Problems in American Education

The the Statesn system of rules of reproduction has a lot been criticized in umpteen circles. By objective measures, such as regularise test stacks, the United States lags behind opposite industrialized nations in scores on subjects such as math and science. The most recent comparisons waste the United States ranked sixteenth in a field of the thirty wealthiest nations in science. (Glod, A07) They ranked twenty-third in the same field with evaluate to math scores. (Glod, A07) The regions with which these students were comp ard were, for the most part in Western Europe and easternmost Asia.(Glod, A07) The popular Ameri later part culture makes light of how uneducated the general world is. Shows like the Late Show with Jay Leno take to the streets and ask people relatively simple questions, which they locoweed non answer. Game shows such as Are you Smarter than A fifth Grader make light of adult ignorance, and news organizations emphasize the jobs in Americas develops . A close examination of the motives, methods and goals of common facts of life in the United States along with a review of customary attitudes toward learning mould light upon some of the reasons for the substandard reputation of Americas checks.It can be argued that in terms of economic benefits, our take days atomic number 18 adequately supremacyful, alone in terms of a social and ethnical tool, American schools fall well short of their foreign counterparts, as well as their deliver stated goals. (Rebell, 37)The reasons for this are lack of proper livelihood, the treatment of disciplineers, and the localized entertain of schools attempting to achieve unrealistic federal mandates. civilises in America crossways the venire are under-funded. Mevery studies oblige demonstrated that the persona of upbringing is greatly enhanced by suffering teacher-to-student ratios.The National Education billet recommends a ratio of no more(prenominal) than than 15 student s per teacher in simple schools. (Roza, milling machine & Hill) Across the nation, the average class size for elementary school is 22-25 students per teacher. (Roza, Miller & Hill) Given numerous studies that prove that the smaller ratio yields real, obvious overtures in math and science scores, it is clear that more suitable teachers and more facilities wherein they might teach are needed. (Roza, Miller & Hill) These assets, however, cost silver.(Roza, Miller & Hill) The states and localities are expected to find money for schools, and the method of choice for funding schools has been the stead tax. (Roza, Miller & Hill) Coupled with the event that schools generally serve the neighborhoods in which they are located, and the endemic problem becomes clear Schools from poorer neighborhoods will surrender less money because property values are lower. (Roza, Miller & Hill) Both the States and the Federal political science have attempted, with limited success to solve these inade quacies.(Roza, Miller & Hill) The federal government, by dint of the Title I program, has allocated $18 billion to fill the economic holes in funding for impoverished districts, plainly these programs have droped, as the money is a good deal either diverted, or neer moved owing to loopholes in the real laws. (Roza, Miller & Hill) Federal studies have shown that school districts generally favor financially those schools who have the fewest challenges, and that Title I money is frequently funneled to schools with mid spend a penny or no financial need.(Roza, Miller & Hill) Teacher buckle under is other sector in which the lack of funds has hurt educational outcomes in America. Thirty-six states have a funding feast, with a nationwide disparity mingled with exalted-poverty and low-poverty districts of $1,348 per student. Funding gaps and the lack of progress in eliminating them continue to contri only whene to the boilersuit lack of relative success in Americas public Sc hools. (Carey, K. ) In twenty-five of a forty-nine state study, the highest-poverty school districts get fewer resources than the lowest-poverty districts. (Carey, K. ) Even more states have a gap for high-minority districts, thirty-one in all.Those thirty-one states educate six out of every ten poor and minority fryren in America. The shortfalls, some exceeding $1,000 or even $2,000 per student, are greatly at odds with national goals for conclusion the achievement gap. (Carey, K. ) They fly in the face of any reasonable, rational fantasy of how to support our public schools. (Carey, K. ) Until state policymakers get serious about fixity these problems, they cannot in good conscience pretend to have fulfilled their basic obligations to those students who are most in need of a high-quality public education. (Carey, K.) Moreover, these chassiss actually understate the true extent of the problem because they dont reflect the added cost of educating children in poverty. (Carey, K. ) School funding experts generally agree that high-poverty schools need more resources to meet the same standards. (Carey, K. ) School funding comparisons that reflect this fact have been a mainstay of faculty member research and various technical analyses of school finance for a number of age. (Carey, K. ) Recent examples of such analyses include publications from both the U. S. Department of Education and the U. S. disposal Accountability Office.