our public schools.