Week Three

                After watching the first three parts of Waiting for Superman, I found it so interesting that I continued to watch the entire documentary before writing this post. After watching the movie, I would say that the core problem surrounding America’s education system is the fact that we have so many different levels of government and bureaucracies all trying to set different standards for our schools. The federal government sets standards, and then state and local governments set their own standards, and then school districts and the schools themselves set yet another level of standards. As the documentary said, the standards are so different that a student could fail a standardized test in one state, and then pass a similar test in the next state over. I also feel that a huge problem in overcoming the problems in our schools is teachers’ unions. As shown in the movie, almost any reform that Michelle Rhee (Chancellor of Washington DC schools) tried to make was shot down by the teachers union. She wanted to create a new system where a teacher could either choose to take tenure and get a moderate raise, or choose not to take tenure, and be held accountable for their actions, and be rewarded for being a great teacher with up to a six-figure salary. I thought that this system would have worked very well because the potential of earning that much as a teacher is mostly unheard of. This would have pushed teachers in Washington DC to work harder and it would have produced better teachers, better schools, and higher performing students. The teachers’ union, however, did not even let the idea get put to a vote, and Rhee was shot down.

                I think that the best way that the government could help turn our public schools around is to set national standards that all public schools in the nation must adhere to so that every child has the same chance to get a great education. There is no need for so many different levels of government to try to set their own education standards, and as we have seen over the years, this system obviously doesn’t work. I do believe that a more centralized education system would make a huge difference in our education system. I think that there are huge gaps in what children are learning in different parts of the country, and this is keeping all students from being successful in school. If our education system worked better, with more federal regulations and less influence from state and local governments, I think that America could get back to where it used to be, as one of the world leaders in education.

                After watching Waiting for Superman, I think that teachers are a big part of the education problem in America, but they are also the solution. I believe that we should eliminate tenure for teachers, and that they should all be subject to observation and get their own report cards every year, just like the students do. From the movie, it seemed that many teachers tend to get lazy after they gain tenure because there is basically no way that they can be fired. This eliminates their need to work harder and to try to get better every year. Yes, there are many teachers who do not get lazy after they get tenure, and they are constantly working to improve themselves and to help their students reach their full potential, but these teachers are not the majority. I for one had teachers in all levels of school who flat out told students that they hated their jobs, and who showed movies when they did not feel like teaching. I also did not go to school in a poor neighborhood, which is mainly what was featured in Waiting for Superman. I went to school in an upper-middle class neighborhood, but there was still the same mix of good, great, okay, and bad teachers. This happens, everywhere, and I think it can be solved by making teachers fight to do their best every day. I believe that if someone really does love teaching, and does it for the children, they will have no problem keeping their job and earning a great salary. If we can regulate the system, make more federal standards, and hold our teachers to a higher standard, America’s education system can be one of the best in the world.

Week Two

               If money was not an option, once I graduate college I would love to move to an apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City. Aside from the fact that New York City is my favorite place in the world, it is also a great place for every career opportunity imaginable, a major hub for the arts, and is brimming with culture. My personal reasons for wanting to move to Greenwich Village are that I love the hustle and bustle of the city, I love the art scene, and that the feeling that the city possesses makes me incredibly happy. Greenwich Village also has many aspects that we discussed in class which make it, in my opinion, an excellent place to live.

                One of the huge issues that we discussed in class was the trade-off between transportation expenses and home values. Home values go down when they are further away from the center of the city. This seems like an excellent thing, but being further away from the city means a longer, and therefore more expensive commute to work or school in the city every day. When you live further away, you may be able to rely on public transportation if there is a bus route near your home that can get you to your place of work, but most people commute by car. Driving a car means that you have to make car payments, insurance payments, fill it with gas, and pay for all repairs it needs. In a place like Greenwich Village, however, you can live walking distance from basic necessities, like a grocery store, park, the theatre, and doctor’s offices, and if you need something elsewhere in the city, you can hop on the subway. This trade off does mean that housing prices rise, but to me, this trade off is well worth it. I would love to live in a city where I could walk out my front door and go down the street to get a cup of coffee, as opposed to my current situation in Scottsdale where I have to drive a few miles just to get to a Starbucks. Less reliance on cars means that residents will be healthier and happier, and therefore will positively contribute to the life of the neighborhood. For me, one of the biggest factors in my choice of Greenwich Village was its proximity to the city as well as its abundance of public transportation.

                Although Greenwich Village has already been gentrified, and is no longer home to starving artists and a Bohemian crowd, it keeps that artistic feeling alive, unlike other cities where gentrification ends up killing the spirit of what originally made the place so great. This could still happen to Greenwich Village, but with NYU so close to the neighborhoods, the young college students will help to keep that hip, artistic feeling alive. According to the author of the textbook, Sharon Zukin, “significantly, cultural value is now related to economic value.” The culture and art scene of Greenwich Village is what brought people there in the first place, and it is what drove housing prices sky-high. Affluent young people, businesses, and real estate agents alike all saw the promise of this up and coming neighborhood, and many people moved in to try to soak up the culture. This caused housing prices to become way to high for the artists and performers to continue living there, but they still perform every day in Washington Square Park, keeping the energy alive. Greenwich Village is now one of the best neighborhoods in New York City because it has become a much safer place to raise a family, yet it still manages to keep the artsy vibe which drew people in originally. If I could live anywhere in the world as a single, affluent, young adult, I could think of no better place to live than here. Greenwich Village is within walking distance to almost all of your needs, and is a short subway or bus ride to everything else. It is an affluent, growing neighborhood, full of life and of people who enjoy art and culture. Gentrification is no longer a huge issue, and the neighborhood still manages to keep its Bohemian vibe. This city has everything I could ask for, and would be the perfect place to move to.

Week One

Hey everyone! My name is Allison Shebek. I am a sophomore at ASU majoring in Tourism Development and Management. This is my first year here at ASU because I attended NAU my freshman year. The school and town (and weather) were not a good fit for me, so I moved back down to Tempe and I am so glad I did. When I graduate, I hope to work on a cruise ship, or perhaps for a large company such as Disney. I can't wait to get to know you all better and I hope you all have a fantastic semester!

I thought that our first class was very interesting. I was introduced to a lot of new topics that I had never heard of before. I never knew about the policy cycle that policies go through, and how long it takes for policies to go into effect. Before coming to this class, I thought that a policy was just a policy, and didn't realize that there were so many different types, such as distributive and regulatory. Reading Urban Policy Reconsidered really helped me to understand policy better, and how every little thing can have a profound effect on a city. I really liked how the author described people and place as being constitutive of each other to describe how people are affected by their surroundings, and vice-versa. People's attitudes, beliefs, and social status are affected by their communities, and they in turn affect the community themselves. This led to the question of how cities decide how to implement policy, and whether the individuals or the community are what needs to be changed. The policy approach that we talked about in class that really resonated with me was communitarian vs individalism because I was able to agree with both sides' views. This topic really made me think about what view I most closely fit with. I think that shared resources are a good thing, which fits with the communitarian approach, but I also feel that it would be difficult because it would be impossible to decide what's best for everyone. I agree with the individualism approach that free will is important, but I am not so sure that the private sphere should always be more important than the public sphere, so I feel that I probably lie somewhere in the middle between these views. I think that I am going to learn a lot from this class, and knowledge about public and urban policies will be a great benefit to me in my career and my life.