The Social Contract Between Teachers and Students: Problems with Education

There are many problems in the American public education system today. Some of those include the quality of teachers, who have no real passion for the job, and are only allowed to remain in the position because of tenure privileges. Another issue is the state budgets that are allowed for public schools, with some states investing billions of dollars, and others prioritizing it lower on the list. In hot debate today is standardized testing, and the negative effect that it has on high school education, with the limits it places on teachers and what they have time to teach in the classrooms.

Some children may not be able to understand the words being spoken to them and/or the grammatical rules of sentence construction. Therefore, when their teacher tells the class what they need to do, or explains a new idea or concept,9 they may struggle to understand what is being said. Having inappropriate vocabulary is

As explained in Diane Ravitch's article, “American Schools in CRISIS,” educators are provided with little job security under Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Obama's Race to the Top educational reform initiatives; where teachers can be fired based on poor standardized test scores from their students (50). The majority of new teachers already quit within five years of entering the field; “demoralized” (Ravitch 50) by the effects of such high stakes and low resources (Ravitch 52). To combat this figure, many states have decreased the requirements for becoming a teacher, even allowing online licensure in Texas (Ravitch 51). To lower the standards of the “conservators of our common future” (Barber 122) is an irresponsible practice that must be reversed if students are to succeed. Barber proposes paying early childhood educators as much as lawyers to attract better teachers. Higher wages would encourage more ambitious individuals to enter the fields of primary and secondary education. Without highly-trained and intelligent educators, who are dedicated to progress and change, students will continue to stumble through a broken system, woefully unprepared for the task of becoming productive citizens.

One of the most crucial parts of education is qualified and enthusiastic teachers who are willing to dedicate their time. Would Aristotle have revolutionized philosophy if he was not taught by Plato? And would Plato have done the same if he was not a student of Socrates? Educators who are hired in the Appoquinimink School District appear to be hired simply because of their qualifications, not because they are passionate about teaching. Specifically, a teacher last week refused to teach the required material and called me “cranky”, and the week before that an Advanced Placement Language and Composition teacher said to me “maybe if you participated in class more, people would like you better.” Although both teachers have a Master’s degree, they clearly act unprofessional which ultimately affects my learning experience. Emerson describes the modern educational system and compares it to how teachers should be, “Hence the instruction seems to require skillful tutors, of accurate and systematic

Therefore, teacher certifications should be loosened. States do need to make it a bit more difficult to receive a teaching certification. Teachers need to be trained in the subject they are going to teach and have some experience with children. They also need to have significant mentoring, continuing assistance and support, and a variety of enticements to keep them in the profession. To address the teacher shortage issue, states need to do more than just produce a higher number of untrained teachers faster. Recruiting more teachers will not solve the teacher shortage issue. Policymakers need to find a way to keep teachers in the field (Ingersoll and Smith 32). They must invest in the teaching profession, provide high standards for teachers, and increase their salaries, and they also should improve working conditions that impact student achievement and teacher success. Our society needs to recognize teaching as an essential profession. “Those who recruit new teachers need to remember that they are not just responsible for the next generation of teachers, but also for the future of our schools” (Tell

The state of Arizona is facing a serious education crisis in the retention of qualified teachers. Personally, my school in Yuma, Arizona encountered an average of seven new teachers every year. Yuma High School District allowed for a teacher to teach chemistry when his/her Bachelor’s degree was in mathematics. According to the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ enacted in 2001, schools are required to provide “highly qualified” teachers to teach at all times (Educator Excellence). Having quality, long-term teachers is imperative to develop students in becoming productive members of society. Unfortunately due to federal budget cuts directly affecting education, Timothy L. Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association, says, “Arizona has faced the most dramatic cuts to K-12 education spending of any state in the nation” (Lopez). As a result, administration is forced to have teachers make up for the lack of a certain subject by teaching it without qualifications. Due to this, out-of-state teachers leave within the first 5 years, and 25% all leave within the first year. Some reasons for this include a

been falling in quality for years now. Money is being spent less on the teachers and more on those that

The low pay for our educators is causing many negative effects. New York Times shows that the low income is causing sixty-two percent of teachers to have a second job outside of their teaching jobs. Just to have enough money to support their families and make ends meet. Most everyone decides to college to prevent having these struggles with money, and to avoid having to work multiple jobs, when they get older; however, not when it comes to living off of only a teacher’s income, the struggles to have enough money are interminable. This low pay is also causing most teachers to retire, and find new jobs. New York Times states, “every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the

