Part I:
According to the standards set by former President George W. Bush in his “No Child Left Behind” policy, approximately eighty-two percent of United States schools will be considered failing by the next school year in 2011 (Armario). Education lays the foundation for any consistent, exceptional country because no country can run well or smoothly with an ignorant population base that is unable to grasp any of the concepts or issues of the world. As cliché as it may sound, education is the key to the future; it unlocks a whole new world of higher thinking, and it demands respect. An educated population is able to make educated and responsible decisions that will benefit the country both in the present and in the future. Education is a part of America that is in need of improvement and/or reform. In an attempt to improve education 8 years ago, former President George W. Bush implemented his “No Child Left Behind” policy. This policy was a good step forward, but has its flaws, and these flaws are among some of the problems that must be addressed with respect to education. The policy puts emphasis on test scores to a ridiculous extent and does little to prepare students for “the real world.” In addition, the policy puts stress on children below the standards to perform better, yet does not inspire well-performing children to do better (“No Child Left Behind”). In this respect, it is a somewhat one-sided educational initiative because it does not build a much better, overall well-informed and well-educated population.
It is obvious that education is a pressing issue in today’s America and it is clear that the American education system is in serious need of reform not only because we are terribly far from meeting our own standards, but also because America is continuously falling behind and losing speed in terms of world standing and in terms of its economy. China has already pushed its way past the United States to figuratively gain the number one spot in the world and there is no doubt that other countries, such as India, are on the rise and are also pushing past America. While I do not believe that education is the reason behind America’s current fall in standing and its stagnant economy, it was one of the issues facing America for several years that was set aside untreated and left to deteriorate and, in effect, sink the ship that is the United States, with help from other critical issues America has been dealing with for years. In 2006, shortly before the American economy began its sharp downturn and while China was a country rising to the top, Hong Kong, essentially its own country within the larger country of China, had overwhelmingly high math and science literacy rates, both by over ten percent, and had over four percent better language skills. As of 2006, there were also at least twenty countries, including Hong Kong, with overall smarter, better educated children and I doubt that that number has decreased in the last few years (Lubin). Even though the United States is confronting many other issues that are of seemingly greater significance than education and even though, U.S. education is a critical topic that must be addressed because it is an issue that will benefit the U.S. in both the short-term and the long-term, as well as establish a more sophisticated and knowledgeable American population that will be able to make better decisions.
Currently, education reform or simple education improvement is a farfetched idea. With the economy mightily struggling, few people are willing to give up any extra portion of their continuously decreasing salaries in taxes in order to pay for improvements and enhancements in the educational system and its components. Significant spending is more or less the only means by which education may be noticeably improved, and, considering the economy, any additional spending is unlikely. A large portion of the Republican Party is also unwilling to pay any higher taxes in general, and are especially unwilling in the recession that America is facing presently, therefore, any type of vast changes or improvements in education are doubtful. In referring to the Republican Party, I am alluding to not only Republican leaders across the country, but also the Republican population of the nation. Additionally, people who are falling short in terms of money, a population of people which is considerably large and is frequently increasing, vehemently reject any sort of tax or additional costs that will detract from their paychecks. Recently, President Barack Obama declared, during the 2011 budget talks, that “even as we find ways to cut spending we cannot cut back on job-creating investments like education. We cannot cut back on the very investments that will help our economy grow” (Johnston). Obama is definitively setting his foot down to protect the education budget in order to protect the level of education of the future leaders of the United States.
Part II:
Former President George W. Bush and current president, Barack Obama have taken some steps in order to help alleviate the problems in American education in the last decade. In a very bold and far-ranging move, Bush introduced a new education initiative called “No Child Left Behind.” This policy, in essence, aimed to provide incentive for federally funded schools to perform better by promising greater funding to the schools with low education rankings whose students performed well on standardized tests. Standardized tests were to be administered from third through eighth grades and in at least one year of high school “with the goal of making every U.S.student proficient (performing at grade level) in reading and math by 2014” (“No Child Left Behind”). This program was a large part of Bush’s campaign as well as one of the biggest productions of his presidency and it unquestionably established a sort of precedent in education that was to be followed by President Barack Obama. While in the first year or so of his presidency, Obama concentrated on issues that were focused much more towards restoring America and bringing the country back into its own from the recession it had dipped into over the last several years, he has recently been taking steps to demonstrate his personal stand on American education. Notably, Obama declared the education portion of the budget untouchable, and for good reason. He said that education provides the foundation for the future of our country and will instigate future U.S. economic competitiveness and is one of the keys to finding our way out of this economic hole (Johnston). Additionally, the Obama Administration implemented a new program, entitled “Race to the Top,” designed to boost college graduation rates ("Obama Administration Education Policy”). Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have, together, set a goal of adding eight million college graduates by 2020 through offering grants to enhance college graduation rates (Lewin). Through this and other small expansions in the American educational system, President Obama has slightly altered and improved aspects of Bush’s initiative that were rough and undeveloped. In addition, in Obama’s “Race to the Top” policy, he has made it clear that teachers with low performing students should be replaced, even those who have extensive tenures and that principals and people who overlook schools should be replaced if their school’s students are not performing well. To contribute to Obama’s education improvements, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is helping and has “helped subsidize states' applications for Race to the Top funds” ("Obama Administration Education Policy”).
