Importance of Education Grades K-12 - Research Paper Example

 Importance of Education Grades k-12 The principle of 12-K education is widespread in the United States, Canada and Australia. It covers public social institutions and sphere of primary and secondary education. Considering children’s age and social variety, 12-K education combines health care and educational services in order to provide proper conditions for full-fledged development. US federal government annually finances child health care and education programs for low-income families to improve their socio-economic well-being. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Education and numerous state organizations/funds distribute allotments in accordance with local population needs and statistics. Today, like never before, 12-K education is an essential component of the postmodern system of education. 12-K education is important, because it allows appropriate health care and educational programs for students from low-income families and can be improved for positive impact on US market. To begin with, 12-K programs are integrally linked to better health outcomes in children. Pre-K programs are intended for development and health care of children of preschool age, in spite of their parents’ low living standards. They promote full-fledged upbringing and readiness to school entrance. For example, Head Start program mainly covers developmental servicing and education of 3- and 4-years-old from low-income families. CCDF is intended for both pre-K and 12-K sphere, because it provides services for 13-years-old. “Federal law allows the states to use CCDF to help working families or families preparing for work with an income of less than 85 percent of the state median income.” (Early Childhood Programs, 1999, p. 7) Even Start program combines services both for parents and little children, i.e. adult literacy, night school and child health care services. This program also partially involves 12-K area, because its participants are up to 8 years old (pupils of primary schools). These programs and funds are very important, as they provide success of the above principle on the initial stage. The obtained results stipulate further development and variety of 12-K education. When it comes to health, socially disadvantaged children and children with disabilities are the object of the most serious public concern; 12-K education provides children from all social categories and population layers with equal chances to succeed in their educational endeavors. Social category under discussion is one of the largest and most vulnerable in the USA. As follows, in this sphere their rights are regulated by Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996), Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), No Child Left Behind Act (NLCB) etc. These legislative acts protect rights of different social groups for health care, education and development. The majority of the above programs and organizations can not fully cover all social categories without support of state authorities, profit and nonprofit organizations and collaborative initiatives. Ohio’s Family and Children First Initiative functions properly due to cooperation of federal and state governments and local interested parties. It “focuses a diverse group of agencies and organizations on achieving better outcomes for children and their families.” (Early Childhood Programs, 1999, p. 14) The program allows combining preschool program and high-quality health care, as number of local institutions involved is growing. Schools, health care organizations, medical institutions, profit and nonprofit organizations promote this program, as they are interested in having healthy and full-fledged generations in future. 12-K education is of extreme importance for children from low-income families, who lack appropriate parental and peer support and require increased attention in preschool age. Educational activities, parenting-skill training, development of motor and cognitive activities will impact school results and social adaptation of children. Children from low-income families often lack of such opportunity as a result of parents’ irregular working hours, large workload, training activities, poor living conditions. Typical American family has two or three kids of different age. Consequently, variety of simultaneously rendered services for them increases. To avoid failures program and child care administrators should manage flexibly available social workers in accordance with current staff-to-child ratio. Misbalance of specific services, high cost of the services, lack of trained certified staff and transportation are the main disadvantages of In this case, collaboration initiatives will allow parents to get an additional education or extra training to get a better job (higher salary) and keep family stability. It should be noted, that pupils from low-income families make up to 85% of 12-K pubic education. Variety of the rendered services promotes healthy and all-round development of children, who will become the next generation of US citizens. Pre-K and 12-K educational programs should correspond with each other in order to keep balance within public educational system. Assessment tools and supplementary programs help to estimate children’s cognitive and motor skills, level of knowledge, health, adaptation, individual development and other indices. In the South West School District, Texas, pre-K record card system was introduced. It is successfully applied in 70 elementary schools of the selected district. The card system consists of two basic categories: academic performance and personal development. “Under academic performance, six categories address students whose first language is English (pre-reading/concepts of print, oral language, writing, listening, mathematics, and social studies/science/health).” (Brown & Mowry, 2009) English as second language is the seventh category for pupils from ethnic minorities (Asian Americans, Mexican Americans). Personal development covers decision-making, motor skills assessment, individuality etc. All program