Political concepts essay

This article deals with four political concepts. Those concepts are power, influence, authority and government. The first concept is power. Power is a way to directly change a person’s behavior by the use of sanctions or threats.

An example of power in this article is that every child must get tested in math and reading yearly between the grades of three to eight. If students fail to make improvement after two years, technical assistant will be sent to that school. And after five years if there is no major show of improvement the school will be shut down until new management and staff are brought in. The second concept is influence. Influence is when they change another person’s attitudes or behavior. An example of influence is that for once all 50 States have submitted plans to monitor all student performance through their school career. This is the first time that every state has agreed to the same idea. They were influenced by the concern they share for their students in their state.

The third concept is authority. Authority is when an individual’s influence is perceived as legitimate. In this case, when all 50 states agreed to the same idea is a good example of not only influence but authority as well.

They did not have to agree to the student monitoring idea, but they all had a deadline for that collective agreement. Authority sounds a lot like power but its not the same. Power is when you are personally giving an individual or in this case a State a threat. Authority is influencing your decisions to do the right thing. They may not agree with the choice you made, but they will not exert power over you to make you go along with the general idea. The last concept is Government. Government is ubiquitous. It’s everywhere.

There is no place of earth that an individual can go to rid themselves of government. Whether you like it our not, government is all around us. This article is a good example of government. When the President, Federal Officials and Undersecretary of Education is involved, you can see how Government is everywhere.

There is no decision regarding Education that the government does not have a say in. Remember that government is everywhere. There are also five questions that can be answered by reading this article. Those questions are: 1) What makes this situation or event political? 2) Who in this situation has or event has power and influence? ; 3) Can you identify the sources of power and influence for this person, group, or institution? ; 4) For what purposes is this power being used? ; 5) Is this use of power legitimate? Why or why not? With the first question, the whole article is political. Whenever government and education are mixed together, you will always have a political event happening.

Neither the government nor the educators will ever see eye to eye on the final outcome. In this article, the educators want student’s performance monitored. The government also wants this, but they do not want to allocate any more money to the budget. Like Ross Wiener states in the article “” If money indicates priorities, the president believes No Child Left Behind is one sixty-seventh as important as cutting taxes,” With the final outcome of this article and the situation, President Bush has the power, but all the people fighting for No Child Left Behind are the ones that carry all the influence. President Bush had the ultimate say when the government passed the No Child Left Behind Act, but in the mean time, these members of No Child Left Behind will have the chance to influence the President into allocating more money and more help to the project. President Bush and the federal officials are the power behind the government.

Ross Wiener, Sandy Feldman, and Krista Kafer to name a few, have the influence in changing the minds in the government. In the long run, the power is being used to help improve children’s education. Yet the government and President Bush seem to be taking the long way around. They would like to see this program, No Child Left Behind, set up and installed as soon as possible, but they are not giving the education budget the money they need to see this plan become a reality. The government passed the No Child Left Behind program into a law, yet, President Bush would like to cut more money out of the educational budget until the time is right to get this program started. In this case the use of power is legitimate.

Ultimately, the government and the supporters of the No Child Left Behind want the same thing. To better educate the students of America. Each group is on a different timetable that’s all. The government would like this set up soon, but not if it is going to cost them more money once they decided to cut the educational budget. The No Child Left Behind Act wants this law installed and running immediately. After all, the students will become the new leaders of the United States of America.