Category: American Education System

Throughout the years, standardized testing has been regarded as the way to measure how much a student has learned over a period of time. It is seen as such because it provides an objective and reliable measure of student achievement, which plays a huge role on major decisions about the student’s future, such as grade promotion, high school graduation and higher education opportunities. Many people argue whether standardized testing is really effective, or is it just affecting the prospect of our future society.

On one hand, standardized testing is useful because it is an impartial and objective way to measure a student’s academic progress. It is the same test for everyone, therefore being more reliable since it is neutral and unbiased. This is not the case when it comes to the testing done by individual schools, since in every school the testing would be done differently, consequently being unfair to base the student’s future on results that emerge on inaccurate testing. Furthermore, since it is the same for everyone, it is also inclusive and non-discriminatory since it is applied equivalently to all students.

Additionally, standardized testing has proven to have a positive effect on student achievement. According to The Effect of Testing on Achievement, 1910-2010, a peer-reviewed analysis composed of several studies on student testing for over 100 years, 93% of studies found “the effect of testing on achievement to be moderately to strongly positive.” This is most likely because students feel motivated to do well on tests, so they strive to get a good grade and therefore obtain high academic achievement.

On the other hand, standardized testing scores can impact the student’s confidence. The test scores are usually interpreted as a way to judge a student’s ability. According to The Sandbox News, “there are many factors that can impact a student’s test score negatively, including stress, lack of language skills, and lack of special needs accommodations.” As a former test-taker myself, I can vouch for that by saying that tests usually put me under a lot of stress. I would pull all-nighters all the time studying for them, and while taking them I would have a hard time remembering the material due to the lack of sleep I put myself through because I was afraid to fail. Moreover, I found myself upset whenever I did not do so good. For example, I took the paper-based TOEFL and I remember getting the minimum score needed to apply to a university in the United States. It felt like it was all just pure luck, and all my English language abilities were not as good as I thought they were. It took me a while to be confident about my English again, not letting a three-digit number define who I am.

Additionally, according to Anne Trafton from MIT News, “in a study of nearly 1,400 eighth-graders in the Boston public school system, the researchers found that some schools have successfully raised their students’ scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). However, those schools had almost no effect on students’ performance on tests of fluid intelligence skills, such as working memory capacity, speed of information processing, and ability to solve abstract problems.” Students are being trained to have automatic responses, but when it comes to seeing beyond and critically solving a problem, they don’t succeed. Standardized testing just feeds this problem to the education system, making kids less prepared for the intelligence they will need in the other aspects of their life.

Personally, I believe that standardized testing is really limitative when it comes to showing what someone is and what they can do. I understand where people come from when they say that it is the quickest way to measure what a student knows, but at the same time I feel like it is just a system made by adults that have forgotten what being a student is like. Letting a score define what you know is like letting one simple action dictate the type of person you are. It feels as if we are letting students be quickly judged by a number rather than give them an opportunity to hear them out.

As standard as the test is, people are usually not. Everyone is different and all the circumstances around the testing process are different as well. Former first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama once said “If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.” She attended Princeton, even though she did not do well on her standardized test. Nevertheless, she achieved great things such as being the first lady, a successful writer, a Harvard graduate, and overall one of the most successful women of the United States. And if she did not do well on her test, but still managed to be who she is today, then what is the point of standardized testing?

Works Cited

1. Ershova, Sofia. “Standardized Tests Are Inaccurate.” Standardized Tests Are Inaccurate |, 11 Feb. 2017, sandbox.spcollege.edu/index.php/2017/02/standardized-tests-are-inaccurate/.
2. Phelps, Richard P. “The Effect of Testing on Achievement: Meta-Analyses and Research Summary, 1910–2010 Source List, Effect Sizes, and References for Quantitative Studies.” The Achievement Effects of Standardized Testing: 2011, www.nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Resources/QuantitativeList.htm.
3. Trafton, Anne. “Even When Test Scores Go up, Some Cognitive Abilities Don’t.” MIT News, 11 Dec. 2013, news.mit.edu/2013/even-when-test-scores-go-up-some-cognitive-abilities-dont-1211.
4. V, Jonathan, and Weekly Standard. “Michelle’s America.” The Weekly Standard, 19 Feb. 2008, www.weeklystandard.com/jonathan-v-last/michelles-america.

The American education system has become a corrupt institution and will soon fail all together. Every since elementary school, I can recall students receiving different treatment than I did, but I dismissed it because it was always in my favor. I have always excelled in my courses, so I assumed that was why I had so many opportunities. However, I began to witness more and more students at my level were falling behind. I didn’t know what the reasons were or why it was being done, but I knew that something was wrong. Unfortunitally, this observation has been proven to be an ongoing problem across the country. It is clear that race, gender, and income all have negative affects on the quality of student’s education. Either people have made steryotypes against their abilities, or their family’s income prevents them from having the same opportunities as others. One out of every six students attend a “dropout factory”, which is a high school having a high proportion of students who drop out before graduating. Thirty-two percent of minority students attend a dropout factory, compared to only eight percent of white students. In a 2010 statistic, only sixty-four percent of Latino students graduated high school. Children are taught not to judge each other, especially for the things they cannot control; and yet it’s okay when schools do it. Students that don’t fall under at least one of the categories of wealthy, white, or male, tend to have limited opportunities in education.

The article, “Puzzling out PISA: What Can International Comparisons Tell Us about American Education?” (November 2014), written by William Schmidt and Nathan Burroughs, discusses how income directly relates to a student’s mathmatical abilities. Students with low income families and other disadvantages are almost always placed into classes with weak mathmatical content. Because it is highly unlikely that students will understand math they were never taught, these students only know the basic topics they were taught in this weak class. This prevents them from trying to move forward in the program because they haven’t been taught what they need to know in order to move to the higher class.

This article proves that there is an automatic disadvantage in education when a student comes from a low income family. Although they may not be pointed out for it so blatently, studies have shown that a family’s wealth corresponds with their mathmatical abilities. It is unfortunate that even though students cannot control their family’s income, they will have to pay a price that will affect them throughout their entire education, thus affecting their adult life as well. This source does not, however, answer the question as to why these lower income students are placed in classes with less rigorous math.

The article, “Good School, Rich School; Bad School, Poor School”, written by Alana Semuels, discusses the inequality presented in public schools across America. Semuels most likely wrote this article as a way to inform the general public about an inequality that many people probably didn’t realize existed. She starts off by using our homestate of Connecticut as an example of where there are such hue education gaps. Towns such as Greenwich and Darien are very wealthy, so they also have good public schools where textbooks, laptops, and guidance counselors are constantly at hand. Other areas, such as Bridgeport, have high poverity levels and thus have little money for guidance counselors, teachers, and technology. This source is an accurtate and reliable depiction of the American education system because it uses specific numbers, quotes, and sources to back up their information.

The article, “Improving Education Outcomes for African American Youth Issues for Consideration and Discussion” (February 2014), written by CLASP, is a discussion as to why African American students tend not to excell as well as other in the American education system. While the U.S. has long professed that a world-class education is the right of every child, there are still major inequities in the education system that leave African American children with fewer opportunities to receive a quality education. African American students have fewer high-quality teachers, less resourced schools, fewer gifted programs, and limited access to college preparatory coursework. These inequities are further complicated by issues of poverty and geography. For African American students, reduced and constrained access to educational opportunities begins in the early years and persists throughout the PreK-12 education system and beyond. This source is a direct example of how education is geared for specific students, leaving everyone else behind. Not only does it explain how race still effects a student’s education, but so does geography and money.

In the article, “A Critical Race Analysis of Latina/o and African American Advanced Placement Enrollment in Public High Schools” (2004), Daniel Solorzano and Armida Ornelas discuss how hispanic and African American students are highly unrepresented in Advanced Placement (AP) courses. In the state of California, Latina/o students have reached 51%, the majority of the state’s K-12 student enrollment. When examining California’s top 50 AP high schools, Latina/o students only made-up 16% of the student population enrolled in these top 50 high schools. Similarly, while African American students comprised 8% of California’s high school students, they were 5% of the student population in the top AP high schools. Therefore, students who do not have access to these courses are not afforded the extra GPA points and other college admissions benefits for taking AP courses and thus reduce their chances of becoming competitively eligible for university admissions.

This source shows how Latina/o students are also being left behind by the American education system. Schools that serve urban, low-income Latina/o and African American communities have low student enrollment in AP courses. Even when Latina/o and African American students attend high schools with high numbers of students enrolled in AP courses, they are not proportionately represented in AP enrollment.

