Problems and Solutions Facing Education in US - Assignment Example

Problems and Solutions facing Education in the US There are many problems facing the education system in United States. The government has pumped in about $200 million to boost the education level in public schools. Despite the amount, there are challenges that have gone unaddressed that usually cause poor performance in Math and the language. The problems arise due to failure by the government to address the psychological barrier that stand in between the students and their deeper learning. Government should include the psychological subjects in the curricula. Additionally, research has shown that students who are not encouraged while still undertaking their studies are likely to perform poorly in spite of their intelligence (Toch and Headden 1). A research study conducted by David Yeager in collaboration with Dweck a Stanford professor of psychology shows that 87% of students scored better because of teachers encouragement while those who did not receive teachers encouragement scored zero marks (Toch and Headden 1). Hard work and hiring of highly qualified teachers are the main keys to success in the American education system. The other problem that is affecting the educational system in the United States is the employment of under qualified teachers. The teachers fail to deliver effectively in their duties. As a result, the Bush administration instituted a taskforce that could oversee that by the end of 2006, a qualified professional teacher taught every child in all public schools (Smith and Corard 2). Unfortunately, this has not been the case recently. According to an article called Nation at Risk indicates that teachers are still being drawn from the bottom ranks of the college graduates. Although teachers salaries have been increased considerably since the 1980s, professional aspect of these teachers has not been taken into consideration. Additionally, an assessment carried in two states in the United States shows that in the State of Nevada only 38% of the teachers met the professional requirement in the year 2000. Incompetence amongst the teachers is shown when 21 states participated in the PRAXIS. PRAXIS is professional skills testing programme and unfortunately, 59% of the teachers failed the test and were ranked below the median point, raising concerns on the standard of education in the United States (Smith and Corard 2). In an effort to addressing this problem, the federal government enacted No Child left Behind Act that could ensure that those teachers who teach in schools are highly qualified. One of the factors hindering this development includes the different teacher’s assessment method and licensing in different states. Different states have different grading systems that make it difficult for a teacher from one state to work in another state. Moreover, by the end of 2003, only the state of Wisconsin had met all the requirements of teacher quality (Smith and Corard 2-6). More needs to be done to create the homogeneity in the education system in the United States. Moreover, if the teachers professionalisms is not enhanced in all states then it will not have met the No Child Left Behind Act (Smith Corard, 9). Another problem has been showing in the level of thinking capacity. Seal Kathy shows that Asian children from Japan and China do better in their elementary level than their American counterparts (Seal 1). The Asian children once they are given a problem they constantly think and try to solve effectively than their American counterparts. Asian teachers believe that consistence is the key to success, and they have employed it in their teaching methods. Consequently, the Asian believe in hard work is one of the key factors that lead to good performance of Asian schools as compared to American schools. Asian children put more effort in studies as compared to American that appear some how lazy top put more effort. Americans argue that somebody must be born with a talent. This is one of the problems facing the education system in the United States, as American does not believe in hard work. However, if this notion is changed the US children will compete favorably with their Asian counterparts. Americans are currently worshipping on the natural ability, and they believe little in hard work (Seal 2). Changing this notion on innate abilities seems to be a mammoth undertaking. The solution to this problem is to change the thinking of the Americans and start to understand learning is a gradual process, and every child has got an equal opportunity to learn. Currently, in the United States, children are grouped according to their abilities and this is one of the key factors that are contributing to the poor performance of American schools (Seal 4). The Clinton administration was working towards removing the notion that children are born smart and instill the notion that children work hard to be smart. Since the model works only in 55 schools from Baltimore St. Louis and Sacramento, more needs to be done by the federal government to eliminate the notion. On January 7, 2008, President Bush made a surprise visit to Horace Greely Elementary school to give it an award for its outstanding performance of taking one of 12 in Illinois and 239 nationwide. Additionally, this recognition shows that some school had not reached the required benchmarks (Zhao 1). Out of the tests that were given by the government, only a few schools met the target Greeley inclusive. Furthermore, the statistics of this school shows that scores in Math increased dramatically up to 52% points and up to 90.2 % in 2007 