The Failure of Prince George's School System - Research Paper Example

?Outline Topic: What are the factors that are contribute to the failure of Prince George’s school system? Thesis: Despite gains, Prince George’s school system remains Maryland’s lowest-rated education system. I. Introduction: This section will include a brief introduction of the institution, its gains to the community and the education system, and factors contributing to the system’s failure. A. Background: The section will involve a brief introduction on the education system and its mission. The financial requirements of the system compared to other non systems will also be addressed. B. Thesis C. Mission: Simplify access to education of all children and make them future, life-long earners and productive citizens. D. Gains: Provision of education, cost effective, open enrollment, practical nature of the courses offered and not discriminatory towards age. II. Factors: A. School Funding: Although the school system offers merit-based and need-based financial packages to its students, it is underfunded. This causes financial strain and consequent failure. B. Negative Attitude, Irregular Attendance and Mistrust of the Education System: the failure to understand and recognize the school mission by the residents and students has led to development of a negative attitude towards the school system. Failure to perform well has also discouraged most of the teachers. This causes increased poor performance and subsequent failure. C. Foreclosure Crisis: The school system is commuter-based thus any housing problems within the county affects learning leading to failure. D. Corruption, nepotism and professional misconduct: The education system has for a long time collaborated with the county government curbing corruption, Nepotism and professional misconduct. However, there has been an upsurge in corruption, nepotism and professional misconduct leading to failure. E. Social- cultural and Economic disparities: Partnering with community agencies and business has integrated the school system with the social cultural and economic aspect of the communities. However, the challenges facing the communities have extended to the school system leading to its failure to deliver. F. Monopoly and Policy Failure: Most county learners enroll in the system leading to monopoly. Lack or minimal competition leads to poor delivery of services. G. Lack of Accountability: One of the mission targets of the school system is the development of customized training programs to meet the needs of the highly competitive job market. However, Prince George's school system is rarely held accountable for the undereducated students they channel in the job market. Lack of accountability stems to what is taught and what should be learnt in the school system. III. Systemic Challenges: The wide range of programs and distinct learners that the school system serves makes the education system to be complex. However, Prince George’s education system is becoming a victim of its own challenges. IV. Other Factors: Other factors leading to failure include: the conflicting interests facing the interests and requirements of federal education legislation and the unique goals of the institutions to satisfy the local educational demands and decreased availability of resources required to satisfy people’s needs among others. V. Recommendations: To avoid failure, the college should: i. Extensive Training ii. Hiring qualified Staff iii. Better Administration iv. Improved Learning facilities v. Adequate funding vi. Improvement of enrollment system vii. Collaboration with county government and the community VI. Conclusion: The current trend in state of the education system is not future bound and thus effective measures are required to revive it. Both parents and teachers should collaborate in ensuring that their children put necessary efforts to improve on performance. What Are The Factors That Are Contribute To The Failure Of Prince George's School System? Name Module Professor Aug 4, 2012 What Are The Factors That Are Contribute To The Failure Of Prince George's School System? I.Introduction: This section will include a brief introduction of the institution, its gains to the community and the education system, and factors contributing to the system’s failure. 1 V.Recommendations: To avoid failure, the college should: 3 i.Extensive Training 3 ii.Hiring qualified Staff 3 iii.Better Administration 3 iv.Improved Learning facilities 3 v.Adequate funding 3 vi.Improvement of enrollment system 3 vii.Collaboration with county government and the community 3 VI.Conclusion: The current trend in state of the education system is not future bound and thus effective measures are required to revive it. Both parents and teachers should collaborate in ensuring that their children put necessary efforts to improve on performance. 