Education Reform Dbq

Since the beginning of the first education reformation, there has always been criticism on how education should be provided and taught. Throughout time, different countries have made reformations to provide better educations to their people. These examples range from creating a better school system, to providing free education in elementary and secondary school. Education reform is not over as it is still an ongoing process in the making that may never end. Education reform first started to happen in ancient Greece with Socrates, Plato and other great Greek scholars. They studied the “how’s” and “why’s” of life. They also believed in creating a better education system for the common people. It went so far as Socrates creating the first university

in the world. Socrates’s student and successor, Plato, helped continue and reform Socrates’s university (Smith). Plato disliked some of the ways Socrates taught his university so Plato made the first reform to Socrates University. Socrates created. Scholars found out through Plato’s writings that, “Plato’s disliked the Sophists (particularly as teachers of rhetoric) and his concern that teachers should know their subject” (Smith). Go forward, in today’s 21st century, America’s education reformation has been on the decline due to their ignorance (Mark). If America is to ever fix their education system, they must see what other top ranked countries in education are doing and apply them to their education system to create a more “equal and opportune” society.
Today, America has been praised as being the best country in the world in education, technology, and overall (Shapiro). If you ask an American, more than likely, they might have the same opinion yet, America ranks 14th in education, 11th in cognitive skills, and 20th in educational attainment out of 40 world nations according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Pearson). Ironically, America also ranks 2nd in the world in ignorance (Mark,). America is not the greatest country in the world anymore and the one of the biggest reasons why it is not is because of its corrupt education system. America is trying to fix it by creating laws to create a more “equal and opportune” society, but instead they have created a more corrupt education system. America passed “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) in 2002 and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December of 2015 which was a reformation of “The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1964” (ESEA) that was designed to fight the “War of Poverty” (Califano). The ESEA program instead created a more corrupt education system.
In America, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was the most significant and highest funded federal legislate law for education in American history. This law was to provide each child with a fair and equal opportunity to receive a quality elementary and secondary education. By creating this law, it now stated that every Math and Science department could get however much supplies they needed to help their students receive an equal education. LBJ signed this act due to his policy of stopping the “War on Poverty” (Califano). Part of the law also states that the U.S. needs to renew or reformed this law every five years based on how well their education programs are doing. The problem is that America has only updated this law twice since 1964. The most significant is when NCLB and ESSA came out.
In March of 2001, former Speaker of the House John Boehner started the reformation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1964. He created H.R. 1 and by January of 2002 the bill called “No Child Left Behind was signed into law by former President George W. Bush. For the first time since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed, America had created an updated law to help the education system in America. Little did the people know that this law would create a more corrupt education system.
NCLB has failed due to funding problems and some implied corruptions. NCLB has spilled billions and billions of federal tax dollars on public education to try to provide the best education possible for our students yet, America has not generated the best results to prove that our education programs are working (Klein). NCLB states that if schools are falling behind, they must provide better education opportunities for their students (HR 1, 107th Cong. 2002). The irony is that the underfunded schools don’t have the money to provide better education to their students by getting better teachers and tutors. This problem started when NCLB was passed and granted states to make up test score standards for their students to pass (Klein). At the time President George W. Bush changed the original purpose of NCLB. He had a friend in Texas who made a living with standardize testing so instead of teaching kids creativity and imagination, schools now taught kids how to pass a standardize test. NCLB states” that states must test students in reading and math in grades one through eight and once in high school” (Klein). States got to decide what “proficiency” should look like and what kind of test to take. With this, schools were now judged yearly by the federal government to see how much money should be granted to each state. This is called the Adequate Yearly Progress. The goal was to get every child up to grade level in reading and math by 2014; however, no state has gotten up to 100% percent in their proficiency bar level (Klein).
NCLB was never intended to do more damage to the education system, yet we see more and more problems arising as a result of Congress doing nothing to fix it.