The article, “How America Is Breaking Public Education”, written by Ethan Siegel, discusses many of the flaws in the American education system, as well as how we got here. The article appears to be written towards anyone who has a say in their education. It not only informs the public of the problem, but it also has suggestions for making it better. The American education crisis was kicked off in 2002 when the No Child Left Behind program began. Schools began focused on standardized testing, and eventually better scores became corrilated with teacher and school pay. Rather than helping children where they need it, teachers began focusing on the importance of grades. The belief was that if the student was motivated to avoid a bad grade, then they would magically be able to overcome all home problems, disabilities/disorders, and learning difficulties that held them back in the classroom. This source is important because it not only provides the root to the problem in our education system, but it also suggests methods that would help us make improvements.

The article, “Examining Gender Inequality in a High School Engineering Course” (November 2012), written by Catherine Riegle-Crumb and Chelsea Moore, it examines gender inequality within the context of an upper-level high school engineering course. Among the almost two hundred students who enrolled in this challenge-based engineering course, females constituted a clear minority, comprising only a total of 14% of students. A magnitude of surveys revealed significant gender gaps in personal attitudes towards engineering and perceptions of engineering climate. Compared to males, females reported lower interest in engineering and expressed less confidence in their engineering skills. Additionally, female students felt that the classroom was less inclusive and viewed engineering occupations as less progressive. This source shows how females are being excluded from STEM courses. They are not included as much as the male students, which can lower their self-esteem and confidence in this area. This can also lead to females not showing as high of an interest for the subject.

The article, “Why White School Districts Have So Much More Money” written by Clare Lombardo, it examines why many school districts are still so segregated, and why some receive more benefits than others. Although segregated schools are illegal, the original school district borders were drawn at a time when there was residential segregation. A recent EdBuild study stated, ‘For every student enrolled, the average nonwhite school district receives $2,226 less than a white school district,’ (EdBuild 2019). That translates to $23 billion more in funding that predominately white school districts receive compared to districts that serve mostly students of color. The CEO of EdBuilds explains that a school district’s resources often rely on how wealthy an area is and how the residents pay in taxes. This means that many of the high-poverty districts made up mostly of students of color cannot pay as much of their taxes as a wealthy, suburban area.

The article, “The Current Education System is Failing our Students” written by Abigail Cox, it examines how a student’s access to educational materials can determine one’s success in school. Americans have long seen education as a means to avert the poverty cycle, as well as boost economic growth and increase individual income. However, schools and students in need of the most funding generally receive the least. Districts serving the poorest students, predominantly low-income students and students of color are given less access to less resources, fewer courses, and more inexperienced teachers, only perpetuating the poverty cycle. By not giving equal funding to these schools and districts, low-income students within these schools are disadvantaged and less likely to receive the same quality of education as students in a better-off neighborhoods. To make matters worse, budget cuts have forced schools to cut classes and academic programs, increase average class sizes, and teaching positions have been reduced. In addition, when districts do not have enough funding for new and updated textbooks, they resort to reusing outdated ones or rely on their teachers to personally supply materials. A common alternative to this is forcing students to purchase their own supplies- some students’ families’ can afford to purchase their own, but an increasing majority of public school students are low-income and cannot afford these necessary materials.

The article, “How our education system undermines gender equity” written by Joseph Cimpian, it described how girls are often underestimated as soon as they enter school. In a 2011 study, it was found that there was no average gender gap in math test scores when boys and girls entered kindergarten, but a gap of nearly twenty-five percent developed in favor of the boys by around second or third grade. State standardized tests consistently show small or no differences between boys and girls in math achievement; however, significantly larger gaps appear more on national tests such as NAEP, PISA, ECLS, SAT Mathematics assessment, and the American Mathematics Competition. Cimpian also found that the beliefs teachers have about student ability contributes significantly to the gap. When faced with a boy and a girl of the same race and socioeconomic status who performed equally well on math tests and whom the teacher rated equally well in behaving and engaging with school, the teacher-rated the boy as more mathematically capable. In order for a girl to be rated as mathematically capable as her male classmate, she not only needed to perform as well as him on a rigorous test, but also has to be seen as working harder than him.

Beyond the K-12 education, there is large amounts of evidence at the college and postgraduate levels that cultural differences may be driving women away from STEM fields, as well as away from some non-STEM fields such as criminal justice, philosophy, and economics. In a recent study, Cimpian examined how perceptions on college majors relate to who is entering those majors. It was found that the dominant factor predicting the gender of college-major entrants is the degree of perceived discrimination against women. Women are less likely to enter fields where they expect to encounter discrimination. What happens if a woman perseveres in obtaining a college degree in a field where she encounters discrimination and underestimation and wants to pursue a postgraduate degree in that field? There will only be more obsticles that await her in the future.

Educational inequity is holding our students back from reaching their full potential and holding the younger generations back from receiving the best education responsible. In holding students back, we are depriving future society of the best foundation possible for a better world. If education were treated as an investment into the future of a country, investors would not hesitate to do their part in planning ahead and securing the future of a nation. As adults, constituents, educators, lawmakers, parents, and lifelong learners, we are responsible for the education our children are receiving. The children we are subjecting to a poorly designed education systems will be the ones leading our country. If we want a more equal country, we need to be exposing this idea to our future leaders. Would you want your future president to be a racist, sexist, tyrant?

With our advancing twenty-first century technology, we have more opportunity and ability to create change than ever before. We have the power to shape how we think the world should operate, and so far we have not taken advantage of that opportunity. We can no longer allow our children to suffer through poorly-funded educational measures or selectively pick which students learn without the proper resources. If we can change how we approach education, we have the potential to decrease the achievement gap and change the future of socioeconomic inequality. We are all human. We all deserve an equal education. We can stand up to teach our students the importance of learning, develop a culture around education, and teach all students, despite race, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class the skills they need to tackle the problems of the future.

“Through liberty and justice for all!”. Each school day, these words leave the mouths of thousands of children across America. They stand up tall, hand over their hearts, declaring that this nation – our nation – is a place that provides for them, where they have a voice. It is a place of equality that is worthy of each of their undying allegiance. Each of these children pledges their devotion to a democracy, and in return it is expected that the democracy devote itself to them. Unfortunately, these children are often betrayed by the pledge they make. While America strives to provide the promised ‘liberty and justice for all’, it often lets down those very ideals it is meant to uphold. The issue these children face is twofold. On one hand, they are growing and learning in a system that does not operate according to true democratic principles. On the other, they are never instructed on what it means to live in a democracy, and as such can do nothing to improve things for themselves or for future generations. The movement for democratic education aims to change this discrepancy. By implementing policies based upon the six main tenets of democratic education: equality, important knowledge, nature of authority, inclusiveness, participatory decision-making (Knight and Pearl, 2000); schools can transform themselves into the safe places that our nation promises to its children. When put into practice, democratic education becomes service projects, inclusive classrooms, and independent students. By using these principles, a teacher can transform their classroom into a place of true liberty for each and every child.

Democratic Education

Democratic education is a theory founded in American ideals, but its aims extend beyond the national borders. The purpose of the movement is to make students into active citizens not only of their communities, but of the entire world around them. According to the Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA), the main goal is as follows: “By supporting the individual development of each young person within a caring community, democratic education helps young people learn about themselves, engage with the world around them, and become positive and contributing members of society” (Bennis, 2010). While the exact names and numbers vary between sources, advocates of democratic education rely on several central ‘pillars’ that must be present in order for democratic education to be effective. These include equality, priority, authority, inclusiveness, and participation.

Equality is the first and most obvious of these tenants. It is the central idea in democracy itself, and as such is absolutely vital when it comes to educating young citizens. In the classroom though, this concept must move beyond a simple idea. While it is quite simple to say ‘we treat all of our students equally’, democratic education requires that a school has specific policies in place to ensure that students have equal opportunity, equal voice, and equal power within the school community. This means that every student must have access to school events, clubs, etc., but also that the school must strive to provide accommodations for any student who may need them. The school must provide for and protect its diverse students through its anti-bullying measures, school lunch programs, and any school-wide rule that may affect its attendees. “Schools should ensure that all children – regardless of their socioeconomic status, gender, race, ethnicity, or religion – receive an education that prepares them to exercise their rights and fulfill responsibilities as citizens” (Gutman and Ben-Porath, 2014).

Priority refers to the importance of certain knowledge when it comes to curriculum. In democratic education, it specifically requires educating students on what democracy is and how to utilize their given rights within one. Taking political sides in the classroom is certainly a horrible thing to do to students, but politics themselves should not be left entirely out of the classroom. While a teacher should remain neutral, the issues that surround the nation and the world should be open for discussion in the classroom. Children need to be informed about their own society – the real truth of their society, not the dumbed-down version that says everything is and will always be alright. This means instilling independent thought and critical thinking skills in students. After all, “the ability to deliberate about political matters is key to a diverse citizenry’s ability to assess democratic education the laws that bind them, to hold their representatives accountable, and to respect one another amidst ongoing disagreement” (Gutman and Ben-Porath, 2014).