3 School Funding. The school system normally offers both need-based and merit-based funding to its students. This means students who hail from poor neighborhoods can also access education. However, this is the most dominant factor that causes the failure of this system. Prince George's school system is normally underfunded. According to Prince George’s Business-Education Alliance report, “Only one of the Board of Education budgets has been fully funded since 1981…” (7). Funds are necessary to attract excellent and qualified teachers as well as administrators as this increases the quality of the curriculum content. Availability of funds ensures retention and professional development of teachers and administrators. Other activities like the improvement of facilities, provision of instructional facilities and upgrading the educational technology require adequate funding. Funds are also required to reduce congestion in classes as well as maintaining a favorable teacher-student ratio. Most professionals prefer other professions other than teaching. This causes shortage of trainers and teachers. Qualified teachers are also poached by private institutions leaving such system with a shortage. For instance, Prince George’s Business-Education Alliance report indicates, “In 2000 and 2002 academic years, the system lost 20 percent of the teaching workforce...” (7). 7 Negative Attitude, Irregular Attendance and Mistrust of the Education System. The mission of the school system is to offer learning opportunities to individuals and groups to realize their potential in a challenging, education-based environment. However, most residents are not convinced with the merits the system provides them thus; they have developed mistrust and negative attitudes towards it. Most of the failure threats can be attributed to lack of focus on results by both teachers and students. The administration normally pays less attention to attainment of high standards performance requirement by the students. The education process overlooks performance and focuses on analysis of results when formulating educational policies. Cook alludes, “The school reform should respect the individual decision of teachers, students and administrators in the determination of the educational outcomes…” (550). Most children enrolled in the school are normally hungry, tired and not ready to learn. They also possess language and learning problems that require much effort and enormous teacher input to improve. For children to perform excellently, they should possess a positive attitude towards education. This also promotes the teaching morale of the tutors thus improving the overall performance. Most parents and guardians in Maryland blame the education system for the poor performance of their kids, forgetting that they also possess an obligation towards education welfare of their children. The failure to hold children accountable for poor performance by the parents enhances their negative attitude towards education. Both parents and teachers are not supportive to teachers. According to Cook, “Many bright students prefer being enrolled in better performing schools…” (581). This leaves Maryland Prince George's school system out of their preferred learning institution. The negative attitude towards school by students has led to rise in school drop out cases leading to increased crime within the County. Drop out tendencies contributes in the proclivity of the youths to be involved in criminal activities. This lands most of them in prison with a high possibility of their return to the prison once they are released. Most parents are forced to spend most of their resources to cater for psychiatry requirements of their children instead of paying school fees. Loss of youths to crime has lead to failure of the system. 9 Foreclosure Crisis. Most of the learning services offered in the school system are cost effective and are financially friendly to the students and the community. However, the school system is commuter-based implying that learners are affected by the recent foreclosure crisis that has affected Maryland. The housing foreclosure and bust crisis has introduced unexpected changes in the education lives of the affected youth, families and communities in Maryland County. Commenting in the Washington Examiner newspaper, Peterson affirms, “…the foreclosure crisis in Maryland has shot up by 21 percent according to the foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac.” (2). Foreclosure has forced most of the residents to relocate from the county leading to school change among many learners and disruption in education. Those migrating from other counties experience the effects of foreclosure on their education whereby they struggle to adapt to new education environment and disruption of social ties. Commenting on the effects of migration, Boyle alludes, “…this leads to a prolonged adaption period and poor performance.” (887). 10 Corruption, nepotism and professional misconduct. Prince George’s school system has for a long time collaborated with the county government curbing corruption, nepotism and professional misconduct. This has ensured a long proliferation of the system and the achievement of its mission. Recently, there has been increased cases of unprofessional hiring and employment of teachers in the school system, with most of them being uncertified or unqualified. The school system is also not aggressive enough to ensure that all the teachers hired have exceptional professional qualifications. Unprofessional misconduct when hiring the workforce has contributed to the encroachment of nepotism (Cook 586). Corruption has prevented the development of various learning structures required to promote education and improve the welfare of the students. Most of the funds being misused in ghost projects can be channeled into helping the students in the classroom. The anticorruption efforts in the school system are being hindered by lack of political support aimed at developing a coherent strategy aimed at curbing corruption, poor coordination among various administrative agencies and lack of effective judicial enforcement restrictions. The