from 38.3% in 2002. Before this time, one of the biggest problems facing education in the US is that there were no set standards for schools to achieve. In this scenario, Greely had passed the benchmark that was set by NCLB and this event equally triggered the need for educational reforms in the United States (Zhao 3). One of the reforms set in place was the no child left behind act that also provided elementary schools with tests as an indicator of quality. Consequently, the solution to this problem the act recommended that those schools that do well and pass the tests are rewarded like the case of Greeley. In line with the improvement of education, the number of teachers should also be increased, and the Bush administration promised to hire 70,000 high school teachers and bring extra 30,000 math professionals to improve math and science. Moreover, education in the United States has been faced with many problems like varied performance amongst its varied population. The Assessment of Education progress conducted by NAEP shows that only 39% of white students scored the proficiency (Zhao 7). In reading, only 12% of blacks and 14% of Hispanic students did so (Zhao 7). Making matters worse in Math only 10 % of the blacks passed compared to 42% of whites. Consequently, despite the massive reforms only6 out of 50 principal district schools reach or exceed the required national average pass mark. There should be only one body in the entire United States that should be mandated to oversee the education progress in all the States in the United States. Additionally, the performance of the US students is still lower. In science, the US students were below 11 out of 21 countries and only were ahead of two countries only (Zhao 12-13). The performance in sciences is also low in the United States when compared with other countries. The American educational performance lags behind many countries in the world. Currently, America takes position 26th in Math, 17th and 26th in everything else (Lyden 1). According Kathy Seal, countries like Korea and Finland usually do well than America. In Finland, children are given little, but challenging homework that makes them think more critically. Additionally, the children in Finland do fewer tests, and parents are less involved with their children giving them more freedom to do their best (Lyden 3. On the other hand, in Korea, teachers are highly paid giving them more motivation. According to Seal, in Korea there are many tuition lessons that are conducted on the online platform whereby children learn through E-leaning in their leisure time. This E-learning and coaching called Hagwon has become one of the biggest industries in Korean stock market. The American standards of learning can be improved if they apply the two cases of Korea and Finland (Lyden 5). The practical lessons include giving little but challenging tests and encouraging persistent tuition amongst students. Finally, the issue of teachers and number of children in the class should be addressed. Schools in Finland have highly qualified teachers most of the holding a masters level of education (Hancock and Conway 1). Additionally, the number of children in the class are few for the teacher to know every student and makes it easy for the teacher to attend to every student with professionalism. The schools also have enough educators’. For example, there are 65, 000 teachers serving 3500 schools. Furthermore, more than 30% of pupils receive special help during their first nine months in school thus uplifting the educational standards. In Finland, the schools are fully funded by the government, and there is an equal opportunity to all students despite their economic background. Because of educational efficiencies in Finland, the government of Finland spends less by 30% on every student compared to the United States. Teachers of Finland take less time in teaching and use most of their time preparing their lesson plans (Hancock and Conway 5). Education is affordable to every student, and there is free medical cover for children. In conclusion, the United States education sector lags behind those of other countries like Korea and Finland due to various reasons. The Americans do not believe in hard work in schools. They believe that one is born smart. Additionally, the government of the United States hires under qualified teacher which has greatly compromised the educational sector in the country. In order for the education sector in the US to improve, the government should hire qualified teachers and encourage psychological support amongst students to believe that people work to smart and stop using the innate qualities. Additionally, students should be encouraged to use the online platform to better their educational standards like the case of Korea. Works Cited Hancock, Lynwell and Conway, Stuart. “Why are Finland Schools Successful?” Smithsonian.com. Posted September 2011.p.1-6. Lyden, Jacki. “What Makes the Smartest Kids in the World.” Npr. Posted August 31, 2013.p. 1-5. Seal, Kathy. “The Trouble with Talent: Are we Born Smart or Do We Get Smart.” P.1-5. Smith, Emma and Corard, Stephen. “Improving Teacher Quality: Lessons From Americas No Child Left Behind.” The University of New York, 37.2 (2007):1-17. Toch, Thomas and Headden, Susan. “How to Motivate Students to Work Harder.” Www.theatlantic.com. Posted September 3, 2014, Web. 07 November 2014. < http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/how-to-get-insecure-students-to-work-harder/379500/?single_page=true>. Zhao Yong. Catching Up or Leading the Way. American Age of Globalization. New York ASCD, 2009. Read More