There are many people that think education reform is greatly needed for America. In today's complex and changing society, a high school diploma is almost necessary to compete for jobs at any given career. Yet, we now have the highest drop out rate in many years. A high school drop out is more likely to be unemployed than a person that has accessed post secondary education. The post secondary education also leads to wealth, which is one of the key factors to happiness. Just a couple of years ago, UNICEF ranked all the countries in academics and the United States ranked eighteenth. They also ranked the countries in happiness ratings and the United States ranked twenty-third.
In a country where we strive to be the best all the time, we are dropping the ball in one of the most important battles: education. Education is what drives the future of the country and if the rates keep dropping then eventually the country will slowly decay and crumble. As the United States slips in education ratings the children in it have a higher probability of failing. With these things occurring it seems that educational reform is needed urgently. But we can't just start any old education plan that we choose; we need the right one that will better our school systems and our children's minds.
Teachers often complain of being paid to little for a challenging job. And in a world where other countries are almost automatically taught a second language, who are we to expect people to speak English in our country, that we have so lovingly nicknamed a "melting pot"? Are we really a melting pot or are we mix salad, where the distinct tastes don't blend together?
Foreign students had a drop out rate of twenty-four percent, compared to sixteen percent US born students with foreign-born parents. And both are higher than the national average. Foreign-born students make up twenty nine percent of the dropout population.
African Americans and Hispanic youth are more likely to drop out than non-Hispanic whites. In 2006, six percent of non-Hispanic whites were not enrolled in school, eleven percent of African Americans, and twenty percent of Hispanics. The most likely reason for the high drop out rate of Hispanics is the fact that there is a large amount of immigrants that have never attended an American school. Asian youth had the lowest drop out rate with only three percent. There is also a difference between the genders. Men had a drop out rate of eleven percent and women had a drop out rate of eight percent.
TIMMSS issued a study in 1995 on the education in forty-one different countries. The studies showed that the United States was the only country where children do worse the longer they are in school. Of the 21 countries participating in the math and science part of the study, the United States ranked nineteenth and sixteenth. Institutes of higher learning have to spend an estimated 16.6 billion each year because of lack of basic language and math skills. Another factor that is a cause for the plummeting education in America is drugs and violence. In 1999, 15,000 secondary education schools participated in the "Youth Risk Behavior Survey". Nearly one in five students carried guns to school in the thirty days prior to the survey, more than one in twelve students were a part of a physical fight in the twelve months prior to the survey, and one-third of the students had been offered drugs on school property in the in twelve months prior to the survey. In the past twenty-five years the country has spent $125 billion on Title I, which is used for inner cities and poverty-ridden areas. As the problems in government run schools continue to increase, the citizens look for an educational reform that will be effective.
In order to achieve an effective education plan we need to have a few things in place first. We need a supportive legislator and electorate. Without them we won't even get to step one. Education needs to become a respected profession, once again. It seems that we take it for granted, as of now. Second, we need parents who are accountable for disciplining their children for bad performance. Parents have seemed to check out in the last decade, forgetting that their children even have a future. Parents are almost treating their children as friends. There is no excuse for not trying. Parents need to demand excellence instead of asking for it. Last, we need children who are going to work hard and then reap the benefits later. Our society has created a culture of instant gratification. Sometimes you have to work for something in order to achieve what you want. Many kids drop challenging courses for the minute fact that it takes away from their free time.
There are three different types of educational reform. Rules based reform mainly deals with rule changing. Rules-based reform includes extending school days and the school year, changing teacher certification, and enacting stricter dress codes. Research shows that this does cause a small improvement but does not cause a huge turn around. These plans fail to work as intended largely due to the fact that they don't deal with the systematic problem within government run schools.
The next type of educational reform is resource based. This type of reform includes new textbooks, wiring schools for Internet access, updating school faculties and buildings, and decreasing class size. James Coleman studied the bond between per pupil spending and he found that they do not have significant impact on student test scores. The United States already does this type of reform on regular basis. And there are many countries that don't spend even close to the amount we spend, and they have far better results. The spending has dramatically increased and in the same time frame the SAT scores have dropped by twenty seven percent.
The third category of reform is incentive based. The incentive based reforms are based on parents choosing the school that their child goes to. This is the opposite of the system that we have in place now, the assignment system, where you are placed in a school according to where you live. The new dynamic forces schools to improve or the school will go under. They believe that schools will respond to competition by creating a higher quality education. Parents are allowed to participate by enacting their own values and priorities in selecting a school. In this system pleasing parents has become a means of survival.
Whether it is resource, rule, or incentive based reform; one thing is certain educational reform is needed greatly in the United States. If it is not addressed the problems will keep building and eventually our children will become a lost cause. Zimbabwe is placed on the bottom of the dropout list and the happiness list, meaning that it has reached the end. They are in dire means of help, and who wants to become them? Many Americans have the idea that nothing will ever happen to them. If we do not do anything about the mounting problems we will become a place where it is a struggle to live, let alone study and learn. Learning is one of our greatest gifts and it would be incredibly rude to throw that gift away without care. So, write to your representatives and hold your children accountable. This is the future of America.
Author's Note: Sources: Barney, Allen. "Some Low Cost Solutions to the Education System." Millard Filmore's Bathtub. Allen Barney, 13 Jan. 2008. Web. 14 Sept. 2009.
Brouillette, Matthew J. "Violence and Drugs in Schools." Mackinac Center. Matthew J. Brouillette, 29 Jan. 2001. Web. 14 Sept. 2009.
"Highschool Dropout Rates." Child Trend Data, Summer 08. Web. 14 Sept. 09.
"UNICEFF Ranks Countries on Academics." CNN.com/Education. 26 Nov. 2002. Web. 14 Sept. 2009.