administration also seems reluctant to enact legislative accountability measures against corruption. This enhances the mismanagement culture and continuity of the status quo from one administration to another. The continued exposure of high profile corruption cases facing the school system has undermined the public confidence towards the learning system. This causes enrollment avoidance and subsequent transfer of children to other institutions. According to 2010’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) data represented in the 2010 Annual Report, 83 percent of the county citizens believe that corruption has increased in the school system, and the federal government is doing little to avert the menace. According to 2010 Annual Report, “…this figure has increased from 83 percent in 2010 to 95 percent in 2012.” (12). As a result, the negative perception adopted by the students makes them loose confidence as well as promoting laziness. This leads to poor performance. The county reform system on education matters is characterized by half hearted measures with comical misdiagnosis of education al challenges with blame shifting. Lack of professional competence has also led making of wrong and ineffective decisions concerning the school system. 12 Social- cultural and Economic disparities. The system has been responsible for partnering with community agencies and businesses in uplifting the economic and education status of the residents. This implies that the school has been directly involved in the community culture. The socioeconomic disparities in the Maryland, especially in Prince George’s county, have a profound, negative impact on students’ academic performance. Most students commute to the schools from economically challenged house holds. Homelessness, unemployment and poor health decreases the student’s readiness and receptive capability towards education. Satisfaction of both physical and emotional welfare of the students boosts their attitudes towards education leading to better performance and improved school attendance. Hip hop culture has been pervasive in Maryland with most students quitting studies to engage in it. The culture has had prominent negative influence on black, Hispanic and white K-12 students (Houle and Cobb). Low enrollment and irregular school attendance has contributed to the failure of the system. 13 Policy Failure and Reduced Effectiveness. The school system’s wide range of education programs and cost-effective enrollment requirements has made the system enjoy popularity among community members compared to other school systems in Maryland. A high enrollment that characterizes the system denotes a sense of dominance in education provision within the county leading to reduced effectiveness in education provision. This makes the system enjoy monopoly in the county leading to lack of the urge to produce successful students. Lack of competition has made most teachers lack motivation or a competitive edge on which to relate their performance. According to Hall 2005, parents become bother some nuisance rather clients while students become lazy making the teachers give up and the whole system collapses if competition lacks in education systems. Most teacher unions enact policies meant to protect the welfare of the teachers and not students. This implies that even if teachers misbehave, they are guaranteed protection. Most of the teachers are conditioned to believe that their role is to abide to the existing education rules and regulations pertaining time or obligation and not performance. They are not obliged to be accountable to poor performance of students. They have a tenure that guarantees their job until retirement. This makes some of them to relent in their duties because they are sure that they cannot be fired. Less contribution of the teachers towards education in these institutions leads to failure as most students do not receive proper education. Additionally, the remuneration system of the teachers is characterized by a salary gap whereby poor performing teachers cannot be penalized while the outstanding performing ones are not rewarded. This maintains all teachers at a level playing ground, discouraging the highly performing ones. 14 Lack of Accountability. One of the mission targets of the school system is the development of customized training programs to meet the needs of the highly competitive job market. However, Prince George's community school system is rarely held accountable for the undereducated students they channel in the job market. Lack of accountability stems to what is taught and what should be learnt in the school system. The education system should encompass those subjects that will be applicable in the job market when the student graduates. Awesome states, “The teaching methods include lessons plans, class activities and teaching methodology.” (Par 12). The success of the curriculum is dependent on the effort input by the teachers; implying that the success or failure of a curriculum in any school system is largely the responsibility of the teacher. 