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The concept of learning
Learning
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Education Reform
Education is one thing nearly all countries have in common. The reform of educational systems has taken place in many other parts in the world, although, the United States hasn’t made any changes. Throughout the world, schools are using more modern approaches to teaching and schooling, but the United States, not so much. The United States should reform their outdated educational system.
The United States is ranked relatively low in the world, which is due to the many problems in the education system. Finland is ranked 1st for many significant reasons. The main cause of Finland’s prosperity is from less standardized testing and less homework. According to an article from Business Insider, “Extra work is often deemed unnecessary by
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For instance, “The United States has great public schools and great teachers, lots of them”(Rutkowski). 83.2% of people in the U.S. graduate from high school. This percent is very high and shows how successful these students are.
The U.S. may have many public schools, but they aren’t necessarily the best. These schools are all about standardized testing and sometimes there is an abundant amount of it. Students should not be forced to take tests, but rather learn and grow as people outside of school.
This country's schooling is not meeting the needs of children, let alone their parents. Children are being assessed and compared to others that are in the same age group. This provides a small bit of information about how the student is developing academically. Also, teachers are being forced to overload these students because of the testing and course assessments that are required by law. The overload of work outside of school stems from the inability to complete tasks during school hours. Children and teens are cramming in work and they don’t retain it for the reason that there is too much to do in such a slight amount of
This is precisely the problem. Standardized tests are old and outdated, and the harm they cause to America’s education system by far outweighs the benefits. These tests were intended to monitor and offer ways to improve how public schools function, but instead they have impaired the natural learning ability of students and imposed upon the judgment of experienced educators. Although a means to evaluate the progress of public schools is necessary, it is also necessary to develop more modern and effective ways of doing so. Standardized testing mandated by the federal and state governments has a negative effect on the education of America’s youth.
“Students are taking between ten and twenty standardized tests, depending on the grade. A total average of one hundred thirteen different ones by graduation.”(Locker) A few years ago the United States, along with other nations, was given a test to assess the academic strengths and weaknesses of each nation and rank them accordingly. When the results were released and the United States was ranked near the bottom, it was decided to start incorporating more testing through school. Between benchmark, TLI, PARCC, and common core standards, teaching technique was forced to change. Standardized testing has had a negative effect on teachers and students, implementing inadequate grading standards and the common core curriculum, such testing has made
The United States of America has placed low on the educational ladder throughout the years. The cause of such a low ranking is due to such heavy emphasis on standardized testing and not individual student achievement. Although the United States uses standardized testing as a crutch, it is not an effective measure of a student’s ability, a teacher’s competency, or a school’s proficiency.
Standardized tests have been used to see how much a child has learned over a certain period of time. These tests have been a highly debated issue with many parents and just people in general. In the article “Opting out of standardized tests? Wrong answer,” the author Michelle Rhee argues that people should not be trying to opt out of standardized tests because it allows the country to see how much a child has learned and the things they need to improve. On the other hand, in the article “Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong,” the author Kristina Rizga argues that standardized tests are not an efficient way to measure a student’s intelligence.
...ation for the career of their choice. As Gatto so eloquently points out in his article, “We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of ‘success’ as synonymous with, or at least dependent on ‘schooling’…” (Gatto 150). If he is correct, and success is reliant on our schooling, only the few elite students even have a chance at becoming successful. And that is truly unfair because every student in our country’s education system deserves the chance to be able to become something great.
Standardized testing is not the best way to measure how well a teacher teaches or how much a student has learned. Schools throughout the United States put their main focus on standardized tests; these examinations put too much pressure on the teachers and students and cause traumatizing events. Standardized testing puts strain on teachers and students causing unhealthy occurrences, Common Core is thrown at teachers with no teaching on how to teach the new way which dampers testing scores for all students, and the American College Test determines whether a child gets into college or not based on what they have learned during high school. Standardized tests are disagreeable; tests should not determine ranking of people.
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the American educational system has undergone much transition in response to our changing society. Though there have been many problems raised throughout the years in regard to what our school systems should be teaching our children, there have also been many developments.
