TOW #5 Upside Down by Tina Rosenburg

            I had no idea that there were other ways to run a school besides the traditional way of teaching in the classroom and doing work at home. In the article Turning Education Upside Down by Tina Rosenburg I found out about a new way to run a school called a flipped school. In a flipped school environment teachers upload videos of their lessons that students watch at home, and then in class they apply the lessons. The purpose of the article is to educate the audience about beneficial effects flipped schools. Rosenburg is an established author who has written three books, written for several magazines and is a Pulitzer Prize winner for general non-fiction. She also grew up in Lansing, Michigan; which is located near the first ever flipped school, Chiltondale High School. The audience to this particular article is older people who had no prior knowledge to the new flipped school system, but are in some way connected to the education system. To achieve her purpose Rosenburg uses statistical facts to get the further understanding from the reader. In the article Rosenburg writes the statistical finding from Chiltondale “the failure rate in English went from 52 percent to 19 percent; in math, it dropped from 44 percent to 19 percent.” The information that is provided by the statistical information furthers the understanding of the reader, which then assists in showing the beneficial factors of the new way of schooling. I personally believe that Rosenburg only partially achieves her purpose. I did learn about this new form of education that I had no idea even existed, which does support part of her purpose. Rosenburg; however, fails to fully show that the new school system is entirely beneficial. She lacks some essential facts about the school; such as how the students feel about it, ways in which the system does not work and much more information that is needed in order to see that flipped schools are beneficial.