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**Blue Curry 3/22/11 ** =Article: “Education keeps America safe” = **Summary:** This article pertains to the reform needed to improve the education in the United States. The article reflects upon the great power of this nation. However, our education standard haven’t been close to the other competing countries. Even though the United States spends the most money on education in the world, America is globally ranked very near to the bottom. In the armed forces, many soldiers were found that couldn’t read training manuals to educate themselves about their equipment. If our own soldiers aren’t educated our diplomatic power will obviously deteriorate. How can we be considered a “Super Power” country if education is in decline? Our education is what drives this country. It has a massive effect upon everything within this great nation. The CNN article continues to explain that if progression doesn’t occur, certain turmoil will be upon us. The main idea of the article is directly in the passage, “America's greatest strengths stem from the freedom to innovate, create, compete and succeed. Without a wide base of educated and capable citizens, our strengths will fade, and the United States will lose its capacity to lead in the international community.” From a conference of diplomatic leaders, several recommendations were offered to improve the standards of American education. The most important recommendation was to enhance the standards in state testing. So for students in Central York High School, the PSSAs would become even harder to better measure their education.
 * Current Event #5 - Reform **

**Relevance:** With education having such a large effect on the entire nation, much is at jeopardy. Just before entering World War II, Franklin Roosevelt stated that America “must be the great arsenal of democracy.” This meant we were to use our American powers of intelligence and creation to win the second great war. But, where would we be today without our power of intelligence? We would have been just another undeveloped nation trying to avoid being conquered during the war. Even further back, in 1899, America faced a difficult decision. Ultimately it was decided that America would annex the Philippines. In 1903, President McKinely justified his decision by stating the only thing we could do for the Philippines was to take them in and educate them. Once again, we see how important education was in history. If we were without, America and possibly the Philippines could have suffered. Most recently, there was a tragedy in Afghanistan. An American soldier is on trial for the murder of 17 people. It was said that he acted out of rampage. Education plays a role in this because If our soldiers were better educated, then maybe they would act with more common sense and intelligence rather than rampage. With hundreds more examples readily available, I think I’ve proven the point that education is extremely relevant to history, as well as present time. So, if America continues their educational decline, we can expect to see repetition in history. Educational reform has to make an appearance if America hopes to maintain a place of power in the World.

**Explanation:** This article is directly related to Educational reform. The article states all the major problems that America has in context to their education. Later, the article even stated many possible recommendations to improve the current education. So, the article gave potential reforms for our government to use. In conclusion, clearly education is ridiculously important to this nation. Again in reiteration, unless America begins the reform process, the nation will continue to suffer and eventually lose the title of being a strong and powerful country. America’s global influence is truly at stake.

1. How far behind is America’s education? 2. How long will it take for us to notice a severe effect of bad education? 3. Since we pay the most money for education, what can we do to better ourselves? 4. Do opposing countries notice the fact and possibly view it as a weakness? 5. Can these recommendations truly benefit? 6. Is this a trending topic in the upcoming election? 7. Does the public know that our education is very bad?
 * Questions: **

Hodge, Nathan. "Sgt. Bales to Face 17 Murder Charges." The Wall Street Journal. N.p., 22 Mar. 2012. Web. 22 Mar. 2012. < [|__http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527023046364045772980__]
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Works Cited: **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Philippine–American War." Wikipedia. N.p., 22 Mar. 2012. Web. 22 Mar. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War>.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"President Willam McKinley on Annexation." History Matters. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2012. <http://historymatters.gmu.edu/blackboard/mckinley.html>.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rice, Condoleezza, and Joel Klein. "Education keeps America safe." CNN. N.p., 20 Mar. 2012. Web. 22 Mar. 2012. <http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-20/opinion/opinion_rice-klein-education_1_education-national-security-increasingly-competitive-world-economy/3?_s=PM:OPINION>.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"The Arsenal of Democracy." American Rhetoric. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2012. < <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">__http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrarsenalofdemocracy.html>.__