What is wrong with the United States’ school system? That’s simple. The government runs it. It’s not just the “No Child Left Behind Act” that is the problem - although it is a big one. It is difficult to understand the rationale behind lowering the international standards in order to say that the schools are doing a good job. How is dumbing down the curriculum a good job? It isn’t. It is robbing our children of the education they deserve and leaving them poorly prepared for the “real” world when they finally meet it. The real world is not going to coddle a person because he or she is not doing as good a job as another. In the real world that person gets left behind. It is a worthy goal that the government has to leave no child behind. However, making the teachers teach just the things that are on a certain test so that the school can look good in reports is not the same as not leaving a child behind - it’s leaving all the children behind.
A better system would be vouchers. Vouchers attach money to the child; therefore it would create competition between schools. Obviously parents only want what is best for their children so they would choose to send their kids to better schools. This would make the poorer schools try harder to better their curriculum and teaching staff. This is what will help American kids get ahead. So many students attend private schools or are home-schooled. Why? Because their parents are fed up with the public school system and what it doesn’t have to offer.
There is competition in every other aspect of one’s life. Competition is what gives us better cell phones, safer cars, and lower cable bills.
It is already proven to some degree that competition between schools works to produce better programs. High School football is very big in Texas. Schools clamor for the best coaches and work hard to be the best because that gets them more money for the athletic programs. The same principle applies to academia. Vouchers can only improve America’s public school system.
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3 comments:
I agree with opinions expressed on America's public educational system, by my colleague's blog, Lets Dissect. We are living in a time of economic globalization. In a way this is a double edged sword because it allows economies to thrive on an international level, but many people are being left behind. With the growing phenomenon of outsourcing there has never been more competition for American's losing their jobs to people in other countries. I think that corporate firms are turning their back on America by shipping jobs to other countries and it is wrong. Regardless I believe we must give the children in our public school systems a fighting chance. We need to take from other countries school systems which are highly evolved from ours. Despite the fact that America is the most developed country in the world it has one of the worst public educational systems. The children of the future must compete in a globalized world where having a four year college education isn't enough anymore. In my opinion we live in the greatest country on earth, and hopefully our next president will see past the greed of corporate firms, and work to give average Americans the public education they deserve and need to survive in a global world. To do this we must compete on a higher level with other nations, and put this mentality into our children. Because the private sector could care less that your job just got send to some guy in India and you can no longer feed your family;they don't pay that guy in New Delhi squat.
Attaching money to each student is a great idea. This forces schools to preform better. Better preforming school means more students which means more money for a school. With that money school could spend it on (but is not limited to) new computers or new books. Poorer performing schools will lose students because parents will want to send their children to good schools. Financially poor schools that are willing to improve their curriculum or already have a good curriculum will have an opportunity to draw in more students and money which will help these schools improve even more.
I completely agree with what was said in The School System Needs an Overhaul. The current state of the public school system is horrible, and something needs to be done. I also believe that vouchers is the way to go. Somehow we need to make public schools try harder and compete with each other and i believe vouchers do that. If vouchers were put in place, the public school system would recognize that they need to better themselves and in turn, kids would get a better education. I don't know how long its going to take or what its going to take to get this to happen but we need it, however long it takes.
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