If ignorance is bliss, then our public school system should be doing a back flip while singing God Bless America. Education is the second largest expenditure in the US, yet we rank below many nations who dont even come close to equaling our budgeted allowance. For some reason I am not a fan of the public schools of today. Its not that there isnt enough funding or that the class sizes are too small. There is an overall lack of other more important issues. Were going to briefly look over the ways that KIDS are losing accountability, how education is proctored to standardized testing, and how scapegoats are taking the blame for substandard learning platforms.
Standardized testing is common everywhere. Our system is based on tests that are given to students. That is the only way that we, as a nation, can tabulate how our educational system is working. Some concerns have been about the racially biasness of these tests. Many strongly disbelieve this to be true. A more serious, and overlooked, concern should be the reliability of the scores. Just as in voting, fraud is always present. Often teachers cater to the tests in order to increase their own standing, as seen in the Texas educational system and with SAT/ACT tests. Lets get into the second issue, shall we?
Scapegoats are constantly being blamed for the poor performance of students. If there is ever a downfall in the standardized tests scores, there follows an ever-present need for blame. Its our classes. Its our funding. Its the fact that people in Afghanistan are growing poppy for heroine. The newspapers are full of excuses that are being shoveled to the American people. The populations as a whole looks at the previously mentioned tests and is outraged that we could be beaten by, gasp, the French?! Who should the blame rest on? The next section will answer that.
If there is any blame to distribute, to whom should the brunt be placed on? A child over the age of 8 can be arrested and tried in most states as an adult in serious circumstances. The court system has decided that a child of 8 can think logically and is to be acceptable for their actions. The Review Journal published an editorial a few weeks back that had a teenager commenting that he would be more apt to learn if school started later. He based his opinion on the statistics from other experimental schools. The conclusiveness of those studies was never challenged. There were not any follow ups. College students in lecture halls still get educated, correct? Exactly. I proceeded to spill my cereal milk on his opinion.
It is all too common today for the country to place blame on everyone else, rather then themselves. The US Dept of Educations web site states that nearly $53.1 billion dollars spent on our Department of Education each year. Some citizens would be so gullible to pass blame onto waking up early or class sizes being too large. Americans are being dumbed-down. Its not acceptable to question or challenge. We see our schools passing students through who arent properly educated on a record pace. The only thing that we Americans can do to relieve the problem is to allocate more funding and point fingers. The social institution of education is being destroyed slowly by those who want America to be ignorant. 1984 isnt a year after I was born. Some people could see it as a reality.
