Educational Reform Essay

These gains have resulted in extra funding, enhanced teacher training and even tutoring. Bush was quoted as saying, “The era of low expectations and low standards is ending; a time of great hopes and proven results is arriving and together we are keeping a pledge: every child in America will learn, and no child will be left behind….” (Bush, par. 5). President Bush has placed great enhances on testing. It is believed that frequent testing in the classroom can be used as a guide to help individual schools build academically. Also, each school would receive a grade for its achievement level and be required to post it for the public to see. The bill insists on higher standards and higher achievement levels for all school. It joins the teachers, principles and education chiefs together in the fight for high education. It encourages great value and instills hope for our country.

America used to thrive on its education system and that is why it became one of the greatest nations in the world. Education is the backbone of our country, and we must give high priority to improve its current condition. Unfortunately, in the past couple of decades, the education system has been regressing. It has been on the decline and not as effective. The quality of education in a country has an influence on GDP growth, social cohesion and social well being in general. In order to improve the quality of education in the U.S., the following must be taken into consideration: the structure of our education system must be reanalyzed, we must compare and contrast our education system to systems of other countries with higher rankings, and finally, there must be a solution.

Differently than some other countries, the United States has no national educational system since each state in the country has its own. However, some research from 1999 and 2006 shows that the American educational system is falling in a national scale. Experts argues that the system is ignoring cognitive and social aspects that are important for children’s development which would further help them for adult life. Studies indicates that the educational system is not achieving the real purpose of education: prepare kids for their personal and professional life. As a result, what could be worse than a school system that limits creativity and fails to develop kids with critical thinking and diverse social skills needed for adult life?

The No Child left Behind Act was intended to close the achievement gap in elementary and secondary schools by allowing each and every student the opportunity to have the best education possible. This law was signed by George W. Bush in 2001 who described it as a law that will, “Ensure that all children have a fair, equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education”(Neill 2). The No Child Left Behind Act was only intended to help the students, but it is clear, not only to teachers, parents, and professionals, that it is time for a reauthorized law; One that each and every student can benefit from. The achievement gap in America’s school systems still exists. For the sake of America’s future, the school system must make a change now or the future of this country will suffer.

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.

Educational policies are the rules, guidelines and or boundaries that have shaped my career as student, a teacher and most recently as an educational administrator. Throughout my career I have not questioned always questioned the reasons for the development of these policies. From the readings in this course, I have begun to examine the how and why of policy development and beginning to understand role the policy analysis has in the evaluation of educational policies over time. The role of the state, the role of the individual within the state, changes to political ideologies and the development of globalization have all directly impacted policy development and the directions that education has taken over the last century.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), brain child of President Johnson, was passed in 1965. ESEA was intended to mitigate disparities in access to quality academic services and learning outcomes endured by underprivileged and minority students by federally funding schools serving their communities. ESEA, later revised as No Child Left Behind, was to be one element in a larger reform agenda focused on urban redevelopment, vocational training and “EDUCATION AND HEALTH” (Thomas & Brady, 2005). In his 1965 State of the Union, Johnson proclaimed, “No longer will we tolerate widespread involuntary idleness, unnecessary human hardship and misery, the impoverishment of whole areas… ” Nevertheless, this intractable problem remains, as illustrated by recent National Assessment of Educational Progress findings:

Their eyes met from across the room, and any student paying close enough attention could see the loathing in the teacher’s eyes as the principal walks into the room for the bi-semester teacher evaluation. In the blink of an eye the teacher returns her focus back on the students, but the obvious exchange between the two individuals makes those of us in the classroom that understand the source of the icy gaze extremely uncomfortable. My teacher hates the principal with a passion. Ever since the principal assumed control of the school three years prior to this particular evaluation, she terrorized my band director. Through micromanaging, criticizing relentlessly, organizing meetings incessantly, and sabotaging schedules, my principal fostered a hate from not only my band director, but also from the majority of teachers in my high school. The attitude and leadership techniques utilized by my former principal directly contradicts current theories of the scholarly community on how to effectively lead a school.

