The purpose of the American school system as presented by Gatto is one premised on making the general populace more manageable is an idea that I had heard before as a criticism for the American school system. While I do agree with many of the points made by Gatto, I feel like he fails to give adequate means of replacing and improving upon the current system and fails to outline an effective way in which parents can counteract the effects of school on their children. While he suggests alternatives like private school and homeschooling, which may not entirely conform to the current system, they still share many similar qualities and without proper oversight can take advantage of students and their families as seen in the Charter school movement within Chicago. Gatto also fails to address the concrete ways in which he would reform the current school system. While he mentions the development of certain traits such as free thinking, inquisitiveness, maturity, he leaves it up to the parents to combat a system in which they have already been inculcated and teach values to their children that they may have never been taught themselves. Additionally, the solution presented by Gatto of having the parents counteract what the school system teaches their children becomes problematic for low-income and single parent families who don’t always have the time or resources to engage in the activities Gatto suggests. So while I think the ideas presented in this article are important I believe that he fails to provide adequate solutions for the problem, especially among low-income students that suffer the most from such a system.