A formal education system was once created by enthusiasts in response to the economic needs of the industrial revolution. In light of the current status of the world economy, it appears that the established educational system is inadequate to satisfy the demands of the hyperconnected, constantly evolving society we live in. Let’s look at 18 issues that keep the US educational system from rising to its previous level of excellence.
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There is insufficient parental involvement.
This is maybe the most annoying of all the things that instructors cannot control. Teachers simply cannot instruct every student and impart all the necessary knowledge in the little amount of time they spend in the classroom. Naturally, there will be some interaction after school. It goes without saying that kids from low-income families frequently face educational challenges, especially if their parents are less educated. However, pupils from upper-class and middle-class homes are also not exempt. When it comes to parental disengagement from academics, higher-class children are also at danger due to the pressures of employment and an excessive reliance on education.
Schools are shutting all over the place.
The year hasn’t been good for public education. A lot of people have found themselves in the firing line. Even while school board members are eager to point out objective statistics, parents, kids, and communities at large feel singled out. In these situations, there is also no formal method for selecting a winner. Sometimes shutting a school is just unavoidable, but communities have to try alternative options first. Districts should think about using underused public schools—icons of the community—for local purposes like adult education programs or community centers rather than closing them. Public school closures shouldn’t be the result of a hasty decision. The choice should center on the one investment that counts most: providing all children in our country with a top-notch public education.
There are too many people in our classrooms.
The experience of each individual learner is better in smaller classes. According to a National Center for Education Statistics research, 14% of American schools are overcrowded. Overcrowded classrooms make it harder for students to learn and for instructors to be effective at a time when kids need more attention than ever to succeed.
Technology is not without its drawbacks.
My stance is in favor of using technology in the classroom. I believe that children are disadvantaged when we disregard the educational potential that technology has provided. Having said that, screen culture in general has made teaching considerably more challenging. In many respects, education has come to be associated with entertainment. As soon as their children are able to use a touch screen, parents eagerly download instructional apps, usually with the greatest of intentions. It is increasingly harder for instructors to stay up to date in the classroom because of the rapid-fire academic curriculum that kids are acquiring both before and during their K–12 years. This is especially true because every student has a different background and level of technology proficiency.
In talented education, variety is lacking.
The most intelligent and accomplished pupils are given the designation of “talented and gifted.” TAG programs divide students based on grade level, starting in early elementary school, in order to support specific learning goals. Even if the philosophy is good, the way it is put into practice frequently results in a boring, ugly picture of modern American public education. District schools must look beyond the stereotypical paradigm of the “gifted” student and develop strategies to more effectively identify many forms of learning potential. The national initiative to better align talented and gifted programs with the dynamic and modern student body is a positive move. However, real transformation takes place on a smaller scale in TAG programs, schools, and specific districts. Understanding the composition of a specific student body must be the first step in this process, as must finding creative methods to involve every student in TAG learning activities.
Even with our growing economy, expenditure for schools remains flat.
According to news headlines, the U.S. economy is slowly recovering from the recession, but expenditure for K–12 public schools is still being squeezed. According to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis released this month, 34 states are financing students at a lower rate than they were before the recession. Given that states bear 44% of the nation’s education expenditures, these depressing figures indicate that even in the face of economic improvement, school budgets will continue to be squeezed. How can we expect things like the achievement gap to narrow or the high school graduation rate to increase if we can’t find the money for our public schools? It seemed sense that when the economy collapsed, budgets would have to be drastically cut. Now that things are more secure, it’s time to resume supporting our K–12 students’ education, which is what really counts.
The strategies from yesterday for teacher preparation are still being used.
In contrast to previous generations of students, today’s classrooms are full with intelligent young people who arrive with a comprehensive perspective on the world that has been shaped by more than just their upbringing. Kids have less innocence when they start kindergarten than in earlier generations because of easy access to knowledge from the moment they can tap a touchscreen on a smartphone and extensive socializing from as early as six weeks old in the form of daycare environments. Stated differently, teachers are not given a blank slate. Rather, they cause young minds to become overloaded with disparate concepts and information, all of which require nurturing or correction.
Innovation in teacher education is lacking.