(Carey, K. ) The average teacher salary in the United States is between $39 and $43 thousand dollars a year, depending on location. (Average Salaries)It typically takes a four-year degree and additional study of content to qualify to be a teacher. (Porter, C) In contrast, other nonrecreationals with four-year degrees earn over twice that amount, particularly if their area of study is math or science related. (Cowan, K. ) It shouldnt be surprising, then, that qualified math and science teachers are in high demand. The money requiremen t to lure these types of people into education simply does not exist in the authorized budgets.Critics of this analysis argue that substantial raises in teacher pay would be throwing money at the problem, and over-compensating a population of underperforming teachers. (Porter, C) This argument is precious. The current population of teachers do not represent the best available, largely because of low salary as better quality educators become available, the job market will become competitive, and with a very short time, the overall quality of those teachers would rise to the level appropriate to the pay. Related to the low salaries of the teachers are the cultural attitudes that America has toward schools, teachers and education.It is these attitudes that contri preciselye to the problems that Educators in this country face when trying to argue with other nations. (Porter, C) Americans have long been used to the notion that a uninvolved and appropriate education for their children was a fundamental right. (Porter, C) As a leave, many schools have devolved into nothing more than quasi-educational daycares for all American children. (Porter, C) The fact that American parents express more satisfaction with the schools than do their European and Asian counterparts illustrates the US cultural complacency with respect to education.(Porter, C) Students in these foreign schools work harder for a number of reasons. First, they are under more parental scrutiny, second, their cultures do not denigrate learning and academician achievement, and third, admission to favorable careers and higher education is based on close assessment of learning achievement in high school. (Bishop, J. ) In contrast, students in US schools do not pick out the benefits of education for a number of reasons. (Bishop, J. ) First, the U. S. labor market does not proceeds high school achievement. (Bishop, J.) Statistics indicate that for the first eight years after high school, achievement doe s not correlate to increase in compensation for the high school educated. (Bishop, J. ) Most employers do not look deeply at grades of high school graduates, and many schools do not lance transcripts to prospective employers, even when requested to do so. (Bishop, J. ) Another key modify factor to the lower expectations of benefit for American students in high school is the fact that college admissions are not based on high school cognitive process as much as on aptitude tests. (Bishop, J.) The result is that neither students nor parents are motivated to push for higher academic standards, since they would scupper GPA, SAT scores and class rank, the three key statistics examined for university admission (Bishop, J. ). The fact that parents and students to not regard the field of education as important in its own right is caused by several factors. The first is the sense of entitlement that parents have about education. (Bishop, J. ) They feel that students have a right not to l earn, only to get a Diploma, go to college, and achieve the financial success associated with college education.(Porter, C. ) Parents and students across the board assume that this is an entitlement, rather than something to be earned through apparent movement and ability. (Porter, C. ) The basic notion is that education is something done to a child, rather than something the child does. (Porter, C. ) This attitude, shared by parents, students and even some administrators dovetails into the lack of respect for educators that is reflected by poor pay. In no other profession, are professionals questioned, criticized and scrutinized by their clients than in education. (Porter, C.) disrespect teachers having obtained a four-year degree, additional training for teaching, and how ever many years of experience they might have, their clients (parents) are still convinced that they know more than the professionals as to how their student might learn. (Porter, C. ) The notion that those wh o cant do, teach and the underlying notion that teachers have that job because they cannot do anything else contributes to this lack of professional respect. (Porter, C. ) Low salary validates this viewpoint. The underlying effrontery is that if a teacher were efficient, they would be doing something else that yields better pay.Often, this attitude is displayed by school administrators, who often treat teachers as fungible units of work, with little or no consideration for their abilities, expertise, experience or suggestions. (Porter, C. ) The fact that administrators are often acting according to governmental or budgetary guidelines does not detract from the perception created by their conduct. (Porter, C. ) In European cultures, as well as many Asian ones, the opposite assumption is held. Parents expect very high output from not only teachers, but students as well. (Bishop, J.) The question is not can you teach my child, but rather, can my child learn from you what he or she ne eds. (Bishop, J. ) While salaries for European or Asian teachers may not be as high comparatively, the level of respect afforded to the profession is much higher. (Bishop, J. ) This begins with students believing and understanding that education is their responsibility, not that of their teachers. (Bishop, J. ) This causes the students to put in maximum effort to learn, which in cut into solves a vast majority of the problems experienced in the American system. (Bishop, J.) A teacher who is unable to perform in an environment of students who are exceedingly motivated to learn is not competent, and would need to be retrained or replaced. (Bishop, J. ) The cite of the real value of education by the public makes the raising of funds to pay for quality teachers and facilities much easier as well. Since all of the community and the government recognize the economic need for quality education, it is given budgetary priority. (Bishop, J. ) Despite these deficiencies, the political will to spend the money needed to improve schools is not present.When a study is done which ranks US education as at a lower place international standards, there is often an outcry, and much talk about improvement, but very little actually happens. The Federal government has issued edicts such as No squirt leftover Behind which articulates goals without a roadmap or funding to achieve them. (Neill, M. ) This mandate has contributed significantly to the inability of schools to meet their educational goals. It is interpreted as a given, even by proponents of the No Child go forth Behind program that it is under funded, but that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of this issue.