“Rights, like all dimensions of democracy, are not to be discovered through Foucaultian archeological digs; rather, they are created by students in interaction with each other with the help of persuasive and negotiable authority” (Knight and Pearl, 2000). The key part of this phrase is ‘persuasive and negotiable’. This is what advocates for democratic education look for in an authority figure. This means teachers, principals, politicians – anyone involved in the shaping of student lives. By necessity, these authority figures must have an open-door policy when it comes to negotiation. They must believe in and fight for children while being open to their ideas. This also requires a certain level of diversity among leaders. Not only do children need representation from those who live in their community and understand their perspectives, but leaders whom they feel they can talk and relate too.

Inclusiveness ties in well to the question of diverse leadership, while also relating back to equality. This, however, extends further beyond direct policy-making. There is a difference between receiving accommodation and being made to feel included. Schools that adhere to democratic education must do both. This can be something as simple as showing different types of people on the classroom posters, or as involved as shifting an entire curriculum. School is a place of learning, but it is also a place of living and a place of feeling. Inclusive schools take this into account and value their students’ emotional development as much as their academics.

The last and possibly most important of the pillars is participation. Every student must have a voice – a loud, determined, and informed voice. “Democratic education sees young people not as passive recipients of knowledge, but rather as active co-creators of their own learning” (Bennis, 2010). Co-creating a school experience goes far beyond the usual ‘student council’ type responsibilities expected of students. Schools need to open up their policies to student input and grant them the responsibility to craft their own community. Teachers can do this as well by allowing students to influence the classroom rules. Students should be taught to speak up about the issues that are important to them and instructors should be required to listen. Everyone having a say, regardless of where they are in any chain of power, is one of the most powerful ideals behind the founding of America, and our educational system should strive for no less than to be the perfect incarnation of those ideals.

Examples in Literature and Experience

Since the movement began, many schools have taken on the task of raising active citizens. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum (ASCD), a non-profit organization composed of educators, superintendents, teachers, and principals from more than one hundred and twenty-eight different countries, is one of the biggest groups of activists when it comes to democratic education. Alongside the First Amendment Center, the organization began the First Amendment Schools Initiative. This program offered grants to schools that would take on a democratic education program, as well as offering resources, sample school policies, lesson plans, and classes for teachers. Ashby, the principal of one of these recipient schools, explained their new policies: “I realized I had been running a benign dictatorship. Part of this project’s purpose is to teach students how to participate in a democracy by letting them participate”. Students at Ashby’s school were both allowed and encouraged to petition for school policy changes, joined a review board alongside parents to discuss the school’s uniform policy, and run their own newspaper reporting on community issues and developing plans on what the school itself can do to help (Delisio, 2011).

I myself attended a high school that based much of its policy on the concept of democratic education. James Madison Preparatory School, a charter high school in Tempe, Arizona, prides itself on constructing an environment that allows student expression and input, while training them to become great citizens. Oddly enough, the school has a rather strict ‘business-casual’ dress code, despite dress codes being a highly controversial point in the debate of school policy versus student expression. Their reasoning behind it though is rooted in a desire to prepare students for the wider world, as the policy is meant to instruct students on how to make a good impression in a working environment. The school takes time every day to have whole-school assemblies where teachers prepare presentations on everything from broad concepts of character to interesting facts to current events. Students are allowed to present as well, and seniors at the school are required to do so at least once on a topic of their choice. The school policies in and of themselves are also open to student input, though the faculty reserves the right to ‘veto’ a bill (to their credit, I did not witness a faculty ‘veto’ in my four years there). The first two days of school are dedicated entirely to allowing students to draft ‘bills’ for programs they would like, clubs, dances, service projects, etc., which are voted on by the entire student body and reviewed by elected representatives from each homeroom. Students also had access to a court (composed of fellow students) before which students who were written up would appear and either admit that they broke the rules and accept their punishment or challenge the allegations against them. While the school’s security cameras would sometimes reveal that the student was lying (resulting in harsher punishment, usually community service), the student had the opportunity to fight accusations they felt were unfair, and it was entirely possible that one the student’s side was heard that they would win their case.

Probably the most impactful motion that the school made in line with their democratic education philosophy was allowing the students to draft the school constitution. This they trusted entirely to the students, and this document was binding school policy that would affect the school and community for as long as it was open. They wanted the students to help them build the kind of school they wanted to attend, and it turned out to be an excellent and influential plan. I do believe that my experience with this school changed my life. The school did lack in diverse representation, as its small (about 100 high school students) body consisted mostly of white, suburban dwelling children due to its location. While it did go to an extreme with its democratic policies, James Madison Preparatory School could easily serve as a model for a more inclusive, democratic, and equitable school system.

Classroom Application

In accordance with this theory, my future classroom will be directly influenced by the students within it. I will begin with the first day, focusing heavily on equality and inclusiveness. I will make it clear to my students that this classroom is a safe place for them, where they are welcome to share their passions, their opinions, and their experiences. More importantly, I will make that clear by maintaining this attitude and offering a listening ear throughout the school year. I will have the students construct their own list of school rules for the classroom. I will ask them for their ideas and input, write down the suggested rules on the board (if a rule that a student suggests goes against school policy, I will take the time to explain to them why that policy is in place and why we cannot use the rule), and then have the students vote on which rules should be implemented in the classroom.

Students will be allowed and encouraged to talk about problems going on in the community. In fact, I will likely hold class meetings in the morning where students can bring up and freely talk about issues affecting their lives. When something is brought up, I will then open the floor to suggestions as to what we as a class can do to help. Assignments, school-specific issues, class specific issues, and even my own lessons and teaching methods will all be open for discussion during this time as well. These ten-to-fifteen-minute meetings will hopefully not only make students feel like they are included and have power within the room, but also create a sense of unrivalled classroom community. My main concern with this idea is that these sorts of open discussions will become isolated to ‘meeting times’, but I will try to make it clear that I am always there to listen and will work with students whenever I am free.

In lesson plans themselves, I promise to constantly analyze my class for understanding and comprehension, and to be flexible with my teaching styles and with my topics. If there is something the students have taken particular interest in, I will do my best to integrate it into the curriculum. I will offer reflections on units and projects, allowing students to evaluate me as a teacher, along with evaluating themselves and how they believe they performed during the lesson.

My class could have bi-weekly or monthly service projects that are chosen by the students. Not only could this be used as a launching point to talk about community and society, but it encourages children to look into their own community and learn about the needs of those around them. It has also been proven that students have higher motivation to complete projects that they have a part in designing. If the class size is small enough, I could have each student come up with a way to help the community. If it is too large, perhaps they could work in pairs. I have also considered offering prizes for helping others, but I have some reservations about this since I do not want to alienate children who have fewer opportunities to ‘help out’ outside of school and I do not want to turn service into a purely external motivation.

When it comes to discipline in my classroom, I do want to offer children the opportunity to give their side of the issue and have some input into what their punishment will be. When a student misbehaves to the point of having to punish them, I will write down specifically which rule they broke and why it was unsafe or inconsiderate behavior. I will have the student come and talk to me for a moment during free time and allow them to share their side of what happened and encouraging them to be honest. I will have a list of consequences for misbehavior and allow the child to choose which one they wish to accept. This allows children to have their own agency even within the realm of discipline. I will make it clear that I still love and respect the student, and am open to hearing their perspective even if it doesn’t absolve them of their misbehavior. I want my students to feel cared for, respected, and in control of their own education.

Conclusion

Democratic education offers a turning point for the American education system. It shifts the focus of teaching from an instructor dispensing information like a vending machine to an actively engaged and student-centered one. At this moment, the daily pledge that students make to their country simply isn’t a true claim. Yet it could be, and those who advocate for a more democratic system of education are striving to make it so. As future teachers, it is vital that we consider our students. We must fight in our schools for equality, dispense truth and important knowledge, examine our own biases and make ourselves into reliable authority figures, strive to make each child feel included, and accept their ideas and listen to their stories. Only when every teacher works toward these goals can our nation’s education system truly represent the democracy that America’s greatest idealists long for it to be. When we as a society respect our students and teach them to be active citizens, they will go on to truly achieve liberty and justice for all.

Abstract

This paper explores the effect standardized tests have on the American education system. As the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB) has greatly increased the amount of standardized test in the United States, most prominently the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), this paper analyzes the effectiveness of those tests. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has revealed a drop in student ability of American students on the world stage in the last twenty years. This paper discusses the possible correlation between the increase in standardized testing in the United States in the past twenty years and this drop in student ability. It explores the reliability of said tests along with their effect on the knowledge levels of American students. It further explores whether or not those tests have helped to create an environment in which students learn skills applicable in today’s careers. Keywords: No Child Left Behind, Programme for International Student Assessment, Scholastic Aptitude Test

An Analysis of the American Education System: The Effect of Standardized Tests on the Educational Environment

Throughout the past twenty years, there has existed a critical attitude toward the American education system and how it works. Various parties have differing attitudes on the range of subjects and factors that affect the way students learn, and whether you are a member of a party which scrutinizes how the American education system operates or a member of a party which praises its current status, the fact remains: America has dropped on the world stage in terms of education. The United States scored 25th on the world stage in science and reading and 37th in mathematics in 2015 (Programme for International Student Assessment, 2015). Compared with 15th in science and reading and 17th in mathematics in 2000 (PISA, 2000). This paper will explore the possible reasons behind the United State’s recent drop in scoring on the world stage as it relates to the educational methods in America.