15 Systemic Challenges. The wide range of programs and distinct learners that the school offers makes the education system to be complex. However, Prince George’s education system is becoming a victim of its own challenges. According to Kucharvy, 2010, the enrollment in these schools doubled in 2008 to 225 percent outsmarting the enrollment in state universities, which was 1.25 percent. However, the expansion rate of the system is lower as compared to the state universities implying that most of them are overcrowded. The overcrowding in Prince George’s school system, in Mary land, has led to increased costs of operation. The requirement to teach remedial classes makes the schools to accommodate more students in each class, curtail time in costly facilities such as laboratories and cut back on frails such as career counseling. This, in collaboration with open admission policies, has led to increased drop outs. 15 Other Factors. According to Awesome, “Other factors leading to failure include: the conflicting interests facing the interests and requirements of federal education legislation and the unique goals of the institutions to satisfy the local educational demands; and decreased availability of resources required to satisfy people’s needs.” (Par 12). Additionally, the challenges of dealing with the aging faculty which is not conscious of any development strategies or change efforts and the problems of finding qualified staff to replace the retiring members contributes to its failure. 16 RECOMMENDATIONS 16 CONCLUSION 17 Works Cited 18 Awesome, Beryl., America's Failing Public Education System-Problems, 2009 Wikinut Lt 2010. 18 Annual Report., Prince George's County Public Schools. Available at: http://www1.pgcps.org/interior.aspx?id=140211, PGCPS Highlights 2011. 18 Houle, David, and Cobb, Jeff, Shifted: A Call to Action for Transforming K-12 Education. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, 2011. 18 Kucharvy, Tom. Knowledge Work in a Global Economy, Helping Colleges and Universities 18 Educate Tomorrow’s Knowledge Workers, 2010. 18 The Failure of Prince George's School System According to Prince George’s Business-Education Alliance (2004), Prince George’s school system offers study programs in more than 100 fields ranging from mathematics to culinary arts. The formal mission of the system is to simplify access to education of all children and make them future, lifelong earners and productive citizens. The school system is usually less expensive compared to state colleges and most of the courses they offer normally focus on practical instead of liberal arts. Owing to its open admission policy, the school system makes the enrollment process easy. This makes most people to be eligible for admission in the school system as compared to other colleges in Maryland. Prince George’s school system also offers both need and merit-based funding to cater for the fees requirements of its students. This has enabled financially challenged society members to access education. Despite gains, Prince George’s school remains Maryland’s lowest-rated system. Recently, the system has experienced both internal and external challenges that are an impediment towards achievement of its educational obligations. According to a performance report by Prince George’s Business-Education Alliance, “...the test scores of the school system are low as compared to other systems around the nation.”(7) The report indicates that only 44 percent of the students attained proficiency in reading and 35 percent demonstrated proficiency in mathematics; poor performance was noted in African Americans and Hispanics. (Prince George’s Business-Education Alliance report 7) This portrays poor performance. Poor performance is caused by factors such as inadequate funding, negative attitude towards education by the students, systemic challenges and lack of accountability among others. The above challenges result into high dropout rates, low test scores and unmotivated students ultimately leading to under qualified future workforce. The paper discusses the factors that contribute to the system’s failure. School Funding. The school system normally offers both need-based and merit-based funding to its students. This means students who hail from poor neighborhoods can also access education. However, this is the most dominant factor that causes the failure of this system. Prince George's school system is normally underfunded. According to Prince George’s Business-Education Alliance report, “Only one of the Board of Education budgets has been fully funded since 1981…” (7). Funds are necessary to attract excellent and qualified teachers as well as administrators as this increases the quality of the curriculum content. Availability of funds ensures retention and professional development of teachers and administrators. Other activities like the improvement of facilities, provision of instructional facilities and upgrading the educational technology require adequate funding. Funds are also required to reduce congestion in classes as well as maintaining a favorable teacher-student ratio. Most professionals prefer other professions other than teaching. This causes shortage of trainers and teachers. Qualified teachers are also poached by private institutions leaving such system with a shortage. For instance, Prince George’s Business-Education Alliance report indicates, “In 2000 and 2002 academic years, the system lost 20 percent of the teaching workforce...” (7). The poor financial position of Prince George’s school can be attributed to the limited funding. Kurcharvy posits, “The school captures only about 20 percent of the federal tertiary education funding including 14 percent of competitiveness grants, 30 percent in Pell Grants and 9 percent of campus-based aid” (4). The school system also faces financial challenges due to the burden of disproportionately higher costs. According to the US department of education, the colleges spend more that 2 