What can we do to improve the american education system?

Answer 1

See if parents can actually pass the tests the kids are forced to pass. My bet? Most can't. While politicians are busy blaming teachers, it might be fun to see what the primary caregivers in kids' lives lack. Then, maybe, parents might actually have some accountability.

Answer 2

Many things can be done to improve the current state of the american educational system. A lot of the problems can be eliminated by removing the beauracrats and administrative staff that currently is a huge part of spending. A lot of these people don't teach, but sit in some office of the school district.

Also, a lot of teachers in the U.S. are left to their own when it comes to developing a curriculum. They may have to teach certain things so as to meet state and federal goals but the profession is rather lonely compared to other countries.

Other things to improve education could be higher pay for teachers so as to attract higher skilled people into the profession. Also, removing teachers who don't teach and strengthening the education degree at the college level would help. A lot of education departments in colleges are looked at as being easy. If the degree was made harder, maybe it would increase the effectiveness of teaching.

Regarding curriculum, schools should emphasize the basics along with providing opportunity to excel. Schools within certain communities often face a student population that comes from homes that are struggling and has kids with many problems. I'm not one to say that the school is the answer to everything since it is not, but more effort should be placed at making the worst schools better.

Renovate schools. A lot of schools are old and run down. Students come to school to learn and the school should be able to facilitate this by if not necessarily inspiring the students, at least being a place where the students enjoy being at. Portables next to schools are ugly.

Finally, you could experiment with the length of school days. I believe Japanese students go to school 235 days a year compared to 170 or so for the US. This may or may not work given cultural differences towards education.

Answer 3

The American education system is not quite as bad as statistics say. George Bush's No Child Left Behind Act requires that students with an IQ lower than a snake's belly be able to read, write and learn exactly what a student with a normal IQ can learn. This is not a reasonable goal. All it is doing is dumping a lot more paperwork on the teachers (explaining why Johnny still can't read even though he has an IQ of 40), frustrating the special education students, who are being force fed material that they will never be capable of understanding, and causing further discipline problems. Bottom line, revamp NCLB requirements for special education students!

Answer 4

The main thing that can be done is change peoples thinking of children.

Children are not adults, They don't think or comprehend like adults, They don't behave like adults, They don't have the experience of adults, Yet we give them a say in their education as though they were adults.

We live in a democracy where everyone is supposed to have a say in almost everything.

For some stupid reason we believe that same right should be afforded to children, That is where our biggest mistake is being made, (As far as education is concerned.)

Education must be a complete and total "DICTATORSHIP"
with 100% national standards and dress codes, Teaching relevant knowledge as it pertains to the world as it is today.

Politics and religion must be strictly prohibited, With the following exceptions:

Politics ( without any partisanship ), Should be taught in the school, Studying of our governmental structure and the history of how we formed America is needed later in life to participate in our democracy.

Religion, Should be taught in the church only, Mainly because that is what they are there for, And there is no need or requirement to study 1000 different religions to participate in our democracy.

The list could go on, However I think you can appreciate what I am saying.

Answer 5

We should get rid of the U.S. Department of Education; as stated by Denis Philip Doyle and Christine L. Olsen in a study by the Heritage Foundation on the matter of rectifying problems and the steady decline of education in 1996. The following is an exsert from that paper:

Why should the U.S. Department of Education be eliminated? Its time has come and gone. It is time to restore common sense.

Thanks to the Reserve Powers Clause in the Tenth Amendment, all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states. Education is such a power; a federal role is both gratuitous and intrusive.

It is time to restore federalism to its founding principles, and there is no area more fruitful than education. Despite the desperate need for reform, there is no master template--certainly not one originating in Washington--to improve the schools. States and localities are "laboratories of democracy"; reform should originate at these levels, not be imposed from on high.

Pedagogy - -the art of teaching and learning -- is quintessentially local in nature. Indeed, it goes on at the classroom and individual level. The closer decision-making is to the student and teacher, the better.

The federal role is costly as well as intrusive, requiring an expensive and burdensome bureaucracy to manage national programs. Washington should do only those things states and localities cannot do for themselves, such as national data collection and targeted research.

The most alarming aspect of growing federal control of education is not administrative interference, however, but its adverse impact on academic performance, equally the product of sins of omission and commission. The increasing power of special-interest groups, the burgeoning size of school districts, the refusal of the public schools to submit to any market discipline, weakening community bonds, a pervasive anti-intellectualism in schools of education, general permissiveness, family dissolution -- all have played a role. At no time in American history has academic performance been more important. Yet, as the federal role has increased, education performance has declined. While cause and effect are elusive, and the department's supporters assert a variety of causes to explain the decline in student performance, these changes nonetheless occurred during, and as a part of, the federal ascendancy in American education.

Answer 6

LET US TEACHERS TEACH!!! We are so busy with bureaucratic redtape and hoops that keep us from doing what we want and need to be doing. Just let us have the students without interruptions and reports and committees and hall duty and lunch room supervision. Let us focus and do what we do best.

Parents need to be more supportive of the teachers instead of attacking them when we try to get their children to stretch and reach for their potential. The biggest bullies in our schools are parents who try to bully teachers into doing things THEIR way instead of the way that is going to be best for the child academically.

Parents need to remember that teachers are the professionals in their area. If they talked to their doctors the way many parents talk to teachers, they would be dismissed from the doctor's practice. We really do know what we are doing. Our degree is not merely a paper on the wall.

