(Shenandoah, 2002) .

             An extract from a speech made in the Senate on January 23, 1990, shows that the author believes that the American education system is in deep trouble. One reason for this may be that everyone, politicians, educators, and numerous others who are involved in the system seem to have forgotten one important aspect of public education: the child. No one really seems to care for the child; more concern is being shown towards racial balance, effective teaching methods, an improvement of the curriculum, and so on and so forth, but the student, the child has become lost is all this. For example, in a school in North Carolina, importance is given to 'racial balance', wherein school children belonging to all types of races are put into the bus two hours before the start of school, and dropped off an hour before school is supposed to begin, and the children are quite worn out and tired even before school has started. (American Education in Trouble) .

             In a similar manner, teachers are being trained into becoming more 'effective' teachers, and this would entail that they follow a set pattern of behaviors within the classroom so that they may be able to secure a better score with the administration. What about the children? Who cares about them? They are not allowed to interrupt, or even to become involved with the lesson being taught, because this may interfere with the 'mandated' behaviors that the effective teacher is set to follow, and lower his rating. Today, most states are becoming aware of the fact that this system is doing absolutely no good for the children, and are therefore trying to eliminate it. Another is the 'merit pay' system. This may be a credible concept and linked to the evaluation of teachers, but the problem here is that even today, the evaluation is carried out under the 'effective teacher' plan and not under the merit pay system, and therefore, this is not at all valid.