The Local School Systems in America
The topic I chose to discuss in this essay is the local school systems in America. The local and national government and the superintendent of the school system holds the power over this institution. The people who benefit because of this institution are the students who attend these schools and the jobs that they create in the process of helping kids to learn and society in general. Some of the risks that I thought of that would effect the students is the decision on how and what to teach or the decision to hire a certain teacher. The benefits could be great but on the other hand the risk of making a wrong decision is always there.
The goals of the school sytem are to educate young people and to prepare them for college and their future jobs so that they can be a productive part of society. I think that the school system tries to do everything that they possibly can for their students, but I also think that they have to rely more on the parents to help them also. Many parents just let their kids go to school and figure that the adults at the school will raise ther kids for them. That's just not the case. The parents have to pay more attention to the kids. Decisions in the school system are not solely based on economics but the social aspects are looked at as well. The children in the school systems need to get a social education in school as well as a intellectual education. I feel that the school systems around the country are improving a great deal. I think that the national and state governments are putting more and more money into the school systems and the kids are responding to that.
An outsider that was looking at the school systems around the country would see that the goal of all of these schools is to educate the children and to teach them to use their talents and what they have inside of them. Some values that are instituted in the school system are to give people respect including the teachers and the students and to teach kids to be nice to each other and to help each other so they can get tasks done faster and easier.
The American school system is no stranger to criticism, but everybody seems to have a distinct idea of what should be done to improve it. It was not too long ago that we had no public schooling system at all. A man would change that forever, immortalizing himself as the “father” of American education. It was surprising to me that I had never heard of this man, especially considering I had finished my journey through free and compulsory education two years ago. The man who went on to change American education, was Horace Mann, the first Secretary of the Board of Education in Massachusetts. Horace Mann tirelessly campaigned for the public to be educated, heralding it as a “great equalizer.” So why is the gap between social classes rising exponentially? There are fundamental issues holding us back from fulfilling Horace Mann’s dream of an education system which empowers citizens by leveling the playing field for everyone, including pedantic policies, a limited curriculum, and standardized testing.
A child’s first day of school is often viewed as a rite of passage; the first step on the road to a happy and successful life. This is true for most children from affluent families who live in the best school districts or can afford expensive private schools. But what if a child’s first day of school is nothing more than the first step on the road to poverty and possibly even illiteracy? The documentary Waiting for “Superman” addresses many issues in a failing school system and the innocent children that system leaves behind. Although the documentary spends little time suggesting parents’ roles in their children’s education, it clearly shows that we must make changes to help children from low-income families and improve the teacher’s unions.
Urban schools in New York City have been criticized for many failures in the last past years. Failures such as low achievement, disconnection between students and teachers, poor teaching methods, inappropriate conduct, lack of security, and lack of motivation from students as well as from teachers. To improve these issues, few changes have been implemented such as the metal detectors. The effectiveness of these changes is been questioned. But the best way to see the effectiveness, it’s by looking at the school’s progress. Most schools are still failing, which clearly means that the new methods are not working out. These unsuccessful adjustments lead to a possibility for a reform in the school system. The reform would have to consider changes not only from the system itself, but also the areas that surround the school. Therefore, it is not reasonable to expect that urban schools can be reformed without changing the political economy of urban areas. The reasons why it cannot be reformed is because the political economy determines the amount of resources available, generate a lot of violence, and creates teenagers who will be pursued to the “code of the streets”. When it comes to change, it always works better starting from the outside to the
To respond to the statement made by Kozol regarding the nature of public school in America, one must consider the question of what exactly education is for in this country; what is it's purpose. I believe that education is used to produce what Kozol refers to as "good citizens:" "defeated, unprovocative" people that will fill the necessary jobs, pay the necessary taxes, and perform all the other duties put forth by the government such as voting and jury duty. This is why the situation in America's public schools has not changed since the time Kozol wrote The Night Is Dark..., and why things will probably not change without a revolution within the public school system.
The Ontario school system dedicates a great deal of the high school curriculum towards preparing students for University. Ontario high schools provide students with many courses that will help prepare the students that decide to go on to post secondary education. However, the Ontario School System lacks in preparing them for the most prominent aspect of University, stress. The Ontario school system does not prepare students for any of the on coming stresses which will be the number one factor in a students success or failure at University.
According to this essay, what are some of the major differences between how schools are run in the United States and how they are run in Finland?
America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s problems. Most important, money cannot influence student, parent, teacher, and administrator perceptions of class and race. Nor can money improve test scores and make education relevant and practical in the lives of minority students.