The General Effect of Standardized Tests

The drop in America’s international scores occurred in just the past twenty years, and the only major educational reform in the United States in the past twenty years has been the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB). NCLB mainly focused on accountability. Schools, as a result of the act, had to and are still required to report measures in student performance yearly in grades 3-8 through standardized tests. Schools that scored low on these performance assessments risked funding cuts from local levels (Jacobs, 2007). This resulted in a radical change in what was prioritized in American schools. The standardized test became a rubric for curriculums across the country. Testing numbers became the priority, not the education of students. This system is still in place today, and there has been one major result: Standardized tests have resulted in schools in America failing to create an environment that produces students who can apply knowledge to careers of the modern world. The first question is this: do standardized tests improve education? Do they help to create an environment which prepares students for the careers of today? According to the Committee on Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Public Education at the National Research Council, standardized tests as a whole have had little effect in terms of improving the educational environment. ‘Despite using them for several decades, policymakers and educators do not yet know how to use test-based incentives to consistently generate positive effects on achievement and to improve education (2011). The report found no evidence that test-based incentive programs are working as a whole. The problem is consistency. Standardized tests, by their definition, are universal across the type of test, and all measure students to the same standard. Everyone who has taken the SAT on the 9th of March, 2019 has taken the same test. They are all being asked to apply their known knowledge through the same form. Yet all students are best at learning and applying knowledge through different means. Not all students perform well on assessments through a test format or learn in the way schools are required to teach. A standardized test holds all students to the same standard and yet students have different standards themselves. A system in which standardized tests are used can result in positive effects on achievement for some, and do nothing but present a stressful test for others. In fact, according to education researcher Gregory J. Cizek, anecdotes abound ‘illustrating how testing… produces gripping anxiety in even the brightest students, and makes young children vomit or cry, or both (2005). And while some could argue that stress is simply a fact of testing in any circumstance, it does not dissuade from the fact that standardized tests as a whole fail to create consistent positive effects on achievement and improve education. Instead of viewing such testing as an incentive to improve their intellectual ability and thinking capabilities, many view them as a stressful task which decides their entire educational, and by extension occupational, future.

The Reliability of Standardized Tests

Furthermore, while standardized tests have been praised for their reliability as a universal measure of performance, studies have shown that they have failed to even live up to that standard. A study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year test score improvements were temporary and ’caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…’ (2001). Any student which has participated in some form of standardized testing can testify, that their performance can be directly affected by the type of day they’re are having, whether or not they had breakfast that morning, whether they had a good night’s sleep or woke up several times during the night. The point is, performance can fluctuate due to a multitude of factors, and a test that decides whether or not you get into a good college does not take that into account. If someone took a standardized test one day and took it again the next, it is extremely unlikely they would receive the same score. Whereas if someone were to take an IQ test at the age of three, it is likely that they would receive a similar score if they took the same test at the age of fifty-six. A test praised for its reliability in measuring student intelligence levels consistently does nothing of the sort. And despite their high praise and usage as a result of NCLB, no politician has stopped to ask if standardized tests in their current form reliably can produce results concerning intellectual ability, or for that matter, results which reflect career aptitude.

What Standardized Tests Actually Assess

Speaking of what tests can and cannot do, it is important to understand what standardized tests by themselves are capable of, as they are given such importance by the federal government and the world of higher education. While it is no doubt that the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) can measure whether or not one can decide whether a matrix is in row echelon form or whether or not they can define the word “spurious” the question is: do those questions accurately represent the contents of a person’s intellectual knowledge? And more to the point, will someone actually use that information that they are being tested on in the careers of today? According to a survey by Northeastern University sociologist Michael Handel, they do not. The survey states that of the 2,300 workers Handel surveyed, only twenty-two percent used mathematics at a higher level than algebra. (2009). While that is not to say that higher mathematics does not help with intellectual development. Math no doubt develops the thinking process, but that does not dissuade from the fact that it is not used in today’s careers. The test which is tasked with measuring if someone is capable of moving on to the higher education to get to those careers does measure such mathematics, having half of its test devoted to such subject. It chooses to ignore the more vital aspects important to the modern career. As researcher Gerald W. Bracey, PhD puts it, qualities that standardized tests cannot measure include, “creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity.” Qualities, which most everyone can agree on, are more vital to most careers than the ability to measure the magnitude of a vector.

The Effect of Standardized Tests on what is Taught

Whether or not a test does analyze such qualities has little effect on what is most important when discussing the American education system: education. A person can take a test and leave not having an experience that affects personal intellect whatsoever. They could go on to score high on assessments given by the PISA whether or not they took the SAT. Except for the fact that most standardized tests go beyond just the test. They enter the classroom, changing the priorities of school curriculums and how certain things are taught. A five-year University of Maryland study found ‘the pressure teachers were feeling to ‘teach to the test” since NCLB was leading to ‘declines in teaching higher-order thinking, in the amount of time spent on complex assignments, and in the actual amount of high cognitive content in the curriculum.’ (2007) The institution of standardized tests not only changes the way students are assessed but how they are taught as well. The tests which have already been established as written to analyze qualities of students which are not prioritized for the modern career are shaping what curriculums focus on, and as a result what teachers are forced to teach. Schools spent less time on what makes education meaningful: critical thinking, creativity, persistance et cetera. A national 2007 study by the Center on Education Policy reported that since 2001, 44% of school districts had reduced the time spent on science, social studies, and the arts by an average of 145 minutes per week in order to focus on reading and math. Standardized tests as a result of NCLB are narrowing the curriculum. Students are educated on how to pass a test which does not measure anything close to what is applicable in today’s society. They spend their twelve years in basic education learning anything but the basics.

Discussion of Standardized Testing

Replacement It is no doubt that the reliability of standardized tests as a whole has been called into question. The claim that standardized tests go as far as to improve education is shaky at best, considering their evidently narrow subject assessment, questionable reliability, and narrowing effect of educational curriculums as a whole. And yet, despite the plethora of evidence which calls the effectiveness of these tests into question they are still required in any conceivable efficient educational system. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of students who were projected to attend American colleges and universities in fall 2018 was 19.9 million (2017). And yet there are only around 4,500 degree-granting institutions in the United States. All of those students had to apply to those 4,500 universities and those 4,500 universities had to go through all of those applications. And unless each university happens to have 5,000 people employed in their admissions offices it had to of taken an unacceptable amount of time to go through the applications without a way to judge the intellectual ability of each applicant, ergo: the standardized test. While in a world perfected to focus on the individual’s intellectual ability there would be a perfectly objective person to judge each applicant, that is simply not feasible. There is required a way of assessing ability that results in a test score in the world of American higher education. And while it has been discussed that the way the United States education system goes about obtaining this test score is anything but perfect, that is not to say that standardized tests as a whole reflect that imperfection. If an educational system requires a form of standardized testing that does not instantaneously degrade the quality of that educational system. Arguably one of the best educational systems on the global stage, that of Finland, has a standardized test for when students apply to higher education (FNAE, 2018). It is how an educational system goes about instituting such tests is what is important. Finland only has that singular standardized test for higher education, the only test that is required in any efficient system, whereas in America as a result of NCLB, standardized tests are given through grades three through eight and are a large focus of high school education. Such frequent testing glorifies it, and, as discussed previously, molds the entirety of the curriculum of grades one through twelve in order to score higher on those tests. Tests which arguably assess information that is not prioritized in most modern careers. This results in not only a flawed system which curriculums focus on narrower and narrower information, but in a flawed educational culture, in which narrowing that curriculum is awarded and glorified. Success is of an American educational institution is measured in numbers and statistics, not in minds developed and grown. When a student is done and graduated, which is more important? Unfortunately, too many will answer with the former.

Conclusion

Any discussion of standardized tests opens up a reflection on education as a whole, not just any singular system, and it is important to remember the complexities when analyzing the behemoth that is the subject of education. That being said, it is more than evident that the way standardized tests are implemented in America’s school system is far from perfect. The test is shown to have little effect in terms of improving the educational environment as a whole. The test which has extreme control over the future of its takers has shown to lack reliability. It assesses narrow subjects while still being prioritized among educators. The test has changed the culture of American education as a whole and permeates beyond just the testing room. Schools educate their students not for the careers of today, but for the careers of the test. A test which has shown little interest in the future of its takers.

