In the most recent issue of TIME Magazine, contributing writer, Fareed Zakaria, wrote an article on the unfortunate circumstances our country's education system faces. He follows the generic line of thinking that many critics have in recent years - commenting on how our teacher's aren't proficient enough, children are not in school long enough during the day, etc. I had done some pretty extensive research on this topic in the Spring of 2010 for a class and it reminded me of the paper I had written regarding American schools.
My view on the American school system and who should govern it is quite different than my opinion on other services the U.S. has to offer. I tend to view health care and large social services of the like with a hands-off approach from the Federal government. This, however, should not be the case with education. With a system that ranks an embarrassing 26th in the world, having 50 educational systems will not benefit any socioeconomic or racial gap on the home front, nor will it help the U.S. gain on the Asian and Western European countries that we lag behind.
I looked back on the paper that I had written now over a year ago and my views have not changed much as to how America should reform it's education system. President Bush's 2001 No Child Left Behind bill was admirable in it's goals but has been flawed in practice. In a push to have 100% proficiency among students across the country in reading and mathematics, there needs to be more reform than what NCLB laid out (and Zakaria even goes further to say we are too focused on liberal arts and not enough on technical sciences, but we'll save that topic for a different day).
First of all, it is IMPOSSIBLE to achieve equal, 100% proficiency among 50 states when each state has its own level of 'proficient' test scores. The MCAS is different from the Regents exam, which is different from the Stanford 9 exam. And in some states, mostly Southern, the level of 'proficiency' does not even match that of President Bush's goals! If all students need to reach the same level, they must be given the same exam. There's no way to tell how students truly are performing without giving them the same information. In Thomas B. Fordham Foundation study administered a few years back, Wisconsin's 8th grade reading level was at the 14th percentile. South Carolina's was at the 71st. No disrespect to South Carolina, but there's no way that those levels of proficiency could be that far off from one another.
Once the students are all on the same page, it is imperative to improve our teachers. Zakaria's article pointed out that half of America's teachers graduated in the bottom third of their college classes. Ugh. We aren't catching up to South Korea or Finland anytime soon with minds like that molding our youngest generation. Teacher's should be held more accountable for their work. Perhaps requiring a Master's degree in order to teach could be one solution, as is seen in Finland. Or a merit-based rewards system for teachers working to improve their skills. Whatever the reform may be, it needs to be strong so that teacher's know their practice and improvement is just as crucial as their student's.
And lastly, if every school is on one, national curriculum and teachers are evaluated by one, national standard, then schools that are still failing will be made an example of much easier. Schools below the national standard of proficiency could see a pay freeze in wages for instance. Or schools that are above but wither stagnating or slipping with their scores could see a cut to their Federal funding. It's also not known by many that NCLB requires failing schools to notify parents that transferring is an option. If schools fail to notify parents, some punishment could also be made.
The fact of the matter is that education is serious, and we seem to be forgetting that value. Reforms such as these proposed are drastic, and seem utopic, considering the extremely powerful teacher's unions would never want anything to affect their 80% pension rates and tenure-based pay. Tenure-based pay allows educators to get complacent, knowing that they have job security. But if the United States would like to keep slipping in global rankings and NOT attempt to reform the system, well then the reeling economy won't be the only reason that we will no longer be a global force.
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