1. Vocational (STEM) Based education
1.1. Vocational (STEM) based education is needed to keep up with the world's innovations
1.1.1. "The language of work and global competitiveness did not always dominate public conversations about education. Its recent ascendancy can be traced to 1957. The Soviet launch of Sputnik, the first satellite, provoked a sense that the United States was falling behind in a Cold War scientific contest. The response was the National Defense Education Act, signed into law in 1958, which increased funding for science and math education, as well as vocational training" (pg. 9).
1.1.1.1. Historical
1.2. Vocational (STEM) based education brings Solutions for economic inequality issues
1.2.1. Such arguments from economists—that vocationalism generally and STEM in particular are the solutions both for inequality and for America's ostensibly precarious global economic standing—have been widely adopted at the highest levels of government. President Obama, in his 2013 State of the Union address, announced a competition to “redesign America's high schools." Rewards would go, he said, to schools that develop more classes “that focus on science, technology, engineering, and math—the skills today's employers are looking for to fill jobs right now and in the future." More recently, in his 2016 State of the Union address, the president announced a Computer Science for All initiative that would make students "job-ready on day one" (pg. 10).
1.2.1.1. Historical/ Expert
2. Civic Based education
2.1. Democratic Engagement Preparedness
2.1.1. "Education, they argue, fosters participation because it prepares people for democratic engagement. Reading, writing, and collaboration are, after all, the basic instruments of political action. An education that prepares every student for civic and political engagement not only supports political equality but may also lead to increased economic fairness" (pg. 11).
2.1.1.1. Expert
2.2. Citizens have the ability to determine if thier government is performing correctly.
2.2.1. "Properly conducted, the citizen’s intellectual labor should result in a probabilistic judgment answering this critical question: What combination of principle and organizational form is most likely to secure collective safety and happiness? To make judgments about the course of human events and our government’s role in them, we need history, anthropology, cultural studies, economics, political science, sociology, and psychology, not to mention math—especially the statistical reasoning necessary for probabilistic judgment—and science, as governmental policy naturally intersects with scientific questions. If we are to decide on the core principles that should orient our judgments about what will bring about safety and happiness, surely we need philosophy, literature, and religion or its history" (pg. 12-13).
2.2.1.1. Expert
2.2.2. "Given that the liberal arts are especially useful for training citizens, it should come as little surprise that attainment in the humanities and social sciences appears to correlate with increased engagement in politics. There is a statistically significant difference between the rates of political participation among humanities and STEM graduates. Data from the Department of Education reveal that, among 2008 college graduates, 92.8 percent of humanities majors have voted at least once since finishing school. Among STEM majors, that number is 83.5 percent. And, within ten years of graduation, 44.1 percent of 1993 humanities graduates had written to public officials, compared to 30.1 percent of STEM majors" (pg. 13).
2.2.2.1. Statistics
2.3. "Ideal Ordinary Citizen"
2.3.1. "And, even more importantly, we have lost sight of the ideal ordinary citizen, who is not a professional politician but who has nonetheless developed all of the competencies described above and who is proud to be involved in politics" (pg.12).
2.3.2. Key Term
2.4. Civic Agency/ Civic Agent
2.4.1. "The ideal civic agent carries out all three of these tasks disinterested deliberation, prophetic frame shifting, and fair fighting—ethically and justly. Stanton is an example of this ideal at work. At the Seneca Falls Convention, she was in deliberative mode for the debate about the text of the Declaration of Sentiments. However, before the convention’s deliberations, when she drafted that text, she was in the prophetic mode, just as she was in her innumerable speeches. Finally, in campaigning for legal change, as in the adoption of the Woman's Property Bill in New York and similar laws in other states, she was operating as an activist" (pg. 11-12).
2.4.2. Key Term