billion dollars per year in remedial teaching of mathematics, English and writing which are not taught in high school. Prince George’s school program is experiencing the adverse burden of recession through vast budget cuts. Negative Attitude, Irregular Attendance and Mistrust of the Education System. The mission of the school system is to offer learning opportunities to individuals and groups to realize their potential in a challenging, education-based environment. However, most residents are not convinced with the merits the system provides them thus; they have developed mistrust and negative attitudes towards it. Most of the failure threats can be attributed to lack of focus on results by both teachers and students. The administration normally pays less attention to attainment of high standards performance requirement by the students. The education process overlooks performance and focuses on analysis of results when formulating educational policies. Cook alludes, “The school reform should respect the individual decision of teachers, students and administrators in the determination of the educational outcomes…” (550). Most children enrolled in the school are normally hungry, tired and not ready to learn. They also possess language and learning problems that require much effort and enormous teacher input to improve. For children to perform excellently, they should possess a positive attitude towards education. This also promotes the teaching morale of the tutors thus improving the overall performance. Most parents and guardians in Maryland blame the education system for the poor performance of their kids, forgetting that they also possess an obligation towards education welfare of their children. The failure to hold children accountable for poor performance by the parents enhances their negative attitude towards education. Both parents and teachers are not supportive to teachers. According to Cook, “Many bright students prefer being enrolled in better performing schools…” (581). This leaves Maryland Prince George's school system out of their preferred learning institution. The negative attitude towards school by students has led to rise in school drop out cases leading to increased crime within the County. Drop out tendencies contributes in the proclivity of the youths to be involved in criminal activities. This lands most of them in prison with a high possibility of their return to the prison once they are released. Most parents are forced to spend most of their resources to cater for psychiatry requirements of their children instead of paying school fees. Loss of youths to crime has lead to failure of the system. Foreclosure Crisis. Most of the learning services offered in the school system are cost effective and are financially friendly to the students and the community. However, the school system is commuter-based implying that learners are affected by the recent foreclosure crisis that has affected Maryland. The housing foreclosure and bust crisis has introduced unexpected changes in the education lives of the affected youth, families and communities in Maryland County. Commenting in the Washington Examiner newspaper, Peterson affirms, “…the foreclosure crisis in Maryland has shot up by 21 percent according to the foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac.” (2). Foreclosure has forced most of the residents to relocate from the county leading to school change among many learners and disruption in education. Those migrating from other counties experience the effects of foreclosure on their education whereby they struggle to adapt to new education environment and disruption of social ties. Commenting on the effects of migration, Boyle alludes, “…this leads to a prolonged adaption period and poor performance.” (887). A study carried out by Immergluck and Smith proves that those youths who are not affected by the Foreclosure may be adversely affected by the associated changes in community changes (60). According to study, those living in such settings are subjected to crime and instability. This lowers their performance in school. Some of the teachers have also been affected by the crisis leading to relocation. This disrupts the county’s education system. Increased prevalence of foreclosure has made many residents to migrate to the neighboring suburbs. Wiggins agrees, “…close to 12,600 families moved to Howard and Anne Arundel counties from 2005 to 2008.” (15). The county also possesses few school attending juniors. According to Wiggins, the enrollment has slid over the recent past due to factors like plaguing of the system with a history of low achievement, political infighting and frequent leadership turnover. According to Wiggins, loss of students due to relocation to other schools, “…leads to a decrease in the ability of the system to compete with state and private schools for economic development, quality of life and education funds.” (6).This makes the system to lag behind both in terms of performance and development. Corruption, nepotism and professional misconduct. Prince George’s school system has for a long time collaborated with the county government curbing corruption, nepotism and professional misconduct. This has ensured a long proliferation of the system and the achievement of its mission. Recently, there has been increased cases of unprofessional hiring and employment of teachers in the school system, with most of them being uncertified or unqualified. The school system is also not aggressive enough to ensure that