Education in Texas

The author's editorial that I am about to critique can be found here: http://www.statesman.com/ap/ap/education/recent-editorials-from-texas-newspapers/nSDs3/. The title of the article is "Our schools: Texas must improve education". The editorial was written by The Associated Press for El Paso Times and published on September 17, 2012. The author’s intended audience is for everyone basically because the author is trying to inform why education needs to be improved. Obviously, it is mainly geared towards the government and how they should pay attention to schools since educating children should be a priority since they are the future. The author seemed to provide facts that show why the education system has been declining. For example, the author states how teachers focus on having the students pass their standardized tests instead of focusing on the basic courses such as math and science. Without the proper knowledge of these basic courses, the students will feel unprepared for the future classes they may have to take in order to further continue their education. Standardized tests don’t prepare students for their future because it’s just a way to memorize facts in order to pass a test. The author’s argument is that the Texas government should try to give a reasonable budget for education instead of taking it away so that education can be improved. The author states how cities like Houston and Dallas have been taking steps that help improve the education in their cities but it costs money to do those things. I agree with the author because I am a student myself and I think that education is vital for people since it gives us not only knowledge but it will also lead to careers that we will have in the near future in order to maintain the society.