participants are assessed under four-point performance scale and obtained data is registered in the record cards. They help pre-K and 12-K teachers to coordinate distribution of children in particular schools, classes, training courses. Correspondence of public educational system and existing labor market add to the educational and healthcare benefits of 12-K education. For example, curricula of many rural schools of Argentina and Brazil include additional lessons of ecology, geography, botany, as qualified agricultural staff is in demand. Highly developed countries with a large budget activity from tourism such as Monaco or Croatia should orient national educational systems upon service sector, socio-economic infrastructure and business sphere. In the USA, Canada and other countries 12-K education covers children from low- and middle-income families, who will make the largest group on the future labor market. Getting secondary education, students usually get minimum knowledge and develop basic professional skills, which might be useful for them in future life. Pre-K and 12-K educational system allows government supporting these social groups through funds, legislative acts and social projects. In his article “Achievement Gap” Pedro Noguera discovers problems of US public education through the prism of NCLB. This act of law brought the largest portion of innovations to the US public education for several decades. “Unlike past initiatives that required states, and by extension school districts, to demonstrate compliance with federal mandates, NCLB required states to establish academic standards and to use standardized test scores as means of holdings schools accountable.” (Noguera, 2009) The main purpose of NCLB authors was to alter obsolete educational system in accordance with current market needs. Educational system of every country is tightly connected with its economy, that’s why it should develop dynamically to domestic/international market. At present world economy suffers from long-duration crisis. Many large industrial corporations, metallurgical works, mortgage banks, lending agencies have become insolvent. As follows, labor market is flooded uncalled skilled and unskilled labor force. Unfortunately, US public education is disadvantageous in the face of the crisis and forthcoming changes owing to its own problems. NCLB should improve 12-K education as to innovative demands. Unfortunately, the current state of 12-K education leaves much room for improvements. Many public schools in the disadvantageous districts still do not have proper computer equipment, Internet, libraries, own electronic websites. Basic non-academic needs of the students are often ignored as non-obligatory. Owing to “educational deficit” percentage of drop-outs increases, because of unsatisfactory educational program. The majority of subjects and curricula are limited with academic tests and exclude essential developmental skills.Previous 12-K principle proves to be less efficient due to incomplete curricula, lack of high-quality trained teachers and learning supplies. According to Noguera, NCLB is not provided with efficient practical mechanisms, although it clearly reveals disparities of US educational system. “NCLB carries enormous costs, both in terms of Federal taxpayer dollars and state and local revenues dedicated to its implementation. Most important, it has the potential to undermine the very purposes that it was created to promote: accountability and transparency.” (Hickok and Ladner, 2007) The problem of the achievement gap is another issue on the agenda in US multicultural society. Percentage of African, Asian, Mexican, Hispanic, Native Americans and immigrants in public schools grows steadily. The majority of such students come from low- and middle-income families with lack of health care, parental attention, family stability. NLCB promotes all-round equality between low-income and privileged students. Renewed 12-K educational programs should be directed on satisfaction of their unmet needs such as health care, social protection, living conditions (in campus), access to library, Internet and basic learning supplies. “Today, nearly 25 percent of poor children do not have access to adequate health care and miss far too many days of school because they are sick”. (Noguera, 2009) To get good academic outcomes such students should not feel themselves infringed as compared with students from privileged schools. Students from low-income families should learn in a socio-friendly surrounding. Achievement gap is typical for educational systems of other countries, which have a misbalanced funding mechanism. Students of private, privileged schools have higher academic scores, accumulated practical knowledge and skills in comparison of students of public schools. Firstly, the government unjustly restricts poor students’ rights for getting higher education and well-paid job. Secondly, national labor market suffers from lack of precious labor resources. According to OECD economic surveys, Turkish companies have problems with hiring qualified technical and vocationally trained employees. This is the result of duality of national educational system with limited number of selective and high technical schools. State administrations should organize even financial distribution of funds according to local economic needs. On the one hand, educational funds of every state depend on population density, birth rate, number of subordinated educational institutions. Department of Education also takes in account local pre-K health care and educational programs. On the other hand, the funds should be directed on the most urgent needs such as training and hiring of qualified teachers, necessary learning facilities and supplies, redecoration of classrooms and school territory etc. Schools of the poor districts must be at last partially completed with qualified teachers and administrator. It will help to improve educational atmosphere and find common language with students and their parents. Students should feel themselves comfortable and rely on basic non-academic needs. Curricula should be improved