Why is american education so bad

During the s, these ideas began to filter throughout the American public education system all the more susceptible to fads and trends because of its increasingly centralized nature. Some of these notions worked in particular schools, while failing dismally in others—another common result of school reforms generally.

In the s, some new ideas were added to this increasingly unwieldy mix, such as the behavioralism craze, whole-language reading instruction, mastery learning, and the spread of standardized testing of both students and teachers. Finally, during the s the school reform bandwagon got a new set of tires and a fresh coat of paint. Following the publication of A Nation at Risk in , governors instituted all sorts of teacher training and testing programs, curriculum changes, and higher performance standards for students.

At the same time, states dramatically increased spending on all facets of public education. And President Ronald Reagan, promising to eliminate the U.

Education Department during his campaign, actually helped administer a significant outflow of new federal money for public education, mostly directed toward specific programs for needy or minority students. They demonstrate very little change in student performance and most measurable changes were downward. Many so-called education experts believe that class size—the ratio of students to teacher—must be reduced to improve learning.

From to , the average pupil-teacher ratio in U. These experts also proclaim that lack of funding hamstrings reform, and that the s were a particularly bad time for school finances. Wrong again. Annual expenditures per pupil in U. In only two years during this year period did spending fall: and Spending grew by about a third in real terms from to The average salary of public school teachers rose 45 percent in real terms from the first year data are available to This increase masks a more variable trend.

Real salaries rose until , when they began to level off and even decline. Instructional staff in public schools generally saw their earnings increase faster than the average full-time employee—from to the ratio of instructional-staff salary to the average full-time salary in the U.

Student performance has hardly kept pace with the dramatic increases in resources devoted to public education. While the percentage of students aged 17 at the beginning of the school year who graduated from high school rose 30 percent from to , it has leveled off since then. In fact, the percentage is lower than the peak of Just five percent of year-old high school students in could read well enough to understand and use information found in technical materials, literary essays, historical documents, and college-level texts.

This percentage has been falling since Average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores fell 41 points between and Apologists for public education argue that such factors as the percentage of minority students taking the SAT can explain this drop. Not true. Scores for whites have dropped. Only six percent of 11th graders in could solve multi-step math problems and use basic algebra. Another measure of the failure of public education is that almost all institutions of higher education now provide remedial instruction to some of their students.

The Southern Regional Education Board surveyed its members in and found that 60 percent said at least a third of their students needed remedial help.

Surveying this evidence of failure among college-bound students, former Reagan administration official Chester E. Finn, Jr. We then asked participants to rate two different schools—their most familiar school, which they were able to select, and another school that they were randomly assigned. When evaluating familiar schools, participants generally issued ratings equivalent to a B, regardless of the data system they had worked with.

The perception gap was evident. But something surprising happened when participants used the more comprehensive data system to evaluate unfamiliar schools: Their ratings improved significantly. Even more surprisingly, the scores they issued to unfamiliar schools almost perfectly matched the scores that had been issued by more familiar raters.

The perception gap suddenly closed. Current data systems, which consist primarily of standardized-test scores, misrepresent school quality. They say more about family income than they do about schools. And they say very little about the many things that good schools do.

They indicate nothing, for instance, about how safe students feel, how strong their relationships with teachers are, or how they are developing socially and emotionally. They indicate nothing about what teaching looks like, how varied the curriculum is, or the extent to which parents and community members are involved.

But other schools? This is a solvable problem. Groups like the California Office for Reforming Education have begun to significantly expand how school quality is measured.

Another group, the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment , for which I serve as director of research, has established a new school-quality framework that includes the many things stakeholders in education actually care about.

It will suggest that in many ways the assumption is correct, American schools are less efficient. It will suggest that the reason for the inefficiency of American schools is the difference in the "demand to learn" between American and other school children. But the paper will also explore evidence that suggests that American schools are not less efficient and in one new way of looking at the problem, this paper will argue that American schools are more efficient than the schools in the Republic of Korea, one of the world's leading school systems.

Teachers all across the country are faced with the problem of figuring out how to prevent attacks and protect the lives of students and personnel. Some suggest special straining for teachers and concealed weapons might make schools safer while critics argue that more guns in schools could lead to more accidents and injuries. Supporters suggest that technology creates the potential for more active student engagement and provides instant access to up-to-date resources while critics say it could be a distraction.

While technology in the class room certainly has its benefits, certain aspects of technology are challenging. For example, smartphones and easy access to technology have made it easier for students to cheat and can negatively impact learning. Another hot topic in education today is school choice. Charter schools and school vouchers allow parents to choose options other than traditional public schools for their children.

Charter schools are funded by a combination of private and public funds and operate outside the public-school system. School vouchers allow parents to use public funds to send their child to a school of choice, including private schools.

Critics of these schools suggest that charter schools and voucher programs siphon funds away from public schools that are already struggling financially.

The Common Core State Standards were developed to specify exactly what students should know before graduating high school. It was developed in to promote educational equity across the country, holding all students to the same standardized testing requirements.

Most states adopted the standards when they were introduced but more than a dozen have since repealed or revised them. Teacher salaries are by no means impressive and, in most states, they have decreased steadily over the past few years. There are, of course, some states where teacher salaries increased, and some teachers received a growth in benefits that may or may not be enough to balanced out wages that are low overall.

Along with Common Core, there has been an increased focus on standardized testing, especially during the No Child Left Behind years. Schools and teachers are judged based on student test scores which, many argue, is not a fair or accurate measure of efficacy. Many critics argue that standardized testing is one of the biggest problems in American education, suggesting that the pressure to produce high test scores leads to a teach-to-the-test approach and reduced focus on non-tested subjects like art.

Tenure is designed to protect teachers from being fired for personal or political reasons — the school district must demonstrate just cause. Supporters suggest that tenured teachers can advocate for students without having fears of reprisal while critics say that it makes it harder for school districts to dismiss ineffectual teachers.