It’s 7:45 on a cold and cloudy Monday morning.
The final morning bell rings as students groggily
pile in to a crowded class room and shuffle into their respective, worn down
desks.
It’s 7:50.
The teacher gulps her last
ounce of morning coffee and strides to the front of the
room, ready for a day of mandated, predetermined instruction.
It’s 8:30.
The teacher finishes her last piece of note
taking and passes out the latest tedious busy work. Hour one is over and
students put away their books and lug on to the next classroom like prisoners,
trapped in a continuous and monotonous struggle for excitement and inspiration.
…
It seems that in today’s society, this is what an
average day at school looks like in the eyes of students. Experts argue that
this country’s education system is headed downhill fast. The National Education Association reports that over 10 million Americans have reached the
12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level. Over 20 million
have reached their senior year unable to do basic math. Almost 25 million have
reached 12th grade not knowing the essentials of U.S. history.
This, according to senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and expert on the economics of education Eric Hanushek, means that the United States creates achievements gaps among
socio-economic and regional sectors, gaps that drain about 670 billion from the
economy each year. America ranks about 19th out of 21 industrialized
countries in mathematics comprehension and 16th in science, boasting
dead last in physics.
International Educational Performance Based on PISA Benchmark Standardized Exam | Create infographics
Students, experts, and teachers all seem to agree
that if the country doesn't rescue its education, it will be rendered useless
in competing with a modernized global market and tackling the most pressing
global issues.
“Our education system is incapable of reaching a
quality that the modern world needs,” said Nicholas Garcia, a junior at
Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento, Calif. “Even if they are
striving, there isn't enough money being put forward. The world is moving at a
very fast pace, and our education just can’t keep up.”
Looking at the side of the students, kids like
Garcia see that the problems begin in their classrooms, where there are
fundamental discrepancies in the connection between the teacher and the
student.
“The way they (teachers) learned it and the way that
they are teaching it doesn't intersect with the way we, the students, want to
learn about it,” said Coppell High School senior John Loop, “I don’t want a
worksheet, I don’t get the point, we need to focus on what kids want to learn
and that’s were student interest begins.”
Loop, like many other kids across the country,
argues that teachers should individualize education, and focus on what the kids
want to learn instead of teaching for the test.
“As a teacher it’s their job to find a balance and there
is a problem on the teachers end with execution,” said Loop. I like the hands
on experience and being in the moment, I don’t like sitting in a room where the
teacher is telling me about something I learned in the seventh grade just for a
standardized test.”
This individualization, as well as any other
educational reform however, comes with a hefty price tag, one that students
believe the government needs to pay.
“It’s very sophisticated and expensive,” said
Garcia, “but we need to start taking money away from unneeded programs and try
alternate education programs, re-designing the way that the classroom works.”
The consensus, among kids at least, indicates that
the American educational system is not making the grade it needs to be. Further
investment and reform needs to be implemented to see any lasting improvements
in this country’s schools. Kids like Loop and Garcia feel that the system needs
to be individualized, pinpointing areas of weakness, not teaching for the test,
and inspiring students.
“Teenagers don’t have a keen liking to education,”
said Garcia, “They need to be inspired and be invested in their own education. The
government needs to take steps to ensure that for all kids.”
Apart from the students, educators across the board
also see distinct areas of improvement and places where the government has “dropped
the ball” in our system. Teaching is arguably one of this country’s most
important jobs, and educators adamantly support reform to make America an “A+”
country again.
“Education is foremost an economic issue,” said
award winning teacher from Dexter High School Rod Satterthwaite, “We are dying
for engineers and dying for computer programmers, which forces us to go to
other countries to get these high skilled positions because our K-12 system is
sort of a laughing stock in the world, hurting the general view of our country.”
Satterthwaite illustrates a couple of key areas
where America needs to focus the reform, beginning with the rudiments of everyone’s
educational experience, ages zero through four.
“We are not doing enough early on,” said
Satterhwaite, “A ton of research indicates that they are very crucial years. If
the children aren't stimulated and focused on they begin to fall behind, it
hurts them later on in life.”
Apart from concentration in the early years,
Satterhwaite contends that our educational system needs to be challenging
students and allow them to move forward based on knowledge, not age.
“We have a weird system where students move on based
on how old they are and not how much they know,” said Sattethwaite, “I think if
you are a student who is advanced we need to provide opportunities to challenge
you, not take the ‘focus on the middle’ approach which is slowing us.”
Experts argue that a key pre-requisite to any of
these reforms or any others is changing our system of standardized testing, which
has come under great heat for causing our educational woes. Educators agree
with this assessment, understanding that testing has a role to play and we need
to use it intelligently.
“I don’t think standardized testing is the way to go
but it can be used as a basis,” said Satterthwaite,”There has to be more, we
need to have a critical analysis on what students do well and what students don’t
do well, an evaluation needs to be done, which can be an invaluable tool for
teaching.”
Teachers believe these evaluations can be used to
create an educational system that caters to the individual students and fosters
curiosity, leading to the educational future students like Loop and Garcia are hope
for.
“Individualized
educational programs are huge,” said Satterthwaite, “Studying what you are
interested in is very important.”
It’s definitely no secret that our nation’s schools
are lacking. We are falling behind and falling flat in the face of an
increasingly competitive global community. Although the country may see its hope
for our class rooms diminishing, the solutions provided by our students and
educators can help the United States pinpoint areas in dire need of reform and
tend to them, leading to an educational America that this nation can be proud
of.
…
Its 2:50.
Students blast open the doors and run like the wind
out of the campus, knowing they survived another day in the prison they know as
school. Lawmakers however, hope that with some changes in the future, kids will be a
little less happy to be leaving the classroom and a little happier to be walking
in at 7:45 the next day.
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Kansas Journalism Institute students talk about their least favorite part of American Education
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