The Current American Education System

In a progressively more globalized world that necessitates more effective educational practices, the U.S., once the biggest global force in education, has seen its dominance slowly slip out, and its educational status fall even lower than that of several third-world countries. The decline experienced in American school system academic achievement is not as a result of lack of funding, but as a consequence of the overall educational system watering down. According to Gatto, educating children through the existing public school system of America is crippling rather than helping them. From his essay, ‘Against School,’ it is established that the goal of the whole public school system is to limit people’s intelligence in an attempt to create a society that is manageable. Gatto continues to state that action is needed to change this situation. He supports his assertions using current and historical information about the American school system and his personal experience. After reading his article, one realizes that most of Gatto’s arguments are true. It is true that the American education system is making the students comfort to the government and society norms, which is why they are easily bored. This essay’s goal will, therefore, be to support John Gatto’s beliefs.

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.

Is the current structure of the America’s educational system holding us back from making progress? This topic is a current debate within educational and political circles, yet a solution to America’s educational crisis has not been established. One party feels that schools should be nationally controlled or moved to the private sector and only through aggressive reform can real progress be made. The opposite side of the argument feels we should hold onto America’s traditions, and the constant inconsistencies and reforms have caused the educational crisis. Unfortunately the U.S political climate controls our system and treats students as another campaign point. The U.S. educational system needs some aspects of educational control under a standardized, national system while other aspects of education should remain in the hands of local communities to uphold the diverse cultural needs of America’s students.

Schooling is one of the biggest contributors to being successful in modern day America. In this modern times there is a major contrast to how it used to be for our parents and grandparents. Technology is advancing in numerous ways allowing for students to learn in new innovative ways, but these advancements have their downfalls with things such as social media. This effects a student’s mental safety with things such as bullying which occur on an everyday basis. Students physical safety is also in jeopardy with gun violence on the rise with examples such as Columbine or Sandy Hook. Finally, students have lost a sense of respect in the class room for their teachers and advisors. Technological advancements, student’s safety and respect students

One of the first flaws is how outdated American education systems really are. This education design was formed more than 100 years ago. American education was created for a different era, time, and world. Even Though the world has significantly changed in 100 years, the received education has not! This school system was built by business CEO’s who needed workers that could “read, write and cipher a little” (White), nothing more nothing less. These new factories that set those qualities to work did indeed create countless fresh jobs and brought us to be the leading economy of the world in the industrial revolution. Yet still American schools are teaching with this main framework, not adapting to the future of the world; although, the Earth

America’s high school education system is riddled with apathetic and failing students who just go to school simply because they are forced to. These students are wasting millions of taxpayer dollars just to socialize and cause trouble for the other students. The average student will cost taxpayers about 10,297 dollars a year to go through public schooling. With this amount of money being spent on the millions of high school students that are in the country none of it should be wasted on a student that just does not care. Most students who are failing think school is just a waste of their time and would rather spend their energy doing something else such as putting more effort into a job or skipping school. Due

One would think that as a World Superpower the United States education system would be producing exceptionally high caliber young men and women to become contributing members of society upon graduation. However, in many ways, the opposite is shown to be the case, with declining test scores, with a 19% dropout rate among high school students, with a 41% drop out rate of college students, and 40% of the graduates unprepared to either continue their educations at universities or become worthwhile members of the workforce. These declines can be attributed to many factors including lack of parental involvement, teen pregnancy, rising tension in world affairs, drug use, and many others, however, our government 's involvement in the school system is another major factor and is the current focus of this paper. In it I intend to show how many of the government 's policies with regards to education are proving to be a major hindrance in the preparedness of our youth once they 've completed their requisite milestones for graduation. (U.S.A Department of Education, 2012)

In American two out of three eighth-graders can’t read proficiently and for African American and Hispanic students across the country dropout rates are close to 40 percent and those were just two of the many ways the American Education System has failed its members. Education in the United States is provided by public schools and private schools. Public education is universally required at the kindergarten through twelfth grade level. Budgets and policies are set through locally elected school boards, who have jurisdiction over individual school districts. State governments set overall educational standards, often mandate standardized tests for K–12 public school systems, and supervise, usually through a board of regents, state colleges and universities. Funding for public schools come from the state, local, and federal government. However, with all the aforementioned points of intervention is a new issue which only serves to reinforce my thesis that the American Public Education System or APES for short is a static system in which over governing, overcrowding, and forced assimilation have run rampant.