(Neill, M. ) The federal government has, in this law, issued what is known as an unfunded mandate by insisting the States meet certain standards without providing the meaning to do so(Neill, M. ). This is merely one of numerous problems with the No Child left-hand(a) Behind concept. (Neill, M. ) Modeling t he concept after an inaugural in Houston, the No Child left wing Behind program has been unable to reproduce that success in other places. (Neill, M. ) Studies of the Houston plan show that the success illustrated there was never really present to begin with (Neill, M. ).Results were manipulated by excluding non-performing students from counts, and even with that provision, the race-gap was not address in Houston. (Neill, M. ) By dividing student groups up by race and other demographics, studies have also shown that the more diverse the culture of a school district, the less likely they are to meet the No Child leftover Behind standards of achievement. (Neill, M. ) In fact, some studies have shown that given current demographic shifts, virtually all schools will eventually fall short of the improvement standards set by the initiative. (Neill, M.) Since the sole measure in the No Child Left Behind initiative is standardized tests, the entire focus of education has become test prep aration. (Neill, M. ) This narrows class, and puts undue pressure on students, teachers and administrators. (Neill, M. ) It also compacts curriculum away from higher level thinking skills which are far more useful assets for future academic, financial and social success. (Neill, M. ) No Child Left Behind demands that English-language-impaired and special-needs students meet proficiency standards without any means of making this happen.(Neill, M. ) The possible action is that the mere institution of the requirement, coupled with the threat of punishment for failure, will force the schools to improve in this area. (Neill, M. ) By privatizing tutoring and support funding, No Child Left Behind not only takes money away from public schools, but also promotes the perception that failures of student performance are based on incompetent or lazy teaching, rather than anything associated with student efforts, or any other factor. (Neill, M.) No Child Left Behind labels certain schools as f ailures, which causes the quality teachers within such schools to transfer out, and creates a difficult modality for the schools to recruit quality teachers. (Neill, M. ) The initiative in no way addresses socio-economic causes of academic struggles, making no effort to feed, clothe or house underachieving students in order to make them able to focus on academics. (Neill, M. ) Finally, the remedies offered by No Child Left Behind have failed to fix schools which prove to be in need of improvement according to their own standards.(Neill, M. ) In fact, the initiative actively prevents measures which have proven to offer improvement for schools with poor performance records. (Neill, M. ) Portfolio assessment, teacher training, proactive parent involvement, and other proven methods of improvement are shoved aside in favor of artificial standards based on tests that fail to address the actual goals of education, and whose contents are ridiculously unrepresentative of competent content. (Neill, M. )Lack of proper funding, the treatment of teachers, and the localized control of schools attempting to achieve unrealistic Federal mandates have caused United States Schools to under perform in comparison to their European and Asian counterparts. The culture of contempt for education professionals and disengaged parents have created a system which is deeply flawed. Resolution of these problems would involve wholesale restructuring, massive rebuilding and big amounts of money.Given the continued economic strength of the United States despite perennial failures in education, it is likely that the government will allow the top ten portion to gain benefits from public education, while everyone else, including parents, teachers, administrators and most students are left involved in a tangle of misguided regulation, spurious funding, unrealistic expectations and public contempt for their efforts. Bibliography Average Salaries of Public School Teachers The National Education A gency Website 2004-5 The National Education Agency 2002. http//www. nea. org/edstats/RankFull06b.htm Bishop, J. Incentives for Learning Why American exalted School Students Compare so Poorly to Their Counterparts Overseas Center for advanced(a) Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) CAHRS Working Paper Series 1989. Accessed November 14, 2008. http//digitalcommons. ilr. cornell. edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi? article=1399& scope=cahrswp Carey, C. The Funding Gap 2004 Many States Still Shortchange Low-Income and Minority Students The Education go for Website 2004. The Education Trust. 2007. http//www2. edtrust. org/NR/rdonlyres/30B3C1B3-3DA6-4809-AFB9-2DAACF11CF88/0/funding2004. pdf Cowan, K.List of Best Degrees by Salary PayScale Website 2008 PayScale, Inc. 2000. http//blogs. payscale. com/salary_report_kris_cowan/2008/07/list-of-best-co. hypertext markup language Glod, M. U. S. Teens Trail Peers Around World on Math-Science Test The Washington mail Wednesday, December 5, 2007 Page A07 http// www. washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/04/AR2007120400730. html Neill, M. No Child Left Behind After Two Years A Track Record Of Failure Time Out from Testing Website. 2008 effect Assessment 2001 http//www. timeoutfromtesting. org/pr/PR_Neil_NoChildLeftBehind.pdf Porter, C. Interview (personal) 12 November, 2008. Rebell, M. Professional Rigor, Public affair and Judicial Review A Proposal for Enhancing the Validity of Education enough Studies. Teacher College Record Volume 109, Number 6, 2007 Pg. 1-73. http//www. schoolfunding. info/resource_center/research/professional_rigor. pdf Roza, M, Miller L. & Hill, P. Strengthening Title 1 to Help High-Poverty Schools The University of Washington website 2005 The university of Washington,2008 http//uwnews. org/relatedcontent/2005/August/rc_parentID11695_thisID11712. pdf