all the teachers hired have exceptional professional qualifications. Unprofessional misconduct when hiring the workforce has contributed to the encroachment of nepotism (Cook 586). Corruption has prevented the development of various learning structures required to promote education and improve the welfare of the students. Most of the funds being misused in ghost projects can be channeled into helping the students in the classroom. The anticorruption efforts in the school system are being hindered by lack of political support aimed at developing a coherent strategy aimed at curbing corruption, poor coordination among various administrative agencies and lack of effective judicial enforcement restrictions. The administration also seems reluctant to enact legislative accountability measures against corruption. This enhances the mismanagement culture and continuity of the status quo from one administration to another. The continued exposure of high profile corruption cases facing the school system has undermined the public confidence towards the learning system. This causes enrollment avoidance and subsequent transfer of children to other institutions. According to 2010’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) data represented in the 2010 Annual Report, 83 percent of the county citizens believe that corruption has increased in the school system, and the federal government is doing little to avert the menace. According to 2010 Annual Report, “…this figure has increased from 83 percent in 2010 to 95 percent in 2012.” (12). As a result, the negative perception adopted by the students makes them loose confidence as well as promoting laziness. This leads to poor performance. The county reform system on education matters is characterized by half hearted measures with comical misdiagnosis of education al challenges with blame shifting. Lack of professional competence has also led making of wrong and ineffective decisions concerning the school system. Social- cultural and Economic disparities. The system has been responsible for partnering with community agencies and businesses in uplifting the economic and education status of the residents. This implies that the school has been directly involved in the community culture. The socioeconomic disparities in the Maryland, especially in Prince George’s county, have a profound, negative impact on students’ academic performance. Most students commute to the schools from economically challenged house holds. Homelessness, unemployment and poor health decreases the student’s readiness and receptive capability towards education. Satisfaction of both physical and emotional welfare of the students boosts their attitudes towards education leading to better performance and improved school attendance. Hip hop culture has been pervasive in Maryland with most students quitting studies to engage in it. The culture has had prominent negative influence on black, Hispanic and white K-12 students (Houle and Cobb). Low enrollment and irregular school attendance has contributed to the failure of the system. Policy Failure and Reduced Effectiveness. The school system’s wide range of education programs and cost-effective enrollment requirements has made the system enjoy popularity among community members compared to other school systems in Maryland. A high enrollment that characterizes the system denotes a sense of dominance in education provision within the county leading to reduced effectiveness in education provision. This makes the system enjoy monopoly in the county leading to lack of the urge to produce successful students. Lack of competition has made most teachers lack motivation or a competitive edge on which to relate their performance. According to Hall 2005, parents become bother some nuisance rather clients while students become lazy making the teachers give up and the whole system collapses if competition lacks in education systems. Most teacher unions enact policies meant to protect the welfare of the teachers and not students. This implies that even if teachers misbehave, they are guaranteed protection. Most of the teachers are conditioned to believe that their role is to abide to the existing education rules and regulations pertaining time or obligation and not performance. They are not obliged to be accountable to poor performance of students. They have a tenure that guarantees their job until retirement. This makes some of them to relent in their duties because they are sure that they cannot be fired. Less contribution of the teachers towards education in these institutions leads to failure as most students do not receive proper education. Additionally, the remuneration system of the teachers is characterized by a salary gap whereby poor performing teachers cannot be penalized while the outstanding performing ones are not rewarded. This maintains all teachers at a level playing ground, discouraging the highly performing ones. Lack of Accountability. One of the mission targets of the school system is the development of customized training programs to meet the needs of the highly competitive job market. However, Prince George's community school system is rarely held accountable for the undereducated students they channel in the job market. Lack of accountability stems to what is taught and what should be learnt in the school system. The education system should encompass those subjects that will be applicable in the job market when the student graduates. Awesome states, “The teaching methods include lessons