When looking at the American education system, the multitude of flaws in it can effortlessly be determined by examining the popular belief that “if you don’t go to college, you have no worth,” a concept brought to light by Joshua Katz in his Toxic Culture of Education TED talk. The American education system does not adequately provide students with the means for success. Students are bombarded with standardized tests by a system which runs on politics and business rather than one that seeks to maximize student support and achievement. The present school system assigns students a score – a number – labeling them as successes or failures; it also forces upon them maps and guidelines to further chain them to the rigid curriculum that stifles creativity. But why not give them opportunity rooted in individuality?

Virtually everyone wants children to prosper and excel. The problem comes from the avaricious few who don’t. No Child Left Behind is a policy that was passed when “[p]rivate companies realized they could utilize the education system . . . to create a nearly endless stream of taxpayer funds,” as described in the TED talk. Katz specifically reveals the enemy of the education system to be the “companies like Pearson and interest groups like ALEC, that write policies and laws to perpetuate their bottom lines on the heads of . . . students.” In most schools across the country, spotting Khan Academy, McGraw Hill, or Pearson incorporated into the system is not uncommon, proving the nation’s amalgamation in conformity. The so-called ‘enhancements’ being made in many school districts are not supportive of student triumph, for, as Katz discloses, “there is no money in student success.” Rankings decrease, new initiatives are born and sold, and profit is made by the enemy. Yet schools continue to work alongside the companies and their policies, and the companies in turn continue to feed off the failure like a parasite. The American education system has, therefore, become caught in a sempiternal cycle of defeat.

Given, there have been improvements over the years in the education department. Katz highlights how PISA results indicate that American students “rank in the ’20s. . . [and] are at or near the top in the comparisons” between district poverty level in the U.S. and poverty levels in other countries. The United States certainly is not failing to stand out when it comes to student success based off data, however, this success is too often measured by destructive standardized tests and based off the top performing students when, as Katz brings out, “our highest performing students are only a small percentage of our overall population.”

Students aim for success the only way they know how: plodding through standardized tests, languishing under rigorous programs, and struggling to achieve top-level rankings. In the end, what does this all mean?

Lynda C. Lambert writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “[students] don’t want to be creative; they just want an A.” The compulsory framework of learning is progressively stripping student’s uniqueness, replacing creativity with the need to assimilate students into – according to Lambert – a “homogenized, packaged curricula.” By requiring students from a young age to take part in standardized test, the American education system is shortcoming student success. Katz explains how “third graders. . . are suffering from anxiety for standardized testing,” which resultantly suggest that “the future path of the student is set, the academic identity is established, and the message is delivered loud and clear: either you CAN make it, or you CANNOT make it.” Nevertheless, the majority of students who attend college are often left ignorant and helpless. The numbers and maps the students grow up with fail them in the end, and it is largely thanks to the curriculum implemented by the education system.

Success can be defined in millions of ways depending on how each individual views it. However, if each student continues to be drilled by schools with the present American education system’s idea of reform, there will exist only one definition in our society. It is our job as a nation to forget the numbers and rend the guidelines to give students the superlative education everyone deserves.

Nelson Mandela once said: “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite”. This quote shows the world that things can and should change. No one is just born racist, they were taught how to act by society, teachers, and parents. It can also work the opposite way. People can be taught to love. From a young, we are surrounded by the idea that being black is ugly. Starting from having white characters in books, movies, and even the toys we played with. There were barely any black Barbie dolls and no black girls in books. Young black children don’t have a lot of teachers who look like them or understand them in school. They never felt safe in school. All these things were ‘normal’ up until a couple of years ago. Even though the world has made changes we have a long way to go. If black children are going to grow up safe in school, we need to implement strategies to educate students and teachers on the matter, because racial injustices affect children mentally and could have an effect on their future.

On the apa.org website, there is the article ‘Inequality at School’, written by Kirsten Weir. He provides research to show how racist discipline in school is, which prevents students from meeting their full potential. Weir says: “Research shows that compared with white students, black students are more likely to be suspended or expelled, less likely to be placed in”. Black students are more likely to be given the wrong level of education because of racism. This affects kids’ abilities to learn and grow. It adds to the stereotype that black children are always in trouble and ‘ghetto’. Situations at school are escalated and when POC students get suspended, it changes how teachers think about them. This is wrong because in society if a white student were to get in trouble, they were just seen as having a bad day, but when it’s a black child, they’re seen as a troublemaker.

In the article ‘Anderson How the Stress of Racism Affects Learning’, written by Melina d Anderson, she talks about how students who experience racism don’t do as well as those who don’t. Racism in school affects students mentally. Anderson states that “physiological response to race-based stressors—be it perceived racial prejudice, or the drive to outperform negative stereotypes—leads the body to pump out more stress hormones in adolescents from traditionally marginalized groups”. She also says that “according to the paper, among this population of students, perceived discrimination from teachers was related to lower grades, less academic motivation, and less persistence when encountering an academic challenge”. The study also found that anxiety surrounding the stereotype of academic inferiority undermined students performing academic tasks. Students in college have added to stress because of discrimination in school. Kids in college already have enough to stress about. Because of some ignorant people students’ grades suffer. Further influencing the stigma that ‘POC aren’t smart’.

On the Black Lives Matter at School website, they give us a list of things we can do to have diversity in school and a safe place for POC to talk to. They said that schools should hire more black teachers and fund counselors, not cops. If we hire more black teachers, POC will have people to go to and relate to. Of course, any kid can go to any teacher, but it’s a little more helpful when it comes from someone who has been through the same thing. We should fund counselors, not cops, because having cops present will influence more students to get arrested. When cops come into the situation, it can get alleviated into something it didn’t need to. The situation could’ve been fixed with the principle. Adding more ethnic studies in the K-12 curriculum can further educate all kids and teachers on more than just slavery. Slavery is most of what is taught in black history. Instead, let’s add in the good things and more countries. Like Latino history.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” (Desmond Tutu). If we continue to sit back and watch these youth suffer in the school system, not only will they suffer, but it would cause everyone to think the same way. All these narratives about ‘white being superior’ comes from teachers and parents failing these children. If you see anyone at school being discriminated against, don’t sit back. Educate that person. Let’s change how our school systems are run.

Americans without a high school diploma compared to college graduates are three times more likely to be unemployed, and even those with high school diplomas average 50% less in annual incomes than those with college degrees. Additionally, the gap between the educational haves and have-nots is only growing wider. Is education supposed to be the great equalizer, right? We’re all told if you work hard and do well in school, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up. In this understanding of the school, society creates a meritocracy or a system in which hard work and talent are awarded. In a pure meritocracy, two kids that work equally as hard and have the same raw ability should do similarly as well no matter what neighborhood they grew up in, no matter their race or gender, or no matter their socioeconomic class standing. On the surface, it might seem the United States has a meritocratic school system, but educational measures of merit like grades and SAT scores don’t always measure everyone’s talents consistently. Grades just don’t measure an individual student’s effort or ability; many factors also influence them outside of the student’s control, like the quality of the school or the access to resources like books or computers. With substantial differences in-home resources, it is perhaps unsurprising that achievement gaps emerge early in life. Even before students enter school.

Understanding the Problem

In the United States, there are large class gaps in educational attainment. While 83% of students from high-income families enroll in college after high school, only 63% of low-income students do. Why the disparity? One reason is that wealthier kids tend to live in higher-income neighborhoods, which in turn fund better-quality schools, making it easier to get into college. In the US, school funding is determined at the local level; the city or town that a person lives in determines the funding of their school system. While federal and state administrations provide some funding, most of the money comes from local property taxes. This means that schools and towns with more expensive houses and higher-earning residents have more resources available for their students. Unsurprisingly, schools in more affluent communities, on average, provide a better education than schools in poor communities. Having more funding for schools allows schools to hire better teachers, buy more and better supplies, offer a wider variety of classes, and provide extracurricular activities. These differences in school quality translate to differences in outcomes for students.

Overall education should serve as the most significant vehicle for generational change and prosperity in America. Take Dustin, a fourth-grader who was born into the most deficient 20%. Without a college degree, he has only a 5% chance of reaching the top, compared to a 45% chance of staying in poverty. With a college degree, he is more likely to rise to the top income quintile than to remain at the bottom. Even if Dustin stays in school, he still has an uphill battle because his family will have fewer options as to where he can attend school. Wealthier families can afford to live in a better school district or pay to send their kids to private schools. However, Dustin can only hope that the local public school is decent, or take his chances of trying to get into the magnet school or charter school. The truth is our education system stacked the odds against our most impoverished children like Dustin. Here’s the thing it’s not a spending problem; in inflation-adjusted terms, the average yearly spending per student from 1970 to today has nearly doubled. Some of the cities in the United States with the most stifling poverty spent the most per student. Since the 1950s, the overall population of students has grown 96%, while the total number of teachers and staff has increased by 252% and a whopping 702%, respectively. Most Americans think public school teachers are underpaid, according to several recent surveys, for example, in an April poll by the University of Chicago researchers, 70% of adults and teachers think teachers are getting paid so little, and I say they would support higher taxes to pay teachers more.