In the 17th century, the American public school system was founded and built upon early US colonists’ religious principle and ideologies, which were all a branch or sect of Christianity. The first tax-supported public school in the country in Dedham, Massachusetts was run by Reverend Ralph Wheelock who was a puritan priest. Schools in other parts of the English colonies were run by Jesuits, Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans, and the like. When new territory was claimed from the Native Americans, it was declared that the Native Americans were to be taught Christian ideology, and although enslaved and prevented from attending school, many African Americans were encouraged, or even coerced to adopt the Christian faith as well. At the beginning of every school day, mandatory prayers were recited from the Bible—like the Lord’s Prayer—and it was not until 1962 and 1963 that this was officially changed.

Everything in life has its flaws but it’s when and where those flaws are that counts. The United States educational system is no exception to this and it shows the most through both test scores and statistics. This problem is easily noticeable when you take into account of how well the other countries around the world have been doing in comparison of the United States. Like most things however you can fix a problem by going to the source of it and many sources are saying the that the sources of this problem is at home. They believe that this is the source due to how much it affects kids both mentally and psychologically. Other problems like teenage dropouts and pregnancy are also major problems affecting school. Teens that dropout say that

America is reaching a pivotal point in modern history. The choice to revamp the American public school system is in the hands of the state lawmakers. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is the solution to this crisis facing our country today. These standards provide a framework in our public schools to help better prepare students for college. Through the implementation of these standards here in the State of Florida we will be helping bring our young scholars to a globally competitive level where the sky is the limit.

MCA-EC is a nonprofit organization that promotes Mangalorean Catholic culture in the United States through cultural events, volunteering activities and raising money for charity. Being a youth leader has enabled me to not only participate in various activities that benefit our community, but also to provide guidance to other mangalorean children. Being an immigrant myself, I understand the difficulties in navigating the educational system and culture of America and am able to answer questions and provide advice to other children to ensure that they are able to take advantage of every beneficial opportunity available to them.

Every year, American teachers discover that the youth have a 5D relationship with their schools: dissatisfied, disengaged, disaffected, disrespectful, and disruptive. In this prolific source of educational substances, the paucity of satisfaction of the students and the predilections of the teachers militate in some measure against a just valuation being accorded to such researches. “Policy makers remain oblivious to the fact that ‘kids are not what they used to be,’” and in order to re-engage the young, serious research on everyday education needs to be expressed (p. 33). The U.S. education system needs to understand that ambiguity exists, and a rapid cycle of policy changes will stagnate their efforts to achieving cultural globalization.

The United States have long been held in high esteem by their peers for their higher education system’s ability to produce the best and brightest young adults that can impact the world. Students in our nation have a choice whether or not to attend prestigious higher-level institutions in order to educate themselves and prepare themselves for the job market. The U.S. has an outstanding reputation of educating students as well as making education available to everyone in the country. Whether it be a public university, private university or a for-profit institution, people can easily find a way to pursue their academic goals. However, many students graduate college with the inability to find a job because they weren 't properly trained and with massive debt due to the extremely high price of tuition at most universities. College is viewed as a necessity, but is priced as a luxury. This is leading to a drastic downturn to the success of the United States education system. Changes have to be made in regard to how universities are funded as well as universities reevaluating where their responsibilities truly lie—either making a profit or preparing students for the workforce in order to ensure the growth and posterity of the United States.

Moore’s “Idiot Nation” focuses on the collapsing educational system in America and highlights his views on the failures surrounding our education system; particularly, that proper funding of our education in America is minimized and overlooked. He emphasizes, “The person who cares for our child every day receives an average of $41,351 annually. A Congressman who cares only about which tobacco lobbyist is taking him to dinner tonight receives $145,100” (Moore). This illustrates the gross disparity that exist between those that mold our future society and those that hold the power to close the gap on a nation that is falling behind a on a global scale; meanwhile, our infrastructure continues to crumble along with our standards in education. Furthermore, the failures of our educational system rest most notably on our inabilities to properly fund and staff competent and properly compensated teachers. Moore explains, “What kind of priority do we place on education in America? Oh, it 's on the funding list--somewhere down between OSHA and meat inspectors.” This solidifies the