The importance of decreasing this test score gap is essential because the No Child Left Behind legislation mandates that all students make annual progress toward reaching mastery in the core subjects of reading, math, science and social studies. Additionally in Texas, schools are rated based partially on the annual progress of subpopulations on campus. In the absence of a socio-economic disparity, more study needs to be done on ways that African-American students can become more successful at increasingly elevating their level of performance on state mandated tests. Explicit instruction is an important part of vocabulary acquisition. According to Harmon (1998) directly teaching vocabulary can assist with reading comprehension when students are taught to integrate new words with their

Experienced teachers are on average more effective in raising student achievement than less experienced counterparts. It is said that teachers do better as they gain experience. In If You Build It, Matt has very good knowledge in designing so he could work with the students hands-on. He also gained knowledge and experience while also teaching other students. Emily on the other hand was the organizer. She was hand-on with building and going around to the students making sure they were working efficiently. Both Matt and Emily gained experience through their many months of working with these high school students. In order for there to be good teachers the state needs to cooperate with the teachers. The salaries must be adequate and the teachers must have an expectation that as they gain experience their salaries will rise in line with what they would normally earn in comparable professions. Teachers would most likely leave if they feel they are in poor working conditions. A principal can improve these conditions and retain good teachers. In If You Build It, the superintendent of Bertie County High School was very creative and ready to work to improve the school with his bright ideas. Unfortunately, before the school year started he was fired because the county couldn’t afford him and his ideas. Politicians and states have this idea of teachers and principals and scapegoats

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

In addition, insufficient funding of schools along with quality teachers that are retiring are some of the problems we encounter in the education system. In some parts of the United States, there is a lack of adequate access to materials for reading and writing due to budget constraints. In Allen D. Kanner’s article, “Today’s Class Brought to You By…” he mentioned that with the baby boomers retiring, and a high turnover among new teachers, who are asked to teach subjects they are not properly trained for, are causing difficult classroom situations (280). Similarly, Governor Jerry Brown’s statement last January 11 pointed out that K-12 education has ‘borne the brunt’ of the state’s budget cuts with more than $18 billion in cuts over the last three years. This resulted in larger class sizes, programs are cut, and over 30,000 educators laid off. These teachers are very valuable in our society because they provide our youth with the knowledge and social experiences that they will use to better their future and the future of the entire world. As a student, I have suffered the consequences of triple digit fee increases and the lack of available classes offered. The high cost of education has put the burden not only on the students, and many of their parents, but educators, as

Ladies of Gentlemen of the Board we are here for decision to be made on a budget cut for my department. Though this is something I do not relish in doing, I recognize the necessity of doing it for the betterment of our institution. With the rising cost of everything we either make, produce, transport, or use. It is inevitable that higher education will also be hit with rising costs. What we paid our teachers 30, 20, 10 years ago teachers cannot live on it. With this in mind I present to you 5 strategies that I urge you all to look at with an open mind. You maybe wondering why we should even care about remedial reading, writing, and math. All of these subjects are main staples to our society to move forward. We cannot let one mind stay behind vacillates in ignorance. It has been said time and time again “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” was coined by Arthur Fletcher for the United Negro College Fund. Now I am talking about one race but a mind the most wonderful, mysterious creation of GOD.

The failure of students being able to read and comprehend what they are reading is a great concern for most schools. When students enter the fifth grade and are not on grade level, they are already behind their classmates. Teachers are then responsible for remediating the students to get them on grade level. Unfortunately, these same students are unable to keep up with on grade level standards teachers are required to teach, because they lack the skills needed. These students will continue to struggle throughout their education because they will not be able to catch up to their grade level. Many educators have realized there is a gap between fluency and comprehension. Because of this realization, special instruction such as guided reading and remedial teaching has been implemented.

One of the aims of this paper is to see if the selected news article Back to school (see Appendix A) is suitable for the students who are proficient at the most frequent 2000 words but not at those words beyond the k-2 level. A second aim involves relevant vocabulary-based modifications. To achieve the purposes, this paper will examine three aspects which are vocabulary comprehension, learning vocabulary through reading or hearing the text, and possible text-based modifications.