During President Bush’s term, government became aware that American schooling needed major improvement. There was a need of a law which would improve the system while using scores to evaluate students as well as their teachers. "The fundamental principle of this bill is that every child can learn, we expect every child to learn, and you must show us whether or not every child is learning," (Secretary, 2002) President George W. Bush said on Jan. 8, 2002, signing ceremony of No Child Left Behind Act. However, this one size fits all approach revealed not be resourceful. "The goals of No Child Left Behind, the predecessor of this law, were the right ones: High standards. Accountability. Closing the achievement gap, but in practice, it often fell short. It didn 't always consider the specific needs of each community. It led to too much testing during classroom time. It often forced schools and school districts into

The No Child Left Behind act was signed and put into place by President George W. Bush in 2002. The act was passed in order to replace the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), put into place by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, as part of his Great Society Program. The ESEA helped to cover the cost of educating disadvantaged students, while expanding the federal role in education. (Education Week 2015) The idea of the NCLB act, much like ESEA, was to help reform the educational system in both elementary and secondary school systems. The NCLB act was very ambitious, and brings up issues on improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged, training high-quality teachers, language instruction for limited English proficient students, 21st-century schools, and enforcing technology. (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) One of the biggest factors of this bill was the idea of closing the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Bush felt that this could be done by using standardized tests to measure how students were doing, and to see how well the teachers are doing. These tests were then used to identify which school systems were not performing

This paper reviews four important trends in our educational system today across America and discusses the impact of these trends on our future educational system. We live in an ever evolving world with constant changes that are affecting every aspect of our lives daily. Our educational system has not been immune to these changes and shouldn’t be since these changes and our ability to adapt to these changes will determine our future academic success and our place in a global society.

When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law in 2002, the legislation had one goal-- to improve educational equity for all students in the United States by implementing standards for student achievement and school district and teacher performance. Before the No Child Left Behind Act, the program of study for most schools was developed and implemented by individual states and local communities’ school boards. Proponents of the NCLB believed that lax oversight and lack of measurable standards by state and local communities was leading to the failure of the education system and required federal government intervention to correct. At the time, the Act seemed to be what the American educational system

According to Michael Fullan (2016) in his book, The New Meaning of Educational Change, successful organizations that demonstrate change followed principled concepts of change. The reason for their success if that there is tangible proof of alignment in keeping components of actions. Fullan (2016) stated that successful change incorporates five factors. In this essay, three of the five factors will be discussed and an example of an organization using components of the change be revealed. Often when organization shave to go through the process of change it means either they have gone through change to repair broken areas or they are going through change as a reflective exercise before embarking on a larger scope of practice perhaps to expand into new growth within their organization. In either course, the larger concern is that organizations must embrace change and engage in meaningful constructed ways to promote the best growth with the fewest steps to reach accomplishment. A key decision factor to change is whether an organize will change because they adopt a model and see a better way or whether they want to save their resources. Fullan (2016) suggested that the reason for the change is largely to work is because, the organizations, “Define closing the gap as the overarching goal,” “Assume that lack of capacity is the initial problem and then work on it continuously,” and “Stay the course through continuity of good direction by leveraging leadership,” (Fullan, 2016,

The year is 2012. In the movie Back to the Future II, two years from now, in 2016, Marty McFly travels from the past to save his family’s future. The future is almost upon us, and yet it would seem that our education system has changed little since Back to the Future hit theaters in 1985. “We still have same teachers, in the same parts, in the same schools, with the same level of knowledge, with the same equipment’s, and much the same standard of parental support” (David). Ironically, we have been steadily implementing policy after policy, increasing standards and accountability, promoting oversight and rule… the list goes on, and yet our progress seems minimal, our educators complain of underfunded classrooms, and our legislators complain of underperforming schools. The question of “how to improve our education system” is not getting satisfactorily answered because our system is not broken, merely underdeveloped. The truth is that America has made paces in improving its education technique or system; the problem that remains is for us to entrust our educators with the greater pliability and autonomy that they need to excel.

America is a blessed country in numerous ways, and its citizens reap the benefits. Free education is one major benefit that not many other countries provide for their citizens. While it is only a privilege to many, but in the States, people have the right to be educated. However, free education cannot be translated to success for all. For those motivated ones who cherish the privilege to be educated are those who climb up the success ladders later in life. For a certain majority of students in the States, our current educational system may not seem to serve its purpose. In this paper, I will explore two possible adjustments that could be made to improve our system to benefit our next generation. Academic improvement and class size