American Education System Essay

There was a time when America’s education system was top-notch according to the culture and society. With time, a myriad of things has changed, but unfortunately what has not evolved is the American education system. The country is still following a system which was not designed for the current global economic climate. Equality, as positive as it sounds is not as sufficient when it comes to education. The system treats students equally yet expect a similar culmination and outcome. Every child has his individuality and distinct abilities; one cannot judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Conversely, a few of the prominent reasons why the education system is failing are overcrowded schools, the rise of technology, and following the same old school hours.

Education is the foundation to secure an individual in having a better future and a successful career in life. Public education primarily falls upon the state and local government to take charge of, which get divided up into local school districts that are managed by school boards. School boards are “ an elected body corporate which manages delegated powers in regards to the deliver of education service within a defined territory (Duhaime’s Law Dictionary)”. Each state “has its own department of education and laws regulating finance, the hiring of school personnel, student attendance, and curriculum (Corsi-Bunker, Antonella).

The American public educational system is filled with an assortment of problems. Most students are graduating with less knowledge and capability than similar students in other industrialized countries. Classroom disruptions are surprisingly common, and in some classrooms, nearly continuous. The public education system is having difficulty adjusting to the no child left behind act. The No Child Left Behind(NCLB) is a landmark in education reform designed to improve student achievement and change the culture of American’s schools.

The prekindergadern common core standards were developed with expectations connected to the k-12 standards. The Prekindergadern common core standards were adopted and approach by the board of regents. The Prekindergadern common core standards are made up into 5 broad developmental and correlative domains. The domains are approaches to learning, physical development and health, social and developmental,

At New Bern High School, Charlie Bernthal, a freshman, sits in a class room instructed by Common Core standards. It will take one of Charlie’s teachers six minutes to demonstrate the various methods to complete a simple multiplication problem, such as 63 x 24. Students are taught to use arrays, lattice, partial product methods, and eventually the traditional U.S. customary method. The Common Core standards happen to be a big discussion point during this year’s election. People have many strong opinions when it comes to the Common Core State Standards, but researchers and institutions express reasons why teachers and schools should not use Common Core to instruct America’s youth. Schools and teachers should not teach by Common Core standards because these standards are detrimental to our children.

The Common Core Standards engage a standards-based education. The standards guide teachers to prepare students for what they are expected to learn to succeed in life. It is essential that teachers understand the expectations and implications of the standards, so teachers can help students achieve educational goals by designing specific educational plans that align with the core standards. Furthermore, tailoring the curriculum will help to build relevant skills students are argued to integrate in college and their future careers.

Forty-two states, along with the District of Columbia have adopted Common Core State Standards. These standards were created to focus only on English and Mathematics. An effect of states adopting Common Core State Standards is that all other subjects taught in school were emphasized less. History, Science, and many other subjects are no longer stressed; therefore students are limited to being proficient in only two subjects. The Common Core deprives students’ ability to be skilled in multiple areas. These standards do not provide a slight “break” from the challenging and fast paced teaching of English and Mathematics. In addition to limiting education to English and Mathematics, Jill Bowden explains that the Common Core is affecting kindergarteners by taking them “away from materials that encourage playful learning” (36). Simple, beneficial learning materials typically used in kindergarten classrooms are being replaced with workbooks and textbooks. These standards are not benefiting education; instead they suppress enjoyable learning that one could gain from free learning. All grades are affected, but especially kindergarteners. These kindergarteners are too young for authoritative standards, and should be learning concepts appropriate for a child the age of five. Standards were made “to become the backbone for student, teacher, and school accountability systems and will play an increasingly prominent role in the American educational ecosystem” (Gutierrez 78) Therefore,

Both U.S. and Chinese school systems have strengths and weaknesses. However, education for children with disabilities in Afghanistan continues to lag well behind China and the United States. There does not seem to be any conclusive and accurate data on the number of children with disabilities in Afghanistan. However, due to injuries as a result of conflict and war, physical impairment is one of the largest groups (Miriam et al., 2009, p. 33). Afghanistan can learn how China and the U.S. are providing access to their students with disabilities

It is often said that the public education is an ongoing social experiment, with each teacher implementing different methods of education, with each school dealing with situations in different manners, with the application of curriculum varying even from classroom to classroom, especially from generation to generation. The great public education system is one that constantly evolves, one with a miraculous history, growing ever more rigorous in its methodology, requiring more of students, of teachers and staff, and of the society. Many other nations have overtaken our education system, through sweeping changes in their own, facilitating more successful students, teachers, and societies other than our own.

As a young adult in born between the early 1980’s to 2000, I belong to a generation known as Generation Y or more commonly known as Millennials. Because of my age, much of my life has been in the public education system of Texas. In the past 21 years there have been several political changes in regards to education. These changes have impacted my life as a student. The political ideologies that are most present in my educational career were No Child Left Behind and standardized testing.

3. Standards that lack unidimensionality: Marzano cites the following 5th-grade benchmark from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Develop fluency in adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing whole numbers (p. 15).

Today’s schools have standardized promotion requirements in the hopes that all students will be promoted in fairness. Like most states, Ohio’s criteria for promotion in grade school include a passing grade in English composition, mathematics, science and reading. There are state-mandated benchmarks that must be met in all of these areas. The four levels of grading are: Advanced - student performs at a superior level; Proficient - student has a solid performance; Deficient - student’s performance is lacking; Failing - student’s performance is unsatisfactory. A student must be proficient or better in all areas to qualify for promotion. Also, if a student is not performing in the C-range or better in a majority of

Many individuals felt that to continue to compete in the international education rankings the U.S would have to adopt a way to standardize the education

The introduction to the American Higher Education system, takes us to the colonial era under the “Oxbridge Model.” Colonial American’s brought their determination to “transplant” the English idea of an undergraduate education as a “civilized experience” filled with “progressive” for “responsible leaders” of both “church and state” (Schuh and et al, 2010, Page Four). Interestingly enough, student responses to food living conditions were a top complaint during this period and religion was a fabric woven into most colleges who chose to follow a particular denomination (Schuh and et al, 2010, Page Five). Enrollment into college courses was strictly limited to affluent or prosperous social status figures for white males during this time period. College was also seen as a way to maintain that social class mobility, instead of viewing it as a way to move between different social statuses like it was decades later (Schuh and et al, 2010, Page Six).

The 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) launched a prerequisite that each state set canons outlining what their students should understand and be capable of doing in core subjects and evaluate whether students were becoming proficient at those standards. Today, currently, as a result of these federal prerequisites, every state has in place a set of K–12 standards for essential subjects as well as an assessment system that measures growth toward math and literacy standards in grades 3–8 and once in high school. Conversely, the present ESEA does not ask states to study whether those standards are founded on proof of what students need to be successful in college and the workplace. Nor does the law ask that states’ standards build grade by grade toward college- and career-readiness. The result is that standards and assessments do not inform students, parents, or teachers whether students are on track toward college- and career readiness.