Relevance to Legislation

In Alabama, Scott Dawson, a Republican from Birmingham who lost his bid to run for governor in his primary, said the problem in his state is not low spending. However, it’s a waste. The education bureaucracy gets too much of our money, but some teachers are still paying for school supplies out of their own pockets. How do you say spending more on things like building repairs, teacher salaries, and smaller class sizes will pay off in higher student achievement? Complaints like these became increasingly prevalent after the recession hit when state officials were making substantial cuts in education funding. I have recent large-scale research studies examining the impact of recession-era spending cuts on student outcomes as well as the effect of state court-mandated infusions of state money to low-income school districts. Permanent additional money improves student achievement in high school graduation rates and increased with similar students in the same district. The problem with the American education system remains just that the system. The way we pay to organize and regulate students does not foster innovative and entrepreneurial solutions. School district districts have become loaded bureaucracies does title creativity. Principles spent more time filling out paperwork and checking boxes on forms than acting as instructional leaders in schools. Teachers have to teach through a narrowed curriculum to maximize scores on skin standardized tests. It’s demoralizing, it’s dehumanizing, and it hurts kids like Dustin. Fortunately, since we engineered the system, we can revolutionize it to be much more.

Recommendations

We need to fund schools flexibly and let Dustin and his parents choose the educational environment which best fits his needs. Students today flow and geographic areas and money flow into these schools, whether they’re serving kids or not. Vouchers and charter schools are better allowing students to take funding to the school of their choosing, improving competition and performance in education. But even the system funds each child in a lump sum and requires each school to manage the entire education of their students. A better system would make a dollar for each student flexible so Dustin and his parents can customize the best education for him. To be prepared for the jobs of the complex, dynamic, and rapidly globalizing future, all students should have access to opportunities to learn firsthand how their academic work applies to potential career paths and vice versa. Programs that allow for this direction and empower students with concrete results, such as college credit or professional certification of some kind should be available in every district. Course choice and course access programs allow student families in any district to divide up the money and spend them on various providers getting students like Dustin the help he needs for mathematics or a foreign language course if he, for example, wanted to go into business. Similarly, education savings accounts would help him pay for private school or tutoring and speech therapy, and then he can roll over dollars a year to year and can even put away US dollars for college.

We need a better regulatory approach; the current system uses standards of formulas to hold Dustin’s school teachers accountable to a one size fits all definition of success that slows innovation and stifles teacher creativity. We need a flexible market base system that relies on performance contracts inspectors or creditors to hold educators accountable for many kinds of results. The US education system must dramatically scale up effective tutoring models through national service programs, fellowships, volunteers, and high-quality virtual tutoring. States should provide a high-quality tutoring experience to every student performing below grade level. In addition to using existing state and local funds, school districts could use federal funding to finance these programs.

Teachers should begin their careers with an annual base salary of at least $50,000 and receive supported training similar to that of a medical resident before becoming responsible for leading a classroom of their own. More experienced teachers with a demonstrated track record of excellence should have the opportunity to earn at least $100,000 annually.

The new schools and educational providers of this system or create will be the new sources of human and financial capital. They would need the freedom to rethink the roles and compensation of teachers and leaders, to re-train teachers for a unique new school environment, and to pursue new sources of capital for public and private financing. There is no silver bullet, but the best thing that we can do for students is to create a marketplace that unleashes education innovators and entrepreneurs. A vibrant ecosystem or evolving marketplace of action that competes for students’ dollars by showing better results for all students no matter their backgrounds.

Summary

​Improving school outcomes is associated with the selection and adoption of innovations that are proven to be effective, efficient, and relevant in achieving those outcomes. However, real success is associated with the accurate implementation of an innovation over time and across larger organization units. If classroom and school-wide innovations are to be scaled for sustained implementation at the district, regional, and state levels, priority must be directed toward the establishment of leadership structures that emphasize capacity building for sustained and scalable innovation implementation. In addition, efficiency adjustments must be based on the phase of innovation implementation (emergence, demonstration, elaboration, and system adoption). Real innovation adoption is evident when it becomes part of policies, organizational routines, and enhanced student and school outcomes.

References

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Throughout time, there has been a decrease in students’ grades and test scores. Unsure why, a range of school reforms were studied and tested. This report will cover a few of the many reforms that were done and thought to be done, ranging from broad reforms like changing school standards, all the way to particular reforms such as School Choice. Some of these reforms have worked while others have not, but no matter how these reforms played out, more studies were taken and noted for future reforms in hopes to help the educational system.

Standards

One reform that could help students is for them to have a more constant standard. Current standards that are set locally lead to a large variation in students’ knowledge at different stages. This often creates issues for students who travel to different schools. With a constant standard, students in the same age groups would have the same expectations (Stewart, V., 2012). These standard-based reforms would be to objectively assess student performance and teachers’ effectiveness by instructional materials and testing. Individual performance would be measured by common criteria rather than other students (Stelitano, L., & McEachin, A., 2017). With the addition of constant standards, there is a greater possibility of a more equity based education.

Equity

Equity is much different from equality, though thought to be the same when broken down it is quite easy to see the difference. At a track event, there are X amount of runners, each in their lane. Equality would mean that each runner starts in the same spot in each lane. Though seeming equal, because the track is an oval, the innermost runner would have less distance to run than the outermost runner. The innermost runner would have an advantage. That is why the track has each runner from outside to inside, set back more, and more (Shelton, N., 2019). This is what equity looks like. Schools are currently set up more towards equality, though seeming fair for all students, the outermost students (low-income) have a much further distance to cover than the inside students (high-income). For schools to truly become fairer for students, the gap between technology at high and low-income schools would have to close. The way this gap would close is by giving all schools equal funding, rather than the higher-income school earning more. With a system that funds all schools equally, lower-income students would be able to receive better technology that would better the education experience of those students (Stewart, V., 2012). Similarly to how equity makes the education system fairer, more qualified teachers would do the same.

High-Quality Teacher/Leaders

As much as equal equipment would help lower-income students, they would only be as knowledgeable as their best teacher. If schools had equally experienced and qualified teachers, all students would truly get an even educational experience. For this to happen, teachers would have to be paid evenly from school to school. This would take out the competition among teachers and allow less wealthy schools to have just as good teachers as the wealthy ones. Rather than teachers looking to different schools for pay increases, let pay increases come through more students succeeding (Stewart, V., 2012). Though having experienced, qualified teachers in all schools are important, it is also important that the teachers’ teaching styles help students effectively learn. Programs that are focused on teachers can help them understand and use effective strategies that would help and motivate students to do better. Some of these strategies are for them to encourage students to do their best, setting high standards, allowing students to have choices when possible, and using lessons that require collaboration and thinking (Usher, A., & Kober, N., 2012). If these strategies fail, there are some reforms that are made to boost the student’s motivation.

Student Motivation and Engagement

Student motivation is a relatively large part of a student’s willingness and ability to comprehend what they learn, but there is a small amount of effort put into keeping the students engaged. Unmotivated students can affect other students and cause them to lose their motivation. Studies show that as students progress through school, their motivation dwindles and by highschool, over 40% of students are disengaged from learning and put very little effort into their work. Overtime scholars have identified two major types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to achieve something because one wants to, while extrinsic is the desire to achieve something because it will produce a result. One reform that has helped is targeted intervention programs. These programs identify students who are falling behind or are failing to attend class regularly. Once identified, they are assigned things such as personal mentors or extracurricular activities. This has shown to help students re-engage in their classes. Another reform that has shown to help is to reorganize schools. This system takes larger schools and breaks them up into smaller schools within the large school, that way students and teachers are all within smaller groups. These systems work by keeping the students more connected to the school, their teachers, and other students to help keep them motivated (Usher, A., & Kober, N., 2012). In addition to keeping the students motivated, increasing the amounts of rules may only be hurting the students scores and educational experience.

Rules

Some rule-based reforms include extending school days/years, changing teacher certifications, school credential requirements, national/state tests, stricter dress codes, etc. While being a popular means of addressing problems, they have shown to not correlate with academic achievement. A study in Detroit shows that schools that have endured these strict rules have scored marginally the same on the ACT as other schools. This information has made it clear that although these rule-based reforms have shown a slight improvement in grades, they have not been able to increase the amount of comprehension in the students (Brouillette, M. J., 2001). Along with an increase in rules, increasing in resources, has also been a popular reform.

