Problems Of The American System

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.

The education system in America has a long history of struggle and change, as we have grown as a nation we have experienced an ever-increasing rise in diversity. This diversity has caused rigidities between groups and all stratus of society and has been a major impact in debates concerning the educational opportunities in America.

The United States is a country based on equal opportunity; every citizen is to be given the same chance as another to succeed. This includes the government providing the opportunity of equal education to all children. All children are provided schools to attend. However, the quality of one school compared to another is undoubtedly unfair. Former teacher John Kozol, when being transferred to a new school, said, "The shock from going from one of the poorest schools to one of the wealthiest cannot be overstated (Kozol 2)." The education gap between higher and lower-income schools is obvious: therefore, the United States is making the effort to provide an equal education with questionable results.

Today, education enables us to enlarge our knowledge and open doors for opportunities to the path of having a good future. In the five readings, each written by a different author, there was a lesson learned and something to take away from each one. Reading through the passages by Mann, Moore, Malcolm X, Gatto, Rose, and Anyon, each author contributed his or her point of view on general public education. This topic can be very argumentative depending on the quality of education people receive. Education today is the single most important mean for individuals to achieve their personal goals in the workforce.

It is hard to count the number of times our country has been called ‘broken’, always referring to a different facet of society. A broken system is a system that is not working the way it should. At first I was dubious that such an 'organized' and 'just' country was now broken. But, since the start of the 2016 presidential election, more issues have surfaced and I have to agree. The United States is one of the wealthiest countries- but it also tops the charts in terms of income inequality. To put it simply, the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. For a country with as much money as the United States, it is unreasonable that any of it’s citizens should live in such deplorable conditions. And the income gap example is just one of many. Almost every systems is riddled with problems.

Due to financial issues, any districts hardest hit had no choice but to move around resources to make up the difference in their actual spending and funds provided by the state due to the Class Size Reduction (CSRe) experiment in California. While accountability was not intended to so strongly influence what

My blood boiled. My face was a deep scarlet resembling fiery, bright lava. I looked at my sister. Her smug face made the bomb inside of me tick faster. Before I knew it, I felt a stinging impact; my hand leaving a distinctive red mark across her cheek. Not long after, I felt the same pain my sister had. I stared at my mother in shock. To this day, I still reflect over the irony of that one moment. My mom attempted to teach me not to hit my sister by striking me. However, this contradictious lesson was not practical. It did not fix my behavior; the only change was that I questioned my punishment. This applies to the broken system we have here in America. The death penalty is not only paradoxical, but it is a costly process that does succeed in deterring crimes. Capital punishment is not beneficial to our society.

The evidence suggests that increasing class size will not only harm children’s test scores in the short-run, but also in their long-run human capital formation. Money is saved from increasing class size will be more substantial social and educational costs in the future. In addition to high costs, reducing class size have unintended consequences. When California lowered class sizes in 1996, they realized that they did not have enough teachers to meet the challenge. Schools were forced to hire new teachers and add portable classmates to accommodate the state

A small class is consider to be twenty students or less. In smaller schools there are not as many students so the teachers will be able to help the students more one on one. Students can have a better idea of the content that they are learning and even if they don’t understand then the could talk to the teacher to have a better understanding. In a recent study, students and teachers were randomly assigned to a small class, with an average of 15 students, or a regular class, with an average of 22 students. This large reduction in class size (7 students, or 32 percent) was found to increase student achievement by an amount equivalent to about 3 additional months of schooling four years later. Also, increasing the pupil/teacher ratio in the U.S. by one student would save at least $12 billion per year in teacher salary costs alone, which is roughly

Oklahoma as of today is ranked 49th nationally in per-pupil expenditures and ranked 48th in teacher pay (Klein 2). Putting Oklahoma as one of the worst states to be educated in the United States. “Oklahoma is consistently ranked near the bottom for education funding and teacher pay” (“Investing In Education Is Key For Growth And Job Creation” 3). When there are state cuts that need to be made, the departments of education are one of the first that usually tend to suffer. Since the 2008 economic crisis, Oklahoma has continued to cut the budget for education; even though the economy has since then gotten better (Perry). Budget cuts in education affect all parts of the education process for the students. “Some school districts have ordered teacher layoffs and shorter sessions” (“Oklahoma Makes the Poor Poorer” par 4).Schools are now struggling to keep their heads above water. Each year from the budget cutting, schools have had to lay off teachers, cut entire programs, and have limited resources used to educate the students. Even the teachers’ retirement system is suffering, being one of the top poorly funded pension programs nationally (Ash par 3). Seeing as that the schools have to cut down classes and programs, administration has had no other choice than to increase class size, overwhelming teachers tremendously. “Oklahoma has 1,500 fewer classroom teachers and 40,000 more students since 2008-2009” (“Investing In Education Is Key For Growth

American’s public school system have struggled to assist the proper funding acquiesces for providing amenities that are required by the administration, faculty, staff and students. The success rate of the school systems budget has overturned the phrase President Lyndon Johnson initiated regarding standardize poverty levels. “Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty,” President Lyndon Johnson. Dilapidated buildings, equipment, and materials are the results of the mishandling of misappropriated funding. Equitable funding and the better lack of funding gaps have led to court challenges that ironically why American’s public school is not able to meet or exceed higher standards as justified.

For example, Noreen Connell (1998) states that Japan and Germany’s governments provide most of the money for schools, and all schools receive roughly similar funding; however, in the United States, the federal government funds approximately seven percent of K-12 education, and each state legislature must figure out how to get the rest of the funds needed to finance their state education. A reformed educational system in the state of Kentucky, where schools are equally supported saw 20 to 30 point gains in minority students’ academic achievement. This example shows an effective educational program based on social

One in five teachers did not know what the main priority was for the funds that came into the school for the students. The chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, Kevan Collins, proposes that with some thought, the budget that schools are given can be spent in a more efficient way. Although Mr. Collins is proposing a way to distribute the budget, the sociology problem of unequal funding of public schools comes into play. If all states received the same amount of money for public schools, there would not be an inequality from state to state and there would not have to be so much stress to create a budget plan that will distribute the money effectively.

It is pretty apparent that in America, and elsewhere, most parents and general adults want what is best for their children in terms of education. This mindset can be seen reflected in the legislative aspects of our education system; there are many incentives pushing through the school boards and legislatures of our nation in order to attempt to further refine the education system. This is important as it allows us to refine traditional American education in order to improve upon it, and one of these attempt refinements and improvements has to deal with the subject of class size. For many people, large classroom sizes are a spawning ground for many issues with the education system: high distraction in the classroom, teacher inefficiency, among a plethora of others. Although it may seem regressive to favor small classes over bigger, more potentially diverse classes, small class sizes are more beneficial for education in that it is less distracting for the students and raises the possibility of staying focused, it potentially raises teacher-student relationships, and it allows for better results and better statistics coming from these smaller classes.

children could study in a small size class, their children will get more attentions from