Stop The Leak!

American Education is like a leaking faucet there are many ways to stop the leak but only a few ways to fix it. The way our government has been going about stopping this leak of poor performances in many classrooms is by putting a piece of gum over the leak. I believe that the government is constantly overlooking the source of the problem and always trying to find the cheap way out. Every few years the federal government puts a new way to improve our education out there and by the time everyone begins to understand and develop the program the next president comes along and puts his stamp on the issue. This continues the slow drip that is our education.

In Issue 8 in our book, Paul Houston makes a great statement, “NCLB’s answer is that drilling our children will allow them to compete with the Chinese. Yet the real winners in the coming competition between East and West will not be the nations that focus on basic skills but those that cultivate high-level skills and ingenuity. In that regard, America has had an edge for some-time.” I think one of the answers to improving American Education is to stop trying to compete on an international scene. Focus on our needs to improve our schools based on what is going on here. We need to develop our students into well-rounded individual’s not just students who can recite various answers because they memorized it. These students need to know how they came about these answers and gain knowledge of how it worked, or what lead up to an incident in history, or how to solve a problem in math.

I feel another answer to American Education comes down to money. Teacher’s need to be paid better for the amount of work they put in. Schools need to receive money to stay current with technology, equipment and buildings. I believe this all needs to be either state funded or federal funded. The need for levy’s to pass to generate money for the schools is like hitting the lottery. More often the schools lose than win, because the money has to come out of the community resident’s pockets. When a person is asked to pay a higher rate in taxes it can have an effect on their choice to support a levy or vote against it. If our education becomes government funded it can help in many ways, poverty areas will receive the same technology and equipment as a suburban school system. By doing so it will help these teachers in these rough area’s out and also eliminates many of the excuses that are being heard. Tax payers will receive a break on paying for school levy’s and school’s can focus on education rather than having to worry about how they can make cuts to save money much like a business.