Resources

These include increased funding, new textbooks, better Internet, renovation of facilities, smaller class sizes, etc. The Coleman Report shows that factors such as teacher to student count do not significantly impact student’s scores. According to Economist Erik Hanushek, who has replicated Coleman’s study and expanded it internationally, he found that more money does not mean better education and that other countries have been able to get better results without dishing out as much (Brouillette, M. J., 2001). Although more resources/funding may not always be the answer, acts like the ESSA greatly help low-income schools.

ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act)

Every Student Succeeds Act is a type of reform that targets schools that have high poverty levels. ESSA ensures that states can’t reduce their funding for a school more than 10% year to year, no matter how that school performs. This act also attempts to ensure all students in lower-income areas receive qualified, experienced teachers. ESSA also requires district reports cards that incorporate information such as inexperienced teachers/principles, teachers with emergency credentials, and teachers who are out of their studied field (Shelton, N., 2019). An older act that was also passed to help needy students was the No Child Left Behind Act.

No Child Left Behind

This act was passed in 2001 by George Bush, saying that the children are our future and too many of the neediest children are being left behind. This act helps children in their early years to prevent any problems they may have in the future. It also provides more information for parents about their child’s progress and would alert them should there be any important information about their child’s performance. Along with that, it also was meant to give parents and their children a way to get a better education. Tests that are taken annually give teachers and principals a better understanding of the student’s comprehension. $242 billion has been put towards the education of disadvantaged children through this program, but the gap between high and low-income families has remained wide (No Child Left Behind., 2005). Another large spending program was the $4.35 billion Race to the Top, school reform.

Race to the Top

This reform rewarded states for their past accomplishments, to create incentives for future improvements. It challenged states to create strategies to improve schools in 4 different ways. The first way was with standard benchmarks to test and assess the students for their future success. The second way is to develop and reward effective teachers and principals where they are needed. The third way is to come up with systems that measure the student’s success and inform teachers and principals how they can improve their lessons/teachings. The last way is to turn around the lowest-achieving schools. Awards went out to the states that lead the way with their ambitious plans. Those states were to open the trail for the rest and act as a precedent for all other schools and districts (Race to the Top., 2011). Because so much money was dished out and little improvement was seen, school choice came about.

School Choice

School choice is still a fairly new idea, that is liked by many. Rather than adding more money or rules, why not make the system competitive. This empowers the students and their parents with a choice of what school they want to attend. This would compel schools to either improve their product or go out of business. Just as a business would respond to competition by making better products, schools would compete by making a better education. Assigning kids to schools is almost like a business monopoly. When the business has control over an area, they have no incentive to produce a good quality product. Just as a parent chooses to buy one product over another, they will be able to use their better judgment and select a school, pushing schools to improve their product. A study done by a Harvard economist, Caroline Minter Hoxby, found that areas with greater public school choice have higher student test scores and graduation rates (Brouillette, M. J., 2001). With incentive-based reforms, comes a few different types of school choices.

Limited Educational Choice

Limited educational choice removes barriers that parents may face when only choosing different government schools. Most forms of limited educational choice fall into three categories. The first one is intra-district. In this category families may only choose schools from within the district. Inside intra-district choice, there are 3 main forms: Magnet schools, second choice schools, and open enrollment. Magnet schools are district-operated schools that are designed to attract diverse students. The next type of school is second choice schools. These schools are mainly for students who do not fit in at regular schools, some examples may be students who have or plan on dropping out or have really low skills or are pregnant. They serve as a rescue to these types of students. The last type is open enrollment. This allows families to send their kids to any school as long as that school has space for that particular grade level. The second category is inter-district. This category allows families to send their children to any government schools within their region or state under these requirements. The receiving schools are open to accepting non-resident students. There is available space within the receiving school. The students’ transfer won’t affect racial desegregation. Inter-district choice can be fairly complicated due to school districts spending different amounts on different students. The last limited educational choice is charter schools. Charter schools are different because they receive funding based on the number of students they attract rather than by local taxes. These schools can control their budgets and staffing (Brouillette, M. J., 2001).

Full Educational Choice

The other type of school choice is having a full educational choice. This would remove barriers that parents would regularly face when choosing among schools. To make this happen, schools that are usually funded through the taxes that parents pay would be funded by one of these programs from these four categories. The first program is vouchers. In this program, the government would give these vouchers to the parents who would then pay the school. There are a few different vouchers that mainly differ through whom they help and whom they are made for. The next program is private scholarships. This program would offer the parents to choose the best school for their child through the assistance of paying tuition from a private source, instead of the government. Another program is tax credits. Tax credits would work by giving parents tax relief linked to the number of expenses they would have had to pay when selecting an alternative school for their child. An example would be, if the parent had a pre-credit liability of $1000 and a tuition tax credit of $750, the taxpayer would only pay a tax of $250. The last program is universal tuition tax credits. This program would work by the parents contributing to any elementary education or any secondary child and receive a dollar for a dollar tax credit against the taxes that they owed (Brouillette, M. J., 2001). Barriers Although having school choice might fix the decline in education, there are still some barriers that keep this system from going into full swing. One problem that has prohibited school choice is state constitutions. Around 40 state constitutions currently prohibit the use of public funds for education. These constitutions must all be amended before moving forward. The next roadblock that is holding back school choice is political barriers. Many union leaders look at the current education monopolies as financial well-being for their organizations. If students have a choice to go to different schools, they would choose to go to non-unionized schools which could lead to a large loss of money for unions. These unions who want to control education, give verbal and financial support to politicians, who in turn, keep education monopolized. The last barrier is a knowledge barrier. Most do not have full comprehension of how the full system works, which has led to many misunderstandings and false ideas. Without concrete evidence that school choice would work, these false ideas have continued to spread which has led to people being against school choice (Brouillette, M. J., 2001).

Conclusion

Education has been reformed quite a lot over the years. After many reforms, the same conclusion is made time and time again. Increase the amount of reforms even more. This report has covered a few of the many reforms that were done. As seen, some of these reforms have shown to work quite well, while others have shown to be a waste of time and money. No matter how these reforms have played out, more studies were done and noted for more reforms in the future.

For various reasons, I believe that middle school recess needs to be extended because it does not allow students enough time to take care of their basic needs. Some people may disagree because they feel that this will decrease instructional and learning time. However, I believe that a longer recess will allow students time to drink water and go to the bathroom. Also, students will have time to play team sports. Finally, the most important reason is students will have enough time to eat their healthy snacks. Consequently, I will argue that an extended recess benefits students’ learning.

First, students need more time to leave the bathroom and drink water. In fact, with a short recess students interrupt the teacher and other students when they leave during recess time. Also, when they do leave during class, they miss the lesson and the teacher’s instruction. For example, a student on my project team left for the bathroom when the teacher was explaining how to do an activity, when he came back, I had to explain everything again to him and we did not have enough time to finish our project. Therefore, if students have a longer recess, they will have adequate time to drink water and go to the bathroom, and not miss the teacher’s instructions.

Second, with a longer recess period, students are able to play team sports. In fact, students will build and develop team skills by playing team sports. In addition, students can relieve stress and energize themselves. For instance, after a long period of work, students get bored and sleepy, and they have a difficult time listening and following directions. However, after they have had time to unwind during recess, they are more alert and ready to learn in class. So, to improve student attention in the classroom and build team skills, students need a longer recess to play team sports.

And finally, students need more time to eat their nutritious snacks. Actually, when students are hungry, they pay less attention to the teacher’s instructions. Because they are thinking of food instead. Furthermore, when students get hungry, they begin to fidget and disrupt others. For example, when I am not able to eat my snack during recess and it is time to go to class, the last thing I am thinking about is learning. Therefore, students need more time to eat their snacks during recess so that they can focus more on the class instruction instead of their grumbling stomachs.

To summarize the information I have provided above, extended school breaks are extremely important because they benefit students’ learning. That is why they should be introduced at the middle school level.

Over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States each year. 21 states and the District of Columbia have passed mandatory laws that allow students to stay in school even when they have passed the age of 16. However, the USA has passed a compulsory law that requires that all children attend school at least from the age of 5 until they are at the age of 16. Despite the mandatory law, school dropout rates are high, affecting the country’s ability to ensure high literacy rates, reduce income disparities, and have more graduates. While it could be argued that raising the leaving age to 18 could solve these problems, this initiative has its drawbacks. The controversy behind the issue has led various researchers to assess the cost and benefits of allowing students to attend school past the age of sixteen.