For example, two years after NCLB was put into law, North Carolina had 9 schools in the state that needed some levels of improvement. 5 years later, that number rose to 521 schools (Turner). This was due to low performing schools not able to provide a so called “quality education” by the states. When an underperforming school didn’t meet the state’s requirements, they were given sanctions and were told to fix their problems or more consequences will follow. The problem was that schools were not given more money to fix their sanctions so they were left to start to cut programs. If schools still didn’t fix their sanctions, the state would tell the school to go tell their students to start looking to transfer to another school in the district. Lastly, if schools still didn’t meet their sanctions, they were then forced to shut down the school. Schools got overwhelmed with stacks and stacks of sanctions. The problem was that rich districts could afford to fix every problem while poor districts were forced to cut programs to gain more money and struggle to provide an “equal and quality” education for their students (Turner). Schools were now left on their own to fix their sanctions without government

assistances.
If America is to ever become the greatest education country in the world again, they must first stops being so ignorant. They must look at other countries that have great education systems such as the top country in Asia (South Korea) and the top country in Europe (Finland) (Pearson). In South Korea, ABC news did an interview to see why and how the South Korean education system is the best in the world. ABC news interviewed a principle name Chung Chang Yong who stated that “no one just drops out of a school. A student may transfer to another school, but no one just drops out. To drop out of a school is a major disaster, a catastrophe” (Landrum 45). How did a country that was sub-par to a third world country in the 50s become the leading country in education today? South Koreans have discipline through their families and throughout community; South Koreans also have lots of help from their federal government. The federal government encouraged religious companies and wealthy companies/people to donate money to start creating better schools (Landrum 45). Students are pressured by their families and society to go to school. The kids who fail to go to school are considered a disgrace in their family’s and society’s eyes. At Ewha High School in South Korea, which is the top performing school in the country, students are selected by the federal government to go to private schools or public schools. Families will sacrifice everything they have to send their kids to private schools if selected (Landrum 45). The South Korean government also enforces a national curriculum and spread resources more evenly than America does (Landrum 45). In the US, Americans are more laissez-faire on their students completing secondary schools or not. There is no pressure from society and it all depends on the family you are born into. It is not to say that America doesn’t have great education system because America has the top high schools and universities in the world. The problem today is that the education system is spread unevenly and unequally.
In Finland, ranked 5th in the world, there is a vice versa approach to educating their students (Pearson).

There are shocking comparisons on how they educated their students compared to South Korea. Finnish students get less than half an hour of homework a night as long with no school uniforms, honor societies, valedictorians, tardy bells, classes for the extra ordinary students, or standardized tests. These kids don’t even start school until they are seven yet they have the smartest kids at 15 compared to all other students in the world (Gamerman). So how does Finland rank so high in education? Like Americans, Finnish kids also are one of the top countries to waste hours throughout the day but are still on track to being the world’s most productive workers. What Finland does is quite remarkable. They create well trained teachers and teach children responsibility at a young age instead of putting kids in schools. Since children don’t go to school until they are seven, their parents educated their kids how to be responsible young adults. Once the children start school, they are equally trained by teachers. There are no students who finish first instead they focus on the weaker students to catch up than concentrating on the more advance students in getting further ahead

(Gamerman).
Today, America has made drastic changes to their education system due to all-time highs on graduation rates and all-time lows of drop-out rates. They just recently updated the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1964 and NCLB with a new law called the “Every Student Succeeds Act”. This bill reauthorizes and amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The bill addresses issues “such as accountability and testing requirements, distribution and requirements for grants, fiscal accountability requirements, and the evaluation of teachers” (S.1177, 114th Cong.). As it has not fixed the American education system as a whole, America has now made drastic measures to ensure that their students can try to get a proper college preparatory education no matter the circumstances on their living location with the passing of “Every Students Succeeds Act”.
In conclusion, America as a whole is struggling to finish secondary school and getting a college degree. In other countries such as South Korea and Finland, they distribute their education funds more equally and have a strong family support. If America is to ever change their education system, they must first start with their people. In both South Korea and Finland, families support each other to go to school and do everything possible for their kids to get a great education. If kids don’t go to school, they are looked down upon by their family and society. Once America has a strong family support system, America then needs to start implementing better education with in the public school systems. The Secondary and Elementary Education Act and NCLB are a start for America to create a more “equal and opportune” society, but America needs to implement more laws that have worked in other leading countries. Unless this happens, America will keep falling behind to more and more countries.