User:Alabaw25/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating this article: Politics in education

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article because, while I am not a political science major, I am interested in politics and its influence on the education system. This article matters because it gives an overview of the power structures that influence school systems from both within and above them. My preliminary impression of it was that it was short and so brief that I felt I hadn't really gleaned any substantial new information from it. The terminology explanations were vague and never really elaborated upon in a detailed, pertinent manner. As for tone and balance, the article is neutral, but missing elaboration on other points of view. It briefly mentions "more debates" but never describes the positions taken in these debates.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of the article seemed to delve into the core ideas of politics in education without ever really defining what exactly politics in education is. It explains the roots but never really leads back to the main idea, and includes information that's not elaborated upon later on. The article's content is relevant, but at present, it seems only tangentially. Macro- and micro-politics are defined, but barely related back to the education system and explained in that context. The article does not deal with any of Wikipedia's equity gaps. Source-wise, the article seems to be missing many citations. There are only two in the entire passage, and there are definitely statements -- mainly, definitions -- which could use attribution. Organizationally, the article does not seem to have a purposeful structure. You could switch around any of the three paragraphs and it would not seem to have any major difference on the conveyance of information. The writing style is succinct, but perhaps too much so; the article feels overly general and never really delves into the politics of education with any examples. There are no images and media included in this article. On the talk page, Wikipedians concur with my conclusions, namely, that the article is too vague and scattered in organization, and could use more elaboration on the definitions. The talk page also made me notice that the references are very outdated, from over 20 years ago. Overall, I believe the article's only real strengths are brevity and neutrality, but the former ends up ultimately as a weakness, since the reader finishes the article feeling like they have not learned much, if at all. The article can be improved with more relation of the political definitions back to the education system, and maybe a few examples of how politics has influenced education in the past. I would say that this article is underdeveloped, but at least on the right track. — ~