The United States has proven to be a world leader with their powerful military, democratic government, and stringent foreign policies. There is one category however, the United States struggles to be number one in, education. As shocking as this may sound, the public school system in America is not superior to other developing countries. I have witnessed this scandalous phenomena firsthand, engrossed in the public school system from kindergarten to freshman year of high school. The student body and the school administration is morphing into a nonproductive system with a zombie-like attitude. American students lack academic drive and curiosity compared to European and Asian countries because the standard for academic success is constantly lowered. Americans must reform the school system and change their perspective on how important an education is to the rest of the world.
The world is no longer concerned with educating whole human beings, but instead, it is focused on collecting “data.” “Standardized testing robs students and teachers of using their creativity and critical thinking. It holds everyone accountable for meeting this one standard when that is nearly impossible to do. It turns us into robots, dehumanizing both teachers and students.” (Gettysburg College, 1) Standardized test are given to schools by the government. The problem with that is that the government is not in the classroom with students every day. They do not know what the students need. Standardized testing takes away time from student learning experiences where they are not able to think critically or be creative. Standardized tests take place in an artificial learning environment. They are timed, students are not allowed to ask questions, use references, talk to another student, and they cannot even get up and move around. All of these things do not mirror the reality of the real world at all. These tests are reducing the richness of human experience and human learning to a number/ set of numbers. A student may have a deep knowledge of a particular subject, but receive no acknowledgement for it because their test score may have been low. Maybe if students could draw a picture, lead a group discussion, or make a hands-on project, they could show all the knowledge that they really have. They cannot do any of these things in a standardized test. As stated before, testing also creates “winners” and losers.” The “winners” get to move on with their life, but the “losers” often suffer from loss of self-esteem and the damage of “low expectations.” Standardized tests do not value diversity either. There are a wide range of differences in the people who take standardized tests. People have different cultural backgrounds, different levels of proficiency in the English language, different learning and thinking styles, different
Margaret Mead said, “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” In our society we value education over everything else. If one has a high education, then they will be able to make a better living for themselves. No school system is alike, some are better than others. The American education system used to be known as one of the leaders in education, having the highest graduation rate, and being innovative when it came to teaching styles. Now, it seems that it’s changing and other countries have taken it’s places as the best. This makes sense since the statistics show that most American students are losing to foreign countries. According to Paul Zoch in Doomed to Fail, Japan’s high school graduation was 90% whereas, the United
Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests. Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today’s students.
“What’s Wrong with American High Schools.” latimes.com. 1 March 2005. Los Angeles Times. 8 April 2014.
Can American education stand to be improved? Of course! America isn’t a top performing country in academics. Other countries have much better, focused, and strict education programs that produce top students. While the United States isn’t failing in education, it definitely has some areas that could stand to be improved. Parents need to be more involved in their kid’s education, testing shouldn’t be the focal point of school, teachers need to be better qualified, and students should strive to do their best. If all of these can be achieved, then education in America can be improved.
Why would one hypothesize a change is needed? First, international comparisons show the decline in education. Tests show American high school students rank much lower than other nations on standardized math and science tests (United States 66). On a test given in twenty-one nations, American pupils only outperformed Cyprus and South African students. These results seem more devastating when one sees Asian nations, usually ranking high in competitions, did not participate (McNamara 73). Examinations also reveal pupils' performances decline as students climb up the educational ladder toward college. "We seem to be the only country in the world whose children fall farther behind the longer they stay in school" ("Nation" 1). Yet, just comparing our students to international standards does not divulge the whole story.
Schools in the U.S have lower scores than other countries around the world that give less. Schools in the U.S give 2+ hours of homework when other countries only give 20mins of homework but other countries with less homework average higher than the U.S (Baines). If schools would spend time teaching kids instead of giving worksheets and busy work the U.S would average higher homework rates than other countries. The United States spends about 10x more time in school than other homelands with higher test scores(Baines). Countries such as Finland, Mexico spend almost two years less in school than the United States of America, but they average higher in test scores than the United States For these reasons the United State has to give less homework to raise test