Why the United States Education System is Failing
The education system in the United States has been on a steady decline for many years. If we compare how students in the United States are faring in comparison to students in other regions of the world, our students are not able to compete at the level of other regions of the world such as Asia. According to the Huffington Post, the highest performing school systems in the world are in Asia, and the reason for that is because those school systems invest in their teachers. Those school systems pay their teachers well and regard the teaching profession as one with prestige. They also require their teachers to take 360 hours of professional development each year. The school systems in Asia are the best because they believe in making sure their teachers are well trained and highly compensated. The U.S. Department of Education http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011033, clearly shows how far behind our school systems are failing in comparison to Asian countries in Reading Literacy, Math and Science.
If our students are going to compete in this new innovative and technological society, we have to produce top quality students, and this is not what we have been currently producing. In our current system, teachers are not compensated nor recognized as highly as they should be, and bad teachers are not weeded out of our schools for re-training or placed in different areas where they can be more beneficial. Teachers here in the United States should be compensated much more than they are today because they have the difficult job of teaching our students who come to school with a myriad of issues that complicate the teaching process. Teachers today have to deal with children who are homeless, have various emotional and psychological problems, not to mention the violence teachers face from their students in the classroom.
When I look back at my own education, I had some wonderful teachers. Teachers that really cared about my learning process. They were also there for me on a personal level as well. When my parents were going through a divorce, my teacher would spend extra time talking with me and giving me extra encouragement. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the great teachers I had in my life.
With that being said, there is also the issue of having bad teachers in the classroom. I have had to deal with some bad teachers in regard to my own children, and there is not much you can do about that situation but to remove your child from that classroom and that is not always an option. So your child is stuck in a classroom with a teacher that shows up to class to collect their paycheck and cares very little about teaching your child. I dealt with that situation by teaching my child their assignments at home and hiring tutors so that my children were afforded a decent education. This is not a dilemma we, as parents, should have to be faced with, but this is what is happening in our schools today. Teachers should be removed from the classroom when the progress of their students are not meeting the guidelines put in place. We cannot allow bad teachers to remain in the classroom.
There has been some progress being made to address some of these issues, but there is still much to be done. On July 18, 2011, President Obama launched the "Educate to Innovate" campaign. According to the White House website, "President Obama’s "Educate to Innovate" campaign is designed to improve the participation and performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and includes efforts from the federal government and from leading companies, foundations, non-profits, and science and engineering societies to work with young people across America to excel in science and math." This is a start, but there needs to be more aggressive measures to ensure that our schools systems are brought up to a level that we will be able to compete in a global economy.
The education of our children should be important to all of us because our future generations are depending on us to do what is necessary to change our failing schools systems into one that is competitive with the best school systems in the world. If we don't stand up for our children's education, we have no one to blame but ourselves when our children fail to succeed.
Sources:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011033
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-jackson/invest-in-teachers_b_844983.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/educate-innovate
Credit for photo:
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2280
