what americans think of their school systems. what can be done to improve it? whos fault is it?

Question

are american people happy with the way the american educational system is run considering the lowering of passing grades, shortage of school funding, america being number 17 world wide in science and math are you over all satisfied with the schools in america why or why not?

Answer 1

Some American school systems are very good. Many are very bad. I think that 98% of it has to do with the way that American schools are funded. In the US, every school gets a minimal amount of money from the state and federal governments to get started. Then, more money comes from the local government. If you live in a wealthy area, this means that the school can collect a lot of money for extras. If you live in a poor area, the schools are basically limited to the minimal amount of money that they got from the state and federal governments. There are schools in southeastern Ohio that didn't have running water or toilets even in the 1990s! It was because the area was so poor. Instead of leaving the majority of the money distribution to the local governments, this issue should be addressed on the state, or perhaps even the federal level. That would lead to more equality among funding, give children in all areas equal opportunities, and give teachers the resources that they need to be able to adequately teach.

Answer 2

Well, first of all you asked a leading question by throwing inyour comments while phrasing it. Now the person responding must frame a response that argues or supports your belief. It would be more interesting to ask the question without bias and see how many pick up on the same issues you mentioned.

That said, you are right to observe that the ed system in the US in in big trouble. There are 2 key factors that are causing the problem.

1- Deterioration of home life and culture. There is less emphasis placed on education at home and the crucial support needed from parents is decreasing with every generation. I speak of statistical averages, not individual cases. There are many families who do a good job but when looking at the entire population there is a definite decline.

2- Deterioration of the quality of education. Face it, quality education especially in science and math requires quality, educated, and experienced teachers. I don't mean classroom experienced. I mean industry experienced. We need teachers who understand first hand what the application of science and math are so they can teach that in the classroom. But the pay scale and the harsh restrictions on job requirements make it almost impossible to hire qualified teachers. Most educators willing to work for what is offered under the conditions seen in most schools are not fit for the job. You get what you pay for.

The fault is mostly the people themselves for not forcing the system to do the right thing. School systems have developed beurocracies that are bent on self protection. They rationalize their policies, protect the incompetent, and obfuscate their activities to the point that more resources go into self protection then on education for our children. And we let it happen. The other side of this are the politicians. They look for quick fixes instead of long term solutions. So in the end they make things worse.

I have seen the enemy, and it is me.

Answer 3

Question 1 - Yes, the United States public educations system works (it worked better before the nefarious NCLB was passed). Question 2 - Yes, public education can be improved. First eliminate ALL charters (turning the successful ones into appropriate magnets). Then fund schools more than "adequately," and turn schools into the palaces they should be. And in this brief, very brief suggestion for improvement, recognize teachers as the highly educated professionals they are rather than some kind of "service" provider. Question 3 - Only if the aim is to privatize the entire public education system, does NCLB work. If its purpose is to improve public education, it is failing dismally.

Answer 4

Schools in america are horrible. Overcrowding, violence, drugs, teachers who don't care, passing kids on to the next grade whether they learn anything or not, politics and government are overseeing the schools now, which is against the original laws of this country. Teachers can not teach the way they want because the government is telling them what to teach. Many many children in schools have learning problems that schools are ignoring because they dont want to help them. Then these same children grow up to be bad members of society. The gov't and public is left to spend millions of dollars in keeping these grown up children in jail, when a fraction of this could have been spent in helping these children while in school.
The schools are failing the children, and the children will grow up and fail america in return.
The things that are taught in school are 'dummed down' so that all students have the equal access to 'learn' the curriculum, without being challenged to their own potential. Students are being taught 'cookie cutter style' without being acknowledged of their own potential to learn. A lot of students go on to college only to find they can't do the college work because the school they attended did not teach them correctly.
Schools spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in fighting parents because they do not want to help the children who have special needs, but the schools always say they don't have enough money to do anything...
Thank god for homeschooling.

Answer 5

Personally, I am not happy with the way that our educational system is run. We have softened so much as a society that we are afraid to fail anyone for any reason, and have lowered the standards of excellence and success for youth. Parental involvement is some of this issue, as with societal standards of discipline being lowered as well. I formerly worked in MANY schools, and I could understand why it is hard for our youth to learn. There are tremendous amounts of activity going on in classrooms, there is a lack of enough educators for the children, and not nearly enough individual attention for youth to assist them with the problems they are facing.

Answer 6

it's BS. everyone passes because teachers don't want to deal with the annoying slackers, and the ones that deserve to move on, are stuck with the same slackers for years to come. what we can do about it is impeach Bush and get a president who's not trigger happy. The Fault goes up from the president, down to the teachers themselves (not all teachers, though). Am i satisfied, i fly through school anyway, but, no, i think something has to be done.

