Politicians are constantly looking for ways to fix the ever mounting problems that the country faces and it is wasting time and money because they are going at it wrong.
America’s problems are like a weed and you don’t kill a weed by attacking leaves, you need to attack the roots.
Education is the root of
America’s problems.
Education has become a tool for limiting students as opposed to being a launch pad for their success.
Classrooms that have twenty to thirty students and only one teacher mean that it is nearly impossible for each child to have their needs met.
Pivotal points in education such as reading and writing are not fulfilled because the teacher is simply ill equipped to give 20 different students the tools they need to learn.
In the end, teachers are forced to teach what they can and ship the kids off to the next grade for the next teacher to catch them up with where they need to be before their class can even start, putting all of the children behind and ill equipped for the classes they take.
The No Child Left Behind Act is the pinnacle of the failure of our government.
The Act deals a blow to the country far worse than any terrorist action.
The idea of all students simply learning a test is a betrayal of what education is about.
Teachers are forced to cover only a set curriculum for their students which rarely promotes critical thinking or any questioning of the material so that the students will pass a teat and the state will get rewarded.
It’s a disgrace that education has simply become a tool for the state officials to add a gold star to their political career.
Another problem is the treatment of gifted students.
Schools have become so focused on raising test scores that all of their time and funding go into the support of the remedial students while the needs of advanced programs go unanswered.
The NCLB Act has created an ever-lowering bar for the students to reach and it is making them unable to cope in the world.
Our economy is becoming more and more dependant on highly skilled, highly educated workers but the supply of these employees can no longer be met by our schools.
If anything is ever going to change for the better in
America, then politicians are going to need to find a way to reform education for the better.
We need a strong foundation to build the future of this country on, and the schools we have now aren’t capable of producing the thinkers and doers who will make a difference.
4 comments:
I agree strongly with many of the statements made regarding teh flaws in America's education system however i see a lot of overgeneralizations in this post which I find a bit unreasoned.
First, I could not agree more that the No Child Left Behind act is a bizarre and ineffective way of dealing with undereducated citizens. Imagine if we as a nation delt with all problems in this way, forcing all of the talented and gifted individuals to humble themselves in efforts to raise the below average up to an average standard. We would end up with a nation of mediocrity, and in fact we may be doing just that. In sports the most talented athletes are rewarded and education should be no different. In career settings the best and most hard working are rewarded not forced to lesser themselves in efforts not to outshine others.
I assume that the author of this post and I are in agreement that standardized tests are a good way to make education trivial and petty, however i disgree that America's education system is the root of all of our nations problems.
I think this post establishes some very important points about the ridiculousness of our nations current educational system. However I believe the overgeneralizations harm the author's argument and I dont know that I would compare the No Child Left Behind act to terrorism.
Thus while I agree that the No Child Left Behind act needs to be improved upon if not completely scratched, I'm not quite convinced I would label it "The Root of All Evil."
I agree with the one point here: the education system in the U.S. is flawed, and is not a “spring board” for as many students as it could be (especially when placed against the backdrop of the success rates of foreign countries like China and India). The argument you made about American education system as the “pinnacle of the failure of our government” is faulty. How do you explain the success rates of Americans who are involved in this system and continue with higher education which leads to successful careers and lifestyles? Also, the NCLB act has been in effect a total of seven years, barely enough time for one generation of primary school students to graduate with it in effect. This isn’t a lot of time for the results of the program to validate the claim that it is not successful, and is really the only piece of factual evidence carrying your entire argument. In addition, the claim that one teacher per 20-30 students as “detrimental” is subjective. As a UT student, I have encountered classes with well over 200 students with one professor and one or two TA’s, and ended up getting a thorough knowledge of the material. Perhaps it would be good to cite some of the developmental needs of children in these learning situations, and go into some detail about how it might be detrimental to a child or adolescent’s education.
Overall, this was an interesting read. The claim, however, was really extreme considering the lack of factual evidence used. Thanks for the post.
There are many good thoughts and ideas in this post. I think the statistics prove that our primary education is extremely sub-par compared to historically 1st world countries. I think one of the points left out here is the education level after primary school.
If we take a look at our universities, there is a dominance of foreign students, especially in the more recent years. Our universities are still regarded as the top standard across the globe, and people come from all over to gain from our great education. The problem is that these people are given easier admittance to our colleges, rather than giving preference to people who will take their education and use it in our country to help us progress. Instead, foreigners are benefiting from our teachings and strengthing America's competition, thus reducing our dominance as the global leader.
The public school system, however, is indeed very sub-par. Our students are rarely encouraged to focus on education, as they see people on TV that are very successful without needing to be educated. The No Child Left Behind act is basically forcing people to learn who likely donnot want to learn. If our country could regain the image that education is a positive thing, and we could motivate students to want to be educated, then our children would try to learn instead of being forced.
This act both gives students a negative vibe about learning, and limits the education potential of those who actually want to push themselves in school, without being forced to spend a fortune in private schools.
While I agree that our system is flawed, it is not near the "root of all evil." I would love for every person in our society to be extremely educated, but the truth is we cannot function as a country this way. We would be forced to increase the level of illegal immigrants to run our restaurants, grocery stores, car washes etc... It is true that the act may put a limit on a students potential, but the truth is, once they get to college they can get a great education (if they can manage tuition.) We are by no means and uneducated society, and we have the most dominant economy in the world. Our education system obviously isnt acting like terrorism for our society.
It's good to see that some people actually understand what a major underlying problem facing America is. With all the lies and distractions thrown at us on a daily basis about who is to blame for our problems, and who the enemy is, we need to remember that a vast majority of us are becoming a highly ignorant group of people, a detriment to ourselves as a nation. This leads to complacent, docile consumers that are used to merely turn the cogs and further the interests of the elite few. What sort of Orwellian-type future may we be setting into motion by homogenizing our educational system and making sure all children are "formatted" to think and perform the same?
The analogy of the weeds is a good example that can express a multiplicity of woes that are constantly being "pruned" but never uprooted. Indeed, it is a bold statement to say that this negligence is far worse than any terrorist attack as far as debilitating our country. It can be viewed as a sustained low-level "attack" that has a persistent negative effect.
It really seems that what we should be stressing to the youth is a good sense of creativity. This is what would lead to a strong, flexible nation that can adapt to ever-changing demands and challenges the we face collectively as a people.
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