Have you ever wondered how our country would be if the public school system was never reformed. Even though we would not immediately see the results, later on in the future, it would be a disaster. Our future and our lives will be in the hands of the students we are educating today. If our schools continue to produce students that are in the 12th grade and reading on an elementary level or if the dropout rate continues with students dropping out of school before they able to vote, our future is in trouble. A change is desperately needed in the direction of our schools. If not, America’s upcoming generations will not be prepared for the future and our country will suffer.
The Consequences of Not Reforming
One consequence is innumerable students will not be qualified to work and our society will be filled with less productive people. There will be a shortage of doctors, lawyers, teachers, educators and professional people of many fields. Also, we need to ask ourselves, who will be making the important decisions affecting all of our lives? Our students will not have the ability to solve problems because they have not been trained as well as they lack the cognitive ability to do so. Obviously, the achievement gap between students of different socio-economic classes will increase and possibly, a new social class will emerge.
In addition, the conditions of our schools will continue to decline. America’s students will continue to lag behind the rest of the world and lack the knowledge to be competitive, a role we have always took pride in. America will no longer be a global leader in technology, energy or healthcare because we have not prepared and educated our students properly. Overall, America’s reputation as a world leader will decline.
To avoid all of this, I believe if all public schools raise their standards and expectations of students as well as put more funding into education, regardless of where they attend school, students will be better prepared for the future. If our schools don’t change, our future will be worse than what it is now.
I completely agree with what you are saying, especially within the public school system. I was in a public school and even though I was in a special program to better prepare students for college, I still feel like I struggle a lot to make the grades I am making. I think public schools should raise their standards for us. I think standardized tests such as EOCs should be harder to make sure students thoroughly know the content. I also think that will require teachers to be more motivated to teach their students so they will all pass the exam. That will make the teacher look better if all of their students pass the exam.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is scary to think about what our future will be like if teachers are not pushing harder. Americans are already falling behind China and India in students being prepared for college.
Growing up in a school district that geared students to work in the local paper mill, I know full and well what obtaining an subpar education is like through observing my surroundings. A sizable portion of my education had to be obtained outside of the school environment or through educational services offered over NCVPS in order for me to reach the point that I am at now. Even so, I still that I lack in my education level when compared to students from urban or magnet schools, who have taken 20 plus AP classes during their high school career (my school only offered three, but I managed to take five through online help).
ReplyDeleteSo I must say that I completely agree with your points. The inequality in public education needs to end. I think a great step forward would be to federalize education similar to the French model. By federalize the education system, I mean the act destroy school districts and replacing them with a cabinet of well-educated, qualified individuals who would be appointed by non-partisan committees from the university system. Then the federal ministry of education could nationally standardize school education and equally distribute staff. Essentially, this would eliminate partisanship from education (like the socially-right modifications to the Texas text books) and insure brighter futures for more individuals. I think this would help in the effort to bring the USA back on track and engaged in competition with Western Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and India.
Beachgirl- I can relate to what you are feeling. I was enrolled in almost all honors, dual-enrollment, and AP courses while in high school, but I am still greatly struggling with my workload in college. The level of work in college is so different from high school, many students do poor in their first semester and they have to take remedial courses just to pass. Something definitely needs to be done so that trend can change. As for the EOC, it is a joke. I remembered when I took my Biology EOC, I had no idea how to do the problems on there, but I still made a 4. Now that I am in college, when I look back to the classes that were supposed to be of “Honors” level or challenging, they are honestly a joke.
ReplyDeleteDear Sparky, Im sorry that you had to go through that while in school. At my high school, many students had to take courses through NCVPS because they didn't offer the class there.Your thoughts on how the French run their schools though is very interesting. I do believe if non-partisan officials from universities set the standards and ran the schools, we would be in a better position. If that happened, the standards set in schools would definitely be higher, but I still think there would be some inequity. It's an interesting thought to look into.
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