Starting in 1999, the state of California implemented a new addition to the state educational procedure with the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam) to test that students were at grade level in writing, reading and mathematics. I took this test at Acalanes my sophomore year and I passed on my first attempt. Most people take it and pass it their first time during sophomore year, but if not, they are given another chance the same year, “two more chances in their junior year, two more in their senior year and at least one more chance after their senior year” ("Standardized High School Exit Exams”). These exit exams have stimulated greater academic achievement in California because they increase the value of the diploma and ensure that students have the necessary skills to succeed in the future, in college and in the workplace. The CAHSEE also ensures that new immigrants are not forced into the workplace with limited reading and writing skills and an overall limited education, therefore providing for a better educated and better performing population ("Standardized High School Exit Exams”).
Even though we have not studied education specifically in Government or Economics this year, we have dipped into the topic of education in America briefly from time to time. Thomas Friedman is the author of the book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, which details America’s current situation, the dip in the American economy, and why we are in our unfortunate current situation. Part of Friedman’s argument in the book is that the world is getting flat, or evening out, because of the explosion of a world on the web, but I contribute part of this flattening of the world, as he mentions, to recent American laziness. Friedman argues that “America’s problem is that it has lost its way in recent years…partly because of the bad habits that we have let build up over the last three decades…that have weakened our society’s ability and willingness to take on big challenges” (Friedman 5). According to Friedman, large issues, education in particular, have been left to deteriorate due to the inability and unwillingness U.S. leaders itself has fostered among its own people while America has been enjoying its spot at the top. Friedman also asserts that “the prevailing attitude on so many key issues in Washington today is ‘We’ll get to it when we feel like getting to it and it will never catch up to us, because we’re America’” (Friedman 8). Friedman, in effect, is saying that America has taken on an attitude of arrogance, laziness and has developed a feeling of imperviousness, and exhibits, as he puts it, an attitude of “dumb as we wanna be.” These attitudes are precisely the reason that America is quickly falling from the top and that education has gone south in the last several years. This unhealthy attitude must be quickly changed, or society will suffer, and the economy will improve very little, if at all.
Part III:
In spite of the progress and the measures taken to upgrade education in the United States by the last two presidents in the recent decade, there remain numerous issues, both small and large, in the educational system currently that must be tackled. Obama has taken some of the rough edges of Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policy and smoothed them out or added on to the policy:
With the Race to the Top, Obama has stiffened Bush's mandates, requiring states to put specific policies in place (such as firing tenured teachers whose students' test scores are low) before the schools can compete for federal funds. Through this approach, Obama is achieving Bush's desired changes without any guarantee that states will be funded. These mandates are the most intrusive federal education policies ever imposed on public schools (Stephens).
While Obama has taken several steps in his own education policy such as the ones described above, the American education system still needs improvements in many aspects in order to fully improve and reach the next level. For example, both Bush and Obama did little for the middle- to high-performing schools across the nation. Both presidents’ policies have been focused close to entirely around bringing poor-performing schools up to par, without advancing the American educational system as a whole. I expect to see some expansions in education involving the schools that are in the middle area with respect to quality of education during the rest of Obama’s current presidential term and in his possible next presidential term. Because the “No Child Left Behind” policy is still in effect today, some of its problems that Obama has yet to fix still exist. The policy relies heavily on standardized tests, an issue that the majority of critics of the policy focus on. Standardized tests not only restrict the amount of real world teaching and preparation that may be done in schools, but they are also very ineffective ways of measuring learning in students. Learning is measured by how much students have been taught, not by specific standards that students are expected to meet, and the standardized tests ignore this. The standardized testing program as a means of evaluating student, teacher and school performance must either be altered drastically in order to measure learning better, or must be replaced by another means of evaluating educational performance.
Through my work with BuildOn, I feel that I have grasped a more real sense of the world and the issues that America, as well as the rest of the world, faces today. I have realized how necessary education is across the globe and how much it is lacking in a countless number of places. As a member of the BuildOn club, I have personally contributed significantly to buying supplies for building at least two schools in Nicaragua. In addition, I have provided the means by which prisoners in American prisons can educate themselves and improve their own language skills while they are spending time in prison, and I feel great about that. This year alone, I have helped raise nearly one thousand dollars with the BuildOn club in order to expand education in the world. I now realize how many issues there are in the world and how lacking our world is in almost every aspect. I feel that education is one of the most important matters that must be expanded because it leads to both the advancement of the human race, and it creates awareness among the entire educated population and inspires compassion, therefore channeling a desire to help with other enormous issues, such as poverty. Unfortunately, I have also become conscious of the fact that none of the substantial concerns in America and the world may ever be solved, which has brought me a slight feeling of hopelessness, but I have never been one to give up because I lost a little hope Just like with poverty, there is no way to resolve education problems because there will always be a certain issues that will continue to come up or matters that are difficult to fix, and, on top of that, education is something that can always be improved because nobody has or can have “too much” education.. I will continue to do community service throughout my life because I feel it will contribute to me as a person, and it will help at least one or more people in the world who are almost dying for the help.
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