Amanda Ripley's The Smartest Kids In The World

Since prior to the 1980’s, the American education system has rapidly declined in all areas. The article, “A Nation at Risk,” written by President Ronald Reagan, depicts the many issues in the U.S. school systems regarding the content, standard and expectations, time, teaching, and leadership and fiscal support. This piece, apparently, has led the country into an extreme educational reform to improve all aspects of our school system. Based on my experiences in high school, student test scores, and current school conditions, I believe that while all issues raised by the commission in the report are not necessarily a problem anymore, issues with student growth.

I selected the book The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins because I was interested to read about an adult author’s perception of a modern American high school experience. I also chose the book because the reviews mentioned that it related to a TV series I enjoyed, Freaks and Geeks. As I read through the book, I found that it centered around the theory that if a student is excluded or dismissed in high school for having different traits than what other students considered normal, those same traits that made them different will allow them to succeed in an adult life after high school. As soon as I got about a quarter of the way into the book I was not as enthusiastic as I was at first glance. I did agree that these traits could benefit someone, but they don’t define what you have the potential to be when you’re an adult. This high school cliché, despite the seven heartwarming storylines, is inaccurate in describing what the future holds for high school students because our future is unpredictable, and a book with a little statistic and seven high school experiences can’t solidify someone’s adulthood. I also noticed that there were no counterarguments present in the book, leading me to assume that Robbins may not have heavily researched both sides of her ‘quirk’ argument. Although I had differing opinions than the author, the seven characters, their storylines, and the promise of a young James Franco continued to perk my interest and

Since the 1980s, when the federal government published the document, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform: A Report to the Nation and the Secretary of Education, scholars in the field of education have developed and proposed a new wave of educational theorems and methods in an attempt to improve American education. In response to the dismal SAT scores and reported literacy rates in the United States, the federal government published the aforementioned

Education in the United States is in an abysmal state. It continues to spiral downward as students and educators fail to meet standards. The standards are then altered on a patchwork basis throughout the states. The goal is no longer to have a high standard educational system. The goal now is to maintain the status quo, allowing students and educators to strive for the minimum. There is no common approach to achieve success. Incipit Tragoedia, in comes the Common Core, agreed upon by educators, politicians, and

Over the course of the last 35 years, traditional public school student achievement in the United States has been stagnant, despite the reform efforts and the doubling

The United States may be looked upon as a land of freedom and opportunity, yet today we live in an era where education is still a persistent struggle for minorities in a white privileged society. We live in a country where the educational system puts greater emphasis on training students to tackle standardized tests than on development of self and character. The American educational system is in crisis and has been in this situation for decades now. The solution to this problem goes beyond better teacher performance and school infrastructure.

“Nineteen countries and education systems scored higher than the United States in reading on the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, up from nine systems when the test was last administered in 2009. “While we’re standing still, other countries are making progress,” said Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which issued the U.S. report on PISA.” (Heitin). From the outside the initiative, “Common Core” that President Obama and the government have been pushing since 2009 seems like it would be a great thing for education ,our children, and the future of our society, but once you look closer it is not. I believe that we definitely need serious improvement in the US

The United States is often referred to as the best country in the world in many areas. It may be, but far from it in education. Out of a total of thirty-four countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, it ranks just fourteenth in reading, seventeenth in science and twenty-fifth in math (Walker). Despite America's status as a country, America's education is failing because of the large emphasis on standardized education, and the flaws of the students, parents, and teachers. How to fix the education system remains to be a problem.

Bruni writes, “Many kids at all grade levels are Bubble-Wrapped in a culture that praises effort nearly as much as it does accomplishment” (par. 24). By glorifying even average work, students are not motivated to try harder to achieve the desired outcome. As a result, American students do not rank as well as students from other countries in international tests. Giving students harder material and higher expectations will help them unlock their true potential. At first, students may find it difficult. However, after putting in more work to achieve results, they will feel more confident in their skills and will be able to compete with students around the

The underlying irony behind the American education system is the fact that the people are constantly calling for a better education for all students, yet reforms put in place often don’t change anything, or make the education worse for the children. For decades, people from the presidential cabinet to the local boards of education have been trying to figure out a way to make their schools look good. It’s always been about the test scores showing improvement amongst students, and nothing to do with the fact that most tests don’t test what children actually know. In Connecticut, I grew up taking the Connecticut Mastery Tests (CMTs), and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT), and I have no idea what they proved or what information they provided for the teachers, other than the fact that I was put into the gifted program starting in fourth grade, and I was able to graduate once I achieved proficiency on one subject of the CAPT.

The educational system in the United States has gone through many changes over the last century. These changes are a part of a constant movement toward educational excellence for every child in this nation. One of the most recent acts placed on public school systems by the government is to create more accountability for schools in order to ensure that all children are receiving the proper education. Part of this mandate is that public schools will require students to take tests in order to gather information about their academic achievement. Although educators and administrators claim that the mandatory ability testing programs being initiated in America’s public schools will hold students and teachers accountable for academic

“Our educational goal [is] the production of caring, competent, loving, lovable people” . The students found in the schools across the United State are the future of America. They are the doctors, teachers, business people, lawyers and many other roles, that will be out in the workforce in the years to come. What they learn in school will impact them immensely; it is the responsibility of a teacher to give students the best education in order to ensure the common good of the future. It is essential for students to not only learn content matter, but also the skills to enable them to participate in a democracy. Due to standardized testing, the emphasis of education has become on score and rankings rather than learning. A standardized test does not look at the whole student, the scores provided are on a very narrow aspect of education. In the classroom, there are countless ways for teachers to assess the student as a whole person not as just a score. Standardized tests scores should not be the sole criteria for determining a student’s academic achievement.

Public education in the United States is perhaps one of the most critical issues we face as a nation. Once pronouncing the United States as a “nation at risk”, the educational institution began to implement one reform strategy after another. In efforts to improve schooling for K-12 students, education reform has fiddled with class size, revised graduation requirements, and created standardized testing just to name a few. Unfortunately, traditional public schools are still failing to provide students with a quality education. This is disheartening as we learn that the United States lags behind in math and science compared to our international counterparts. It is safe to say that educational reform has spent billions of dollars over the

As a result of this, the system is constantly receiving criticism concerning the quality of the American system. (U.S.D.E. The Educational System in the U.S…) In fact, a recent study done by the National Institute on Student Achievement, Curriculum, and Assessment, states that in fourth grade math, Japan ranks third out of twenty-six countries while the U.S. ranks only twelfth, and that in eighth grade math, Japan keeps the ranking of third out of forty-one, while the U.S. drops to twenty-eighth. As result of these criticisms, sets of voluntary guidelines and standard achievement tests have recently been introduced as an effort to “catch up” to the other

America is not ranking well against other countries in educational performance. In 2012 more than half a million 15 year olds around the world took a test called the “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA) which is a test that is given every three years and focuses on Math, Science, and Reading. Now although this test isn’t given to every single in student in America and doesn’t range in age, it covers the majority of 15 year old’s across America and their abilities in said subjects.