It seems sense that professors should adapt as well if pupils are. More precisely, it’s time to adapt teacher preparation to the needs of K–12 schools nowadays. Globally, policies and practices are changing to reflect the changing classroom culture, with a lot of these changes being spearheaded by educators. Teachers in American public education need to be better prepared to address the requirements of certain student demographics, recognize the critical role that remote learning plays, and be vocal about their desire to see positive changes in the classroom. It is impossible to implement comprehensive change to satisfy global demand without these teachers.
The school-to-prison pipeline loses some pupils.
Regretfully, more than half of black male students attending metropolitan high schools drop out of school. Approximately 60% of these dropouts will also eventually serve time in jail. Maybe there’s nothing at all to these two figures, or the uncannily comparable ones related to young males of Latino descent. Are these young kids miscreants who will only fail in school and turn to crime as a career? These young men may have accepted their fate in life and never had a shot at success, if any of the hypotheses on hereditary predisposition hold true. However, what if each of those responses is only a roundabout way out? What if dismissing the idea that a good education and a straight-and-narrow lifestyle are related is a simple means of avoiding the actual problems with K–12 education? More is required for students who are at danger of not finishing high school or going to crime than just a stellar report card. They require different advice on how to live a life beyond their present situation. A young person has to believe in the importance of education and how it affects good citizenship in order to have a genuine chance at leading an honest life. That belief system has to be developed via candid discussions about wise decision-making with peers and people you can trust.
Surprisingly, we are not paying attention to the countrywide gender disparity in college.
If you have followed the national movement to better support females in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math), you have probably read about it if you have followed hot-button topics in education for any length of time. It is believed that more women will find long-lasting employment in these historically male-dominated industries by demonstrating to young women that these topics are just as suitable for them as they are for their male counterparts. While I support the inclusion of more women in STEM fields, are educators ignoring a more serious gender gap problem as a result of this concentrated attention on one area? I’m curious about how much of this tendency is grounded in practicalities and how much in the enduring social norm that women must “prove” themselves in order to succeed in the workforce. Is a degree sufficient for women to get employment in any field? If so, males do not, at least not yet, experience the reverse. If the young guys in our classes today do not go to college, will their quality of life be worse or about the same?
The best way to deal with high school dropouts is yet unknown.
Whenever the topic of high school dropouts is brought up, it seems to always come down to money. U.S. According to Census Statistics, 38% of high school dropouts live in poverty, compared to 18% of all families across all demographic groups. In addition, dropouts have a 40% higher likelihood of renting their homes and spend $450 less a month on housing than the general population. About 60% of dropouts don’t possess cars, and they spend more than $300 less a year on entertainment than the typical American. It is evident that, at least in the aggregate, a high school degree is the key to greater incomes. It is undeniable that dropping out of high school has detrimental financial effects, but I find it exhausting how much emphasis is placed on them. To motivate pupils to complete their high school education, we truly need to regard them as learners rather than as earners.
We still lack educational equality.
It has long been ideal for education to be equitable. It’s an ideal that’s honored in many different settings as well. Even the Founding Fathers praised education as a universal goal to which all people should have access. Unfortunately, equity in education has not shown to be a very successful approach. Ultimately, equity is a challenging ideal to uphold, and several approaches that have tried to do so have failed miserably. School systems must have a method for evaluating data on suggested changes to learning goals and practices if they are to achieve fairness. Additionally, these methods ought to assist educators and administrators in realizing what actions they may do to guarantee maximum fairness going future rather than what they must prevent.
Cheating takes on a whole new dimension because to technology. Academic fraud is not a novel concept.
There have always been cheats as long as there have been examinations and homework. However, the appearance of cheating has evolved throughout time. It’s now easier than ever thanks to technology. One of the most intriguing facts about cheating in American schools today may be that students frequently do not believe they have cheated. Technology-aware anti-cheating rules must be created by schools and updated on a regular basis. Instructors need to be on the lookout for what their students are doing in the classroom and how technology could be interfering with their education. In addition, parents need to warn their children about unethical activity, even if it appears harmless to them, and teach them proper methods for accessing academic information.