Answer 7

No because at my school district (North Fork Local School District) the Levy didn't pass. And if they did care, they would've let it pass! Plus, I wouldn't have gotten a B in Socail Studies when I got a 100 on my 10 amendments test and A's on all my weekly readers!

Answer 8

This American is very distressed at the state of our public school system.

I blame lack of school funding at both the Federal and Local level, low teacher wages, lack of parental involvement, and a failure of schools to keep pace with technology.

The good news is these are fixable problems.

Answer 9

every one knows that the American education is in trouble.....we need the patents, the school system....to overhaul the system...to change to what is really important here...and don't forget the children...they are the ones who turn out dumber that a rock, and cant find a way to make a living...

Answer 10

America's problem in education is that "EQUAL" and "EQUITABLE" have been confused.

A few decades ago, it was decided that "Tracking" was unequal, because racial and other prejudices contributed to track placement decisions, rather than it being purely based on performance.

Now, ALL students in America are given the same core curriculum, using the same instructional methods (except for extreme need -- such as severe disabilities, new ELL students, etc.), in the same school building. This is the case whether the student is academically inclined or not... clear through high school graduation.

In other countries, students are "tracked." Most go into apprenticeship, vocational, or clerical schools. College-bound students are sent to college prep programs... some of those programs already start to branch the students into their future career academic tracks, and channel them into specific university programs.

American student high school scores are NOT compared to all the students in other countries... but ONLY to those "cream of the crop" college-bound students. No big surprise that we score so low compared to other countries. This is because many of the vocational, clerical, and apprenticeship programs in other countries don't take the same academic-focus tests as the college-bound crowd.

To get a real comparison, ALL 13 year olds in ALL schools in the other countries would need to be tested using those same academic tests as the college-bound kids take.

After decades of collecting data on what an "average" student learned (grade-level skill) in a large-group classroom setting, No Child Left Behind decided that now the 50% of kids performing below that level must perform at that original "average" or better.

NCLB is not really about improving American education... it is about scapegoating teachers so that Republicans can cut federal funding to states for Education. Since Education isn't Constitutionally a federal responsibility anyway, it's just that they don't want to stick their political necks out by openly using the honest, Constitutional route to cutting the funding. It's easier to make teachers into the targets.

If they really wanted to improve American education, while maintaining the No - Tracking approach of combined and "equal" education...

They need to cut class sizes, so each teacher has more time to spend individually with each student. The reason tutoring works so well is because it is 1:1. Teachers are trying to do things at 25 or 30 or more to 1.

They need to fully fund programming. Money should be specifically earmarked for applications inside the classrooms and directly on the students, rather than going into the general funds (which can be diverted for non-academic activities and administrative costs). As an example... right now, students don't have their own individual textbooks in each subject to study from. Remember when we were kids in middle and high school and we took our textbooks home to study each night? Not possible anymore because each teacher only has one classroom set of texts to share among the different class periods.

Teacher education programs should be reviewed. Colleges with good programs should be used as standard-setters. We have two main teacher preparation college programs feeding into our district (with a few people from farther away).

There is a huge difference in professional knowledge and real preparation between the two programs... and the less effective program is actually awful. This also is an indication that the standardized tests do not measure what they intend to measure...because the people from the other program are passing the professional competency state exams... barely, but they are passing.

Teachers coming from the better program really do have a clear and effective professional knowledge base (multicultural, disabilities, methods, etc.) regardless of their speciality area. It is not that the good program needs to have tighter standards applied to it, but that ITS standards should be what the other program also has.

Finally, parents should have increased accountability for attendance and behavior.

NCLB penalizes schools that try to discipline the students. Behavioral problems in the schools are measured by NCLB by the number of office disciplinary actions... the more the office does to control behavior in the school, the worse the school appears in NCLB evaluations. Therefore, schools are doing less and less to deal with the worst behavioral issues at the office level. Yet most of the kids causing the worst behaviors have parents who are dysfunctional themselves. The worst-behaved kids learn quickly that they can do pretty much anything and get away with it, because the school is paralyzed by NCLB penalties for actually acting to control these kids.

The school is expected to maintain attendance levels. If the school has poor student attendance, it is penalized under NCLB. Yet it is the parents and not the school who decide whether the student will attend or not. In desperation, our school actually bribed parents with grading-period drawings from among perfect attendance students with cash prizes ranging from $30 to $150 (thanks to a local large business donating the funds). We barely squeaked in above the NCLB cutoff for losing our AYP ... barely. Even if our academics are superb... if we'd had even a few more student absences, we would have lost AYP. WE had to BRIBE THEM to prevent OUR being punished for THEIR lack of concern for their chidren's education. What's wrong with that picture?