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Ideas for Improving American Public Education

Guest Writers and Submissions Leave a Comment

American students have received a quality education but there is room for improvement.

The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test of math and reading, which U.S. fourth and eighth graders take every two years. Those results, released in October 2019, also found that U.S. achievement hasn’t progressed over the past decade and, for low-performing students, was the same as 30 years ago.

The international test administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

In 2009 the tests showed that American students ranked 31st in Math, 23rd in Science, and 17th in Reading when compared to student test takers from 65 countries. The test requires critical thinking and reading comprehension because the questions in all three areas involve word problems about real situations. The mediocre results suggest that American students have opportunities to improve test scores.

What the next testing will show may not look good with many of our nations schools closed as a result of the Coronavirus Epidemic.

students

Many remedies for upgrading America’s schools have been suggested, including revising curricula, remodeling schools, adding electronics features to classrooms, and numerous other improvements. However, most of the suggested remedies suffer from being expensive, logistically difficult, or politically resistant.

On the other hand, there are several changes that would help to improve the American education system and the scores of American students relative to international students that are much simpler and more straightforward.

First, American parents can do a more effective job of helping the public schools and improving their children’s educational performance. Too often American parents feel that supporting their children’s education means attending concerts or games, driving students on field trips, bringing snacks to class, helping with fund raising events, and checking homework. American parents may be the best in the world at doing those things and more in support of schools, but, unfortunately, those things are not the most effective way to support the education of their children.

One of the best activities that a parent can do with their young children is to read to them and to be seen reading. Communicating the joy of reading and helping children become lifelong readers is extremely valuable. Reading with their children also gives parents the opportunity to talk about the ideas and values in the stories and how they apply to real life. When the children are older parents no longer need to read to them, but they should continue to talk about real ideas and values. Parents can talk about the issues in the family, the school, the community, the state, and the nation. This is the type of activity that will help to encourage students to become thinking young adults and prepare them to be wise adults. The benefit to their school work and their testing will be an increase in the student’s ability to think critically and to solve real world problems.

A second remedy to the public education system is to upgrade the selection of teachers. Currently, there are a large number of colleges and universities offering degrees in public school teaching, and the result is that there are far more new teachers each year than are needed. The solution is to decrease the number of colleges and universities that offer a teaching degree and to increase the requirements to be accepted into a teaching degree program. Currently at many colleges it is possible for a student who graduated in the bottom half of their high school class and who are maintaining a C average in their college courses to be accepted into a teaching degree program. A teaching degree should be much more difficult to obtain.

Colleges could upgrade their standards to accept only those students who graduated in the top third of their high school class and who maintain a B average in their college course work into a teaching degree program. At the same time, colleges could increase the rigor of the education department teaching program so that the end result would be fewer but far higher quality teachers being granted a teaching certificate. The prestige of being a teacher would likewise be elevated to the level of being a doctor or an engineer. The benefit to the public education system would be that there would be more highly educated and highly trained teachers in the classrooms able to teach and inspire students to become good critical thinkers.

With these simple but significant changes, American students would not only score higher on international tests but they would be better prepared to address the problems of the world.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: America, College, Education, Kids, School, Teacher, United States, USA

Are Kids Dumber Today Than in the Past?

Guest Writers and Submissions 3 Comments

It is often said that American kids are not as well educated as our kids were in the past. From both sides of the political aisle we are told that the modern educational system is failing us. There is broad disagreement on how to improve the situation. While some say we need to spend more money others say we are spending too much money. Money aside could there be another side to what is happening today?

Indeed there are studies that indicate that American students receive lower average test scores than do students in some other countries. These studies imply that today’s American children are not receiving as good an education as they did in the past. Some say that today’s student is “Dumber” than in the past. Others argue that while many kids do get it, many of them are too distracted by their I=pods, cell phones and whatever else is out there.

While one may find it difficult to argue with these studies there is another side that we need to examine. The reality is that kids today are wiser and more sophisticated than ever before and here are several reasons why.

Not too far in the past, students in kindergarten used to learn counting numbers and the alphabet but did not learn how to apply operations to the numbers or how to read words and sentences. The students learned how to count things and how to write their own name but math operations and reading were not taught until they were in the first grade.

In most schools today our kindergarten students are taught these first grade skills. They are taught how to add numbers together and are provided with games and other tools that teach them how to solve simple math problems. It seems amazing that tiny and adorable kindergartners are developing math skills that students in the past were not taught until a year later.

The same thing is happening with written language skills. Today’s kindergartners are not only taught how to write their own name but also how to write and read simple words. Further, the kindergartners are taught how to put together simple sentences, and as a fun project they learn to draw pictures, write sentences about their pictures, and put them together in a book form to take home to their amazed parents.

One of the tools used by kindergartners to learn simple math and word skills is the computer. The young students make regular trips to the school’s computer lab where they sign on to the computer with their name and a password and then navigate to a fun math program or an equally fun language program. The students are thrilled because the programs are presented in the form of games. The students think they are just playing games but really they are learning sophisticated math and language skills that students in the past did not learn until a later age.

Further, students in past generations learned fundamental math and language skills through rote memorization and recitation. Today’s young students learn the skills through the more sophisticated method of applying critical thinking and problem solving, which makes them much wiser and more sophisticated than students of a similar age in past generations.

Not only is the Elementary School curriculum today pushed to a younger student but the same is happening at the Middle School level and at the High School level. Students in past generations used to graduate from sixth grade to attend Junior High School as seventh, eighth, and ninth graders. In many schools today Middle School now encompasses sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Where students in the past would step up to the more sophisticated world of High School in the tenth grade. Now students in the ninth grade join the faster paced High School environment and curriculum.

For these reasons I disagree that our educational system is the failure that many would have us believe. I further disagree with placing labels such as “Dumber” on today’s students. Today’s student does go about learning things differently. In many ways they are actually  becoming wiser and more sophisticated at a younger age than did students in past generations. Everyday living requires more wisdom and sophistication today than in the past and the educational system has changed to meet the needs of today’s students. Perhaps a better way to classify students would be the motivated and the lazy!

~Anonymous Teacher~

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: Education, Kids, School, Students, Teacher

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presidents day

Presidents Day: Not Just a No School Day Presidents Day is not just a day off from school or work. On Presidents Day became a national holiday in 1879. First celebrated on Washington’s birthday it was later changed to the third Wednesday of February. Today, we celebrate all Presidents that have led our nation. This […]

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