The greatest country in the world still has problems evenly distributing education to its youth. The articles I have read for this unit have a common theme regarding our education system. The authors illustrate to the reader about the struggles in America concerning how we obtain and education. Oppression, politics, racism, and socioeconomic status are a few examples of what is wrong with our country and its means of delivering a fair education to all Americans.
First, with all the money that is being put into public education, it needs to be distributed evenly. If public schools had similar resources and capabilities, students wouldn’t need to travel far to get a good education and this would solve many problems. An example of this from the film is when a Mother is speaking about her child’s experience at an open discussion. She talks about how her student loves music and music is taught at a one public school and not the other. Money is being distributed unequally and kids are being taken of opportunities that they could have a passion for. Another aspect that I agree with is that for things to change for the better in the future, everyone needs to get involved. Kids in these unfortunate situations can only do so much to speak up for themselves but it will only get them so far. Most of the students aren’t even able to vote yet so it is important the country as a whole is aware of these problems and learn about how to help. Students from everywhere need to feel that they are valued so they have the chance to
Something I have always known since I was a little kid is that the educational system in this country is a complete fraud. American schools claim to live by the ideal of No Child Left Behind, but millions of students get cast aside each and every year. In schools these days, it is obvious which students are the elite—those that are raised up and motivated to go to college—and the ordinary student— those that are somewhat ignored throughout their schooling and are lucky if they even earn a GED. As a recent graduate of high school, and a product of this country’s educational system, I have had the opportunity to develop my own opinions regarding the myth of education in our society. Based upon my observations going through the school system, and the various arguments posed by several authors in “Rereading America”, I strongly believe that schooling in this society caters solely to students in the elite category while ostracizing students that do not live up to the elitist ideal.
We live in a society where we are surrounded by people telling us that school/education and being educated is the only way to succeed. However, the school system is not up to the standards we want it to uphold. There are three issues we discuss the most which are the government, the student, and the teacher. In John Taylor Gatto 's essay “Against School”, we see the inside perspective of the educational system from the view of a teacher. In “I Just Wanna Be Average”, an essay written by Mike Rose, we hear a student 's experience of being in a vocational class in the lower level class in the educational system when he was supposed to be in the higher class. Both Gatto and Rose give their opinions on how the educational system is falling apart. Today the government is only trying to get students to pass, making it hard for teachers to teach what they want. Students are affected everyday by the school system. They sit there - bored - and do not think that the teachers care, making the
In my view, system-wide, large-scale reform is needed to achieve the goal of "getting all young people as close as possible to their upper limits of learning potentialities" (Perrone, p. 15, 1991). This is crucial to ensure change because "trying to transform schools within the existing structure is a contradictory process" (Murphy, p. 38, 1991). The first step is to involve the traditionally voiceless at all decision-making levels to best determine what the needs of the least privileged are, if we are truly committed to providing opportunities that respond to children's needs. I specify, "opportunities" through funding based on my assumption and belief that money can improve education through attracting and keeping good teachers, reducing class sizes, establishing programs to respond to different needs, and maintaining healthy facilities and quality resources. Equitable funding, where all children have the chance to receive a high-quality education, is the first step towards education acting as the great equalizer in a country where oppression limits, dehumanizes, and disempowers in virtually every other life realm.
The education crisis in America has been overlooked and ignored for far too long. Recognizing that young people are the future of our country should be priority and an initiative by the government. By providing the help that students and teachers need to be successful in the classroom, we eliminate all excuses for not finding success outside of the classroom. If the government gave more funding to public and state school systems, enforce reward systems for teachers who excel at their job, also create more education options for students; the country would see an increase of interest in high school and continuing that education further.
...ke school something that the students can look back on and think that it was a meaningful time where they learned a lot about life instead of a time where they thought they would have a break down because they got a low score on a test. School should be a time to make mistakes in a safe environment that they can learn from, not a place that they are petrified to make a mistake for fear of retribution on their grade cards. Its time to change the school system to save future students from becoming stress crazed and to let them know that there is more to this world than a grade card and in the long run it is a very small fraction of life.
Schools exist to produce well educated youth that society will benefit from. From personal experience, ill-informed adults make for an unstable, rotten community. Schools hold a big responsibility. They should create a safe haven for students that creates a love for learning, and then also nurtures that same admiration for learning. Schools that students don’t feel safe in usually house students that aren’t interested in subjects that are being taught. They should maintain a well-educated faculty who is all passionate about what they do. If there is a lazy faculty, it will influence the students to become lazy. Schools need to produce the change that this world needs- well rounded, creative, knowledgeable individuals. An effective school in today’s society would have a strong basis on the common core, but make it so that the information is fun to learn. From experience, once the information fun to learn, the rest goes by