Why The Public School System Is Failing And The Drop In Global Ranking (Research Paper Sample)

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Failing School System
I strongly believe in education, as it is an essential life skill. Education is necessary for one to gain knowledge and be successful in life. However, a key concern is, how can the United States of America remain as one of the greatest nations with its failing school systems. There exists a problem in our school system, which also affects the school as well. Among the problems identified, it may be that the school system is making it easier for students to pass in their classes, or the material taught in schools is not appropriate for the current needs. To begin with, the education system puts too much value on the standardized method of examining students (Buchen 34). This method sees to it that student focus on how they will perform in the standardized tests rather than focusing on the quality of education provided.
The education in the public schools should prepare and equip the students with the right life skills for the current job market. The focus put on schools in regards to the outcome of average grades, has contributed to the emphasis on how well students perform in the standardized tests. The education bureaucrats and politicians have prompted a national obsession with testing; as though everything that is erroneous with the current system would be fixed by, tweaking the test scores (Osborne 112). On the other hand, teachers are spending more time on feeding more information to students on the tests and overlooking the provision on quality of information provided. This method only concentrates on the grades attained by the student and does not equip them with the knowledge of applying what is learned.
Policies should be passed to abolish the standardized testing method would provide for new experimental teaching to teachers. The new methods may greatly improve the knowledge gained and prepare the students for the real world in applying what they were taught in school. For years, it has been a matter of concern on how crowded our public schools are in the most part of the country. Studies conducted have shown that the smaller a class or the student to teacher ratio is acceptable, the better the performances of students. Overcrowding in classes makes it difficult for a teacher-student relationship; hence, most learning in such conditions is not effective (Scanlan 272). Students learn differently, some are fast, while others are slow and may need special attention, which makes it impossible in an overcrowded class. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the school boards to spend more on schools infrastructures to alleviate this problem.
In global rankings, the United States tops in most of those categories among the other countries of the world. Nonetheless, when it is on education rankings, it does not appear on the list of countries topping. A few decades earlier, the United States had one of the best education systems globally. However, over the years, the learning culture has changed; hence, the change is also evident in the students. What worked decades earlier has completely changed and we are forced with the reality that our school system has changed for the worse. In an article, on the latest international ranking among sixty-five countries, the United States was ranked at number twenty-nine (Smarick 83). Countries like Finland have surpassed the United States and their students rank as the best in the world. School boards should invest more in learning what works for the other countries that were once ranked behind the United States.
For the education system to improve, the parents are also required to be part of the solution. While at home, parents may take the initiative of tutoring their children and engaging them in learning activities. Careers that demand a lot from the parents have them too over-dependent on schools to impart skills that they are required to teach to their children, thus, the lack of parental involvement (Valencia 35). Among some of the problems experienced with our education system, is the issue of compensation. From a personal standpoint, our teachers should be paid well, which will motivate them when teaching our children. To have our education system back to its glory days, the school system and the teachers should be well compensated for their efforts (Wolk 135). Budgets apportioned for education in the United States should be increased to meet the growing demands of the sector and development of teachers professionally.
In lieu of these findings, along with several others, is pr...