For the past years, laws of school attendance have been implemented with the goals of improving educational attainment in America, reducing the number of students dropping out of school, and addressing problems of myopic youth. The laws also aimed at addressing parents who did not care whether their students stayed in or dropped out of school. The federal government set the compulsory school age limit that aimed at setting the minimum length of time that students must spend in school before they have a legal option to leave. The states were also given the mandate to set general laws that covered compulsory school attendance. The laws for age limits in education have been around for many decades, while others, such as compulsory education, have been around for more than a century. However, the laws have been upgraded periodically, sometimes being improved, and sometimes other elements being removed, depending on the particular need of each state in the county. Despite these changes, the general law in various states was that the youngest age at which students were allowed to leave school was 16, with some exceptions of states that have increased the age to 18. Former President Barack Obama in 2012 urged all states to allow students to attend school until they reach the age of 18. The national centers for education statistics reported that although the compulsory education of attending school has extended to 18 years in more than 20 states, a few states have placed exemptions that allowed students to stop attending school as long as they had their parent’s permission. These exemptions make it easy for students to drop out of school and not finish their diplomas, thus making the law that allowed children to attend school past the age of 16 irrelevant. Despite the intervention by former President Barack Obama to make school attendance compulsory up to the age of 18, the decision has been utterly left at the state level. This implies that some states may take it seriously and extend educational attendance, while others do not. This also brings problems, as it will be difficult to achieve the main goal of reducing dropouts in the country as a whole. However, the aim of compulsory education law in America is to ensure that students don’t walk away from their education before they get their diplomas. When students are not allowed to drop out of school, they do better.

Although the government has established laws that increase compulsory education up to the age of sixteen, it hasn’t been able to reduce the achievement gap for poor and minority students. This is because poor students drop out of school as they struggle between working to sustain a living and going to school. This was supported by Cornwell, who said that poorer parents rely on their students to produce income, as a result, they would foregoer school to do menial jobs that will bring extra income. Furthermore, parents who migrate to the United States with children who haven’t finished their high school education face challenges when they want to get into proper schools, which force them to forego school and end up attending private institutions or do homeschooling. As a result, students who drop out of school and fail to come back to school later in life because of age restrictions have been linked with various forms of life challenges. These include challenges such as criminal activities, lower-paying jobs, teenage pregnancy, ill health, divorce, and being unhappy. This has undoubtedly worsened the inequalities between the rich and the poor in the country. To tackle these social challenges, which can eventually manifest into economic problems, some experts believe that students should be allowed to attend school past the age of sixteen, for example by raising the dropout age to 18. Government must also create support structures that enable these students to succeed in school and achieve their diplomas.

If all states increase their minimum school leaving age above 16, students, parents and the country as a whole will benefit from several long-term outcomes, such as reduced crime rate, poverty, and equality. A growing body of research has suggested that increasing the school attendance age from 16 to 18 will improve the number of high school graduates and also close the achievement gap. It was found that when more effort is put to ensure that students keep engaged in school from an early age and effective support programs are created, the rate of graduates in the country will improve. If a child stays longer in school, there is nothing they do except to learn therefore, this improves their chances of being able to attain their diploma and get into college. By increasing the age of school attendance, the government will be strengthening the country’s educational system and promoting college attendance.

It will also promote career outcomes for young people and reduce the achievement gap. Improving the age of school attendance past the age of 16 will also help students to get life skills as schools can boost vocational programs and job training to help students to get closer to the job market. This will help those students who have failed to qualify for college. The strategy will also encourage teachers to invest more time and help to see each student as an achiever. Since schools will be allowing students to stay in school longer, students will also be able to learn important life skills that will enable them to be responsible citizens. Vocational training will help them to be entrepreneurs who have their own startups, thus reducing the unemployment rates in the country.

Increasing the age of school attendance past the age of 16 has also been linked to successfully improving the life of school dropouts. It was found that high school dropouts experience substantially worse life problems than their peers who remain in school as they face long-term problems. On average, a school dropout will earn less money, is more likely to be involved in criminal activities, is less healthy, and is less likely to be married. School dropouts also live unhappily than their peers who completed high school and graduated. This was supported by another study, which explained that skills and educational attainment are important in today’s economy as several jobs require candidates who are literate with at least a high school diploma. However, the dropouts face challenges. 16% of school dropouts are unemployed, and 32% live below the poverty datum line. Poverty increases because, on average, dropouts earn $12. 75 per hour and work in common jobs such as construction, food services, and landscaping industries. In such cases, the labor market remains bleak throughout their life. Increasing the school attendance age to 18 would reduce these long-term effects, as dropouts will be able to officially come back and enroll in school, thus improving their longevity outcome.

Increasing school attendance past the age of 16 has also been linked to reducing overall crime and incarceration rates. Compulsory schooling past the age of 16 will help to keep students occupied such that they will not have time to engage in criminal activities. One research has shown that students who leave school earlier are more likely to use cigarettes and illicit drugs than those who have stayed in school up to the age of 18. Also, it was explained that when students stay longer in school, they develop reasoning capacities and good cognitive capabilities that will help them to make wise decisions in life. This reduces any engagement in criminal activities and teen pregnancy. Therefore, if school attendance is increased from the age of 16 to 18, students will develop good cognitive capabilities that enable them to make wise decisions which will help them to avoid a life of crime.

Studies have also demonstrated that increasing the school leaving age from 16 improved the education attainment levels of the country. One study showed that for each year the dropout age was extended above the age of 16, the school attainment rate increased by 0.12 years per student. The results of the studies also showed that high school completion rates increase by 1.3 percent on average when the school leaving age was only increased from 16-17. The high school completion rate also increased by 2.4 percent when the school leaving age was increased to 18. In addition, raising the school leaving age also led to an increase in the number of students who enrolled in college. This is because students who stayed in school and completed their high school took advantage of the opportunities and finance available to pursue a college degree. Using the findings from the study, it can be seen that increasing the school attendance age from the age of 16 to 18 has positive effects on educational attainment.

Increasing the school-leaving age can also encourage adults to pursue higher education and adult education can also encourage teenagers to learn. When students are encouraged to stay in school longer, they will not see higher education as an obstacle in their life. This will increase the literacy level of the country as a whole. Therefore, it is important that the state examine the compulsory school attendance laws and ensure that they incorporate the disadvantaged. In doing so, the state will also be encouraging adult education, as the initiative will show that it is possible to attend school regardless of age or circumstances.

But there are also drawbacks. Economic evidence and research have pointed out that the cost and resource burdens of increasing school attendance past the age of 16 are overwhelming to schools, administrations, and states on a wider scale. Faced with such a situation, there is a need for evaluating whether such cost can be justified, as dropouts who were allowed back to school have been linked with violence and engaging in criminal activities while at school. By increasing the school attendance age, more truant officers and social workers will be needed. While it cannot be clear on the exact number of extra workers needed, accommodating thousands of students who have passed the age limit will entail direct costs. These include costs such as hiring new teachers, building schools, and increasing class sizes. A study carried out by Boozeman showed that per every student, the United States spends roughly $12,300 per year. If accommodating a student will cost this much, the state will pay an estimated amount of 25000 for the next two years that the child will still be in school. In reality, the cost of extending the age limit will be more than average calculations. This is because new schools and classrooms will have to be built in order to accommodate more students and those who were dropouts coming back to school. Apart from these direct costs, there are also indirect costs that the government has to bear which cannot be quantified. Some of the cost includes health and safety issues when schools that cannot build extra classrooms put students in a larger class to accommodate extra students. This can lead to the spreading of diseases and viruses, which can affect the overall well-being of students. In addition, students who remain in school because of the change in the law can be disruptive to their peers who will still be in school. This is especially true for dropouts who are allowed back to school after the age of 16, as they can be least enthusiastic and affect students who are already struggling. There are also concerns that the incidence of crime and violence in schools can increase because of the increased attendance of students who are unhappy and unwilling to go back to school. Finally, schools will have to divert resources that should have focused on improving the quality of education to hiring more teachers. More resources will also be channeled toward hiring more social workers and making sure that incidents of violence and crime at school are reduced.

In conclusion, allowing students to attend school past the age of 16 has been surrounded by a lot of controversy, however, this initiative has numerous benefits, not only to students but to the country as a whole. Over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States each year. However, for the past years, laws on school attendance have been implemented with the goals of improving educational attainment in America, reducing the number of students dropping out of school, and addressing problems of myopic youth. The laws also aimed at addressing parents who did not care whether their students stayed in or dropped out of school. These laws and research have shown that increasing school attendance for those over the age of 16 has numerous benefits. These include benefits such as reduced crime rate, poverty, and achievement of equality. In addition, by increasing the age of school attendance to 18, the government will be strengthening the country’s educational system and promoting college attendance. In addition, when schools will allow students to stay in school longer, students will learn important life skills that will enable them to be responsible citizens. Vocational training will help them to be entrepreneurs who have their own startups, thus reducing the unemployment rates in the country. In addition, when students are encouraged to stay in school longer, they will not see higher education as an obstacle in their life. This will increase the literacy level of the country as a whole. However, this initiative has a financial burden on the schools and the government as well. This is because new schools and classrooms will have to be built to accommodate more students and those who were dropouts coming back to school. Despite these drawbacks, I believe that attending school past the age of 16 should be encouraged or made compulsory, as it has numerous benefits.