for stopping drop-outs and making them strive for knowledge. Educational program must include practical needs, vital developmental skills, creativity, and research. Old-fashioned programs proved to be inefficient, as they had been restricted with academic tests. They stood far from innovative market tendencies. One more essential issue within the current system of 12-K education is that it is directed exceptionally upon academic tests. Excellent students’ outcomes are more important than practical value of curriculum and included subjects. Social sciences, philosophy, music and arts and some other subjects are either partially or fully limited. Educational programs have nothing in common with practical life, i.e. entrepreneurship, decision-making strategies, law knowledge. Development of creative thinking, social and leadership skills, decision making models and other important skills is often uncompleted. “Thought-provoking literature is in short supply, students do very little research or writing, and the average middle school student is more comfortable with technology than the average teacher.” (Noguera, 2009) Thus, NCLB should be directed on improving of K-12 education in this sphere. Due to above improvements students from low-income families will become highly competitive on the national labor market. Theoretically, pupils from low-income families and disadvantaged areas have equal chances with the others on the OKS exam after primary school. Nevertheless, exam is not fully based upon existing educational program and requires additional preparation. Expenditures on private tuition in Turkey are very high, as elite high school graduation is a guarantee for getting well-paid job. “Based on unofficial reports, OECD (2005a) noted that students preparing for the OKS and ÖSS exams paid USD 263 million (or 1.4% of GDP) to private tutoring centers in 2001/02.” (OECD Economic Surveys: Turkey, 2006) Although the situation differs from US educational policy, this is a socio-economic blow on public schools, state funding and qualification of school teachers. Within the last decade eight-year compulsory basic education was introduced and participation gap between boys and girls was shortened by approximately 30%. These changes positively affected Turkish educational standards and increased students’ interest to educational process. At the same time, socio-economic barrier is still almost insuperable for gifted children from poor families. Coming back to disparities in US educational system, one should pay attention to racial/ethnic issue. A long-standing stereotype dominates that students from ethnic minorities have lower academic scores or are less skilful in English, foreign languages, literature, philology, social sciences, arts. In this case, 12-K education is regarded as the only way to improve and systemize knowledge of such students. Their opportunities in making career and getting a well-paid job will be restricted. This stereotype has been spreading both among local administration, teachers and students. Only a few have tried to contests it. “NCLB made it clear that schools would be held accountable for producing evidence that all students — regardless of their race, language, income, or status — were learning.” (Noguera, 2009) As a result, many elite colleges and universities have unofficially closed access for colorful Americans. They have to enroll in less prestige high educational institutions with worse learning basis. Their competitiveness on US labor market decreases. In spite of all indicated disadvantages, pre-K and K-12 health care and educational programs proved to be efficient. With the help of federal and state funding, legislative acts (NCLB), collaborative initiatives, US government strives for improving living standards and educational level of children from low-income families. Socio-economic and ethnic disparities in public schools will be gradually mitigated. NCLB has paid attention of society to basic problems of US educational system and 12-K and has laid foundation for their solving. Conclusion The importance of 12-K education is justified by the fact that 12-K education improves significantly health outcomes in children and creates conditions necessary for children from low-income families to obtain quality education and succeed in the U.S. labor markets. 12-K education is for critical importance for socially disadvantaged children and children with learning disabilities. Unfortunately, even with these advantages, the current 12-K system leaves much room for improvement: many public schools in the disadvantaged regions lack appropriate equipment and educational materials, the system is directed exceptionally toward academic tests, and racial/ ethnic disparities remain the issues of the major importance. Nevertheless, 12-K education professionals in the U.S. have a potential to mitigate these disparities in the nearest future, due to the implementation of NCLB and the development of the new budgetary solutions, which will provide all public schools with equal financial and educational opportunities. Bibliography 1. Brown, C. and Mowry, B. (2009). Preparing for Change: A Case Study of Successful Alignment between a Pre-K Program and K-12 Education. Childhood Education, 85 (3), 173 - 178. 2. Herbold, R. J. (2006). The K-12 Establishment Is Pulling America's Industrial Leadership at Risk. USA Today, 134 (2730), 60 - 62. 3. Hickok, E. and Ladner, M. (2007). Reauthorization of NCLB: Federal Management or Citizen Ownership of K-12 Education? USA Today, 136 (2750), 64 - 68. 4. Making quality education accessible to the whole population. (2006) OECD Economic Survey: Turkey, ch. 5, pp. 153 – 167. \ 5. Noguera, P.A. (2009). The Achievement Gap: Public Education in Crisis. New Labor Forum, 18 (2), 61 – 68. 6. Poor Children Benefit through Funding per Poor Child Differs. (2002). Early Childhood Programs. Report to Congressional Addresses. United States General Accounting Office. 7. Ronsisvalle, T. and Watkins, R. (2005). Student Success in Online K-12 Education. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 6 (2), 117 – 121. Read More