Administrators should be more supportive of their teachers. They need to have a spine that can keep teachers from being bullied by parents. A good administrator's major purpose should be to do whatever s/he can to help their teachers be the best they can be. If this happens, then they will have the best teachers and they in turn will train their students in the best way and students will have the education they need.

Instead of dumbing down the courses, we need to up the expectations and not be afraid of including KNOWLEDGE as the foundation of what we do. The reason we are lacking in people who have critical thinking skills is because we forget that without a good, solid knowledge basis, you cannot develop critical thinking skills.

At the end of 1st grade, students take a test of first grade material. If they cannot pass, they are in 1st grade the next year. Period. No ifs, ands or buts about it. No parents wheedling and whining about it. It is that way. At the end of 2nd grade, same thing. Passing students on does no good. It only compounds the problem the next year until the student is in 10th grade and still cannot read or do basic math. Catch it early and it will be less of a problem.

Mainstreaming may make the handful of special education students feel better, but not if it is at the expense of other students. How is it really better for 29 students if you have 1 student who is constantly disrupting and keeping the teacher from teaching? Also, regular classroom teachers are NOT TRAINED to deal with students with these kinds of problems. They NEED to be in classes with teachers who are TRAINED to work with them and who can do it without holding back the majority of the other students in the class.

There needs to be a realistic understanding that:

1. All students can NOT learn equally and should not be tested as if they can. Be realistic. We're doing handstands for the lower kids who may never get it while the upper level kids have to "wait" until everyone else catches up. Who loses? The upper level! Theoretically, the money was supposed to go equally to these two extreme groups, but in reality the money is all being channelled into programs for remediation. The upper level students are the ones who lose!

2. Not all students WANT to learn and "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" is still 100% true. Teachers should hardly be held accountable for students who refuse to learn any more than a person should be held accountable for the horse that won't drink. We can only present the material. If they don't want it, I can't do anything about it. I do my part. Students have to do theirs as well.

And I agree about getting rid of the NEA. I do NOT agree with their agenda and it seems to be a pattern that the more the NEA has been involved in education, the worse our students are doing. NEA is NOT in the best interest of our students!

Answer 7

a million. extra funding 2. No illegals in employer structures 3. stop taking originality a ways from teachers. Many could do a similar curriculum the equivalent way year after year. 4. extra day cares in faculties, my college has really few unique run applications for toddlers and households. 5. extra teachers that surely like youngsters, i see many instructors who may care a lot less. 6. a lot less discrimination through technique of administration, exceptionally in the severe faculties. some directors and teachers choose childrens through the clothing they placed on. 7. extra projects in the faculties for toddlers after college. 8. end placement tests, those are an issue for teachers, mom and pa and scholars. not one of the above in our field approve. 9. extra teachers to be able to artwork with scholars with interpreting topics.

Answer 8

First, stop throwing money at it in the form of "better equipment." Stop teaching at the pace of the slowest student in the class. Get rid of the jargon and gobble-de-**** present in the teachers' vocabulary and in the materials students use. Require uniforms for all students, to include uniform shoes, and set up funds to help those students whose family can't afford the cost. Raise the pass/fail qualification and make the rest of the grade ranges smaller. Take all calculators and computers out of the classrooms. Make students learn multiplication tables in addition to all of the basic math functions without the aid of anything other than a pencil and some paper. Teach spelling by memorization as it was taught before the advent of "modern" methods. Use materials that require real thought. Make eight grades sufficient for a person to be able to operate minimally in the society, and make high school either college prepatory or technical vocational. When a young person leaves high school he or she should have the skills and tools to go into society and find a job for which he or she is trained. Start demanding the teenagers mature and take responsibility in preparing for their future instead of simply putting time in until a diploma is attained. Raise requirements for acquiring a high-school diploma. Get rid of commencement in all of the lowest grades and reserve it for eigth grade alone. Get rid of middle school and go back to eight grades at the first level and four grades in high school. Get rid of the automatic pass system and require minimum performance of a passing grade overall for students to be "passed" to the next grade. NO EXCEPTIONS. Require students to take an pass a comprehensive test at the end of the eigth and twelfth grades to determine whether he or she will receive a diploma. Make the diploma worth working for by the raising of academic standards.

This is a good start. I'm afraid no one will listen or even give many of these suggestions much thought. Until the majority of them are instituted, the performance level of student graduating from U.S. schools will continue to decline, unfortunately.

Answer 9

Make the teachers accountable for the outcome. If kids are graduating without the basic knowledge of math, reading, English, history, etc. then the teachers should be held responsible. And as far as the no child left behind act, that is crap! If the kid can't pass DON'T PASS THEM! Also I am so tired of the teachers whining about their pay! They knew what they were in for before they went to college, so I don't want to hear it! They get full benefits for their family for free, they get summers off, if they teach summer school they get paid extra! They have off every weekend and every holiday! Don't take your bad attitude out on the kids because you hate your job! QUIT!

Answer 10

Get a grip Flower girl

1. Yes I knew what I was in for and nobody goes into teaching for the pay

2. Benefits are not free for our families it costs me $600 a month per child for health care

3. I get 8 weeks in the summer off that are spent in college classes fulfilling the requirements to keep my job

don't talk about what you don't know

Answer 11

Stop insisting that schools hang on to students who do not want to learn; end social promotion; require students be in good academic standing to get motor vehicle learner's permit and a high school diploma (or GED) for all drivers over 19.
Here is an interesting idea: Before you are allowed to register to vote demonstrate that you can pass the same test that is given to aliens seeking naturalization.
Some students will do the absolute minimum required of them. In many schools, the absolute minimum is absolutely nothing. Raise the minimum.