Making teacher tenure beneficial for both instructors and kids is still a challenge for us.
Tenure is one of the most contentious issues in teacher contracts. Secular education reformers contend that tenure shields ineffective teachers, hurting pupils in the process. Teachers unions argue, among other things, that tenure is required to safeguard the employment of exceptional educators who may otherwise be fired unfairly in light of the constantly evolving K–12 educational landscape, which includes assessment systems. It may frequently be a topic of contention, and as huge school systems like New York City and Chicago have lately shown, it can result in expensive time lost from the classroom. While I wouldn’t advocate for instructors to “give up,” I would be in favor of changing the tenure requirements. For educators working with students in all kinds of schools, it appears to be a suitable first step. Then, that energy may be focused on practical and advantageous clauses in teacher contracts that are advantageous to the whole sector.
We need to think about year-round education in more of our schools.
Does it function? During America’s agricultural era, the custom of having three months of summer vacation provided the basis for the establishment of the standard school year. The system was conceived out of economic necessity, not to meet modern concerns like children requiring “down time” to unwind and “be kids.” As early as the middle of the 1800s, schools in cities like Chicago and New York that did not follow the agricultural calendar began to defy the summer vacation version of the academic calendar. But it wasn’t until much later that the concept took off. Overall, students who attend year-round appear to have a minor academic edge; nevertheless, there are currently too few students enrolled to draw firm conclusions about this. It does become evident, though, that other kids are not negatively impacted by the year-round timetable, and that at-risk pupils do far better without a lengthy summer vacation.
We continue to struggle with the accomplishment disparity.
This month, earlier, the U.S. In its National Assessment for Educational Progress report, the Department of Education made student performance data available. The information is gathered every two years and evaluates fourth and eighth grade students’ reading and math proficiency. The study in question delineates variations among students with respect to their ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The data identifies the regions of the United States that continue to have achievement gaps, or disparities in student opportunity and performance. Similar to how it is unlikely that the high school dropout rate in the United States would ever reach zero, the achievement gap will probably always persist in some form. Naturally, this does not indicate that it is hopeless. Any kid who excels, regardless of their background, is a win for K–12 education and helps society at large. Actionable initiatives are the next step; improving awareness of the real issue at hand among parents, educators, and the general public is the first step.
We must take into account how pupils are impacted by school security procedures.
Theoretically, whether a pupil is about to enter kindergarten or is finishing up their college career, parents and teachers will stop at nothing to ensure their safety. When it comes to safeguarding our children and young adults, nothing is too extravagant or ridiculous. The ultimate purpose of metal detectors, security cameras, increased police presence in school corridors, gated campuses, and other measures is to safeguard the most vulnerable members of our society by providing shelter to pupils and their teachers. But putting feelings aside, how much does real safety actually rise with school security? Do measures used by schools to maintain security really interfere with education? Teasing the benefits of more regulations on college campuses may seem nice, but is this simply rhetoric? How much should schools spend on security expenditures when state investment per student is less than it was at the beginning of the recession? Investing in personal attentiveness is maybe the finest investment we can make to protect our teachers and children. Perhaps heightened awareness would result from a reduced dependence on purported safety precautions.
We must increase the accessibility of assistive technologies for students with impairments.
Enhancing the educational experience for kids with disabilities can be achieved via greater school accommodations and ongoing advancements in assistive technology. As the name suggests, assistive technology in K–12 schools is intended to “improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability.” While this may seem like futuristic gadgetry, some assistive technology may be used with just minor modifications. For the kids who benefit, assistive technology may change their educational experiences, regardless of how complex or basic it is designed. Not only does assistive technology help K–12 kids with disabilities receive a quality education, but it also serves the interests of the nation as a whole. Approximately 25% of a certain student group is not receiving adequate support, and I think that proportion may decrease with the advancement of technology. For K–12 children with disabilities, assistive technology on both basic and complicated platforms has the power to improve their whole educational experience and lay a stronger basis for life.
Several of these causes are well-known, enduring problems. Others, meanwhile, like the rise of a screen culture, provide fresh and often even unanticipated difficulties. But it makes no difference what each issue is like. They are all impeding our ability to compete on a global scale.