plans, class activities and teaching methodology.” (Par 12). The success of the curriculum is dependent on the effort input by the teachers; implying that the success or failure of a curriculum in any school system is largely the responsibility of the teacher. Systemic Challenges. The wide range of programs and distinct learners that the school offers makes the education system to be complex. However, Prince George’s education system is becoming a victim of its own challenges. According to Kucharvy, 2010, the enrollment in these schools doubled in 2008 to 225 percent outsmarting the enrollment in state universities, which was 1.25 percent. However, the expansion rate of the system is lower as compared to the state universities implying that most of them are overcrowded. The overcrowding in Prince George’s school system, in Mary land, has led to increased costs of operation. The requirement to teach remedial classes makes the schools to accommodate more students in each class, curtail time in costly facilities such as laboratories and cut back on frails such as career counseling. This, in collaboration with open admission policies, has led to increased drop outs. Other Factors. According to Awesome, “Other factors leading to failure include: the conflicting interests facing the interests and requirements of federal education legislation and the unique goals of the institutions to satisfy the local educational demands; and decreased availability of resources required to satisfy people’s needs.” (Par 12). Additionally, the challenges of dealing with the aging faculty which is not conscious of any development strategies or change efforts and the problems of finding qualified staff to replace the retiring members contributes to its failure. RECOMMENDATIONS The internal factors that should be addressed are: a. The administration should ensure that the administrators and teachers that are hired are highly qualified and reliable for improving the performance. b. The staff should be retained for a reasonable period to avoid disruptions. Professional development should be ensured through frequent training and workshops. c. Training in reading and literary skills should be enhanced in elementary and middle schools to prepare them in advance and guarantee better performance at all levels of learning. d. Learning facilities and staffing should be improved to meet the current and future requirements of the increasing student population. e. Adequate funding should be ensured to overcome the barriers that inhibit proper performance. Proper funding will also eliminate the challenge of a large class sizes. f. To improve the schools economy, and enrollment, the system should enhance its goodwill interaction with the surrounding community, change the failing perception of its constituent schools and compete with other school from different counties undertaking similar programs. g. The school and county administration should put on board all the stakeholders who pay taxes to support the education system and abandon their culture of only focusing on principals, parents, teachers and students. CONCLUSION The current trend in the state of the system is not future bound and thus effective measures are required to revive it. Both parents and teachers should collaborate in ensuring that the children put necessary efforts to improve on performance. It would be futile to offer student opportunities in school while the parents allow them to watch television and play video games; they should concentrate on their studies. The administration should apply a candid assessment and holistic approach towards solving the challenges facing the college. This strategy should encompass measures such as methods of estimating the student’s progress, community and family involvement, increase in collaboration with stakeholders, fair and balanced resource allocation and address socioeconomic disparities among the stakeholders. Works Cited Awesome, Beryl., America's Failing Public Education System-Problems, 2009 Wikinut Lt 2010. Annual Report., Prince George's County Public Schools. Available at: http://www1.pgcps.org/interior.aspx?id=140211, PGCPS Highlights 2011. Boyle, Michael. Home Ownership and the Emotional and Behavioral Problems of Children and Youth. Child Development 73(3):883–93, 2002. Cook, Thomas, Comer's School Development Program in Prince George's County, Maryland: A Theory-Based Evaluation, American Educational Research Journal September 21, 1999 36: 543-597. Hall, Elizabeth, Factors Affecting University GPA of Maryland Community College Transfer Students Who Persist to Graduation, Digital Repository at the University of Maryland, 2005. Houle, David, and Cobb, Jeff, Shifted: A Call to Action for Transforming K-12 Education. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, 2011. Kucharvy, Tom. Knowledge Work in a Global Economy, Helping Colleges and Universities Educate Tomorrow’s Knowledge Workers, 2010. Immergluck, Dan., & Smith, Geoff, The external cost of foreclosure: The impact of single Family mortgage foreclosures on property values, Housing Policy Debate, 17(6), 2006. Peterson, Hayley, Experts: Maryland Foreclosure Programs Prolong Crisis, The Washington Examiner, 2012. Prince George’s Business-Education Alliance, Investing in our Future Education and the Economy in Prince George’s County. A Report on the Prince George’s Business Education Summit, 2004. Wiggins, Ovetta, Prince George’s County School Enrollment Slides, (Press release) The Washington Post, 2012. Read More