Category: American Education System

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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2. Alton-Lee, A. (2003). “Impact of Teaching and Schools on Variance in Outcomes”. New Zealand Ministry of Education.
3. Anderson, J.A., (2005). “Accountability in Education”. In Education Policy Series. Brussels and Paris: International Academy of Education and UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning.
4. Arriagada, A.( 1981). Determinants of Sixth Grade Achievement in Peru. Washington DC: World Bank.
5. Berliner, D., and U. Casanova (1989). “Effective Schools: Teachers make a Difference”. Instructor 99 (3): 14-15.
6. Blum, Robert E. (1990). Effective Schooling Practices: A Research Synthesis. Portland, Oregon: Northwest Regional Laboratory.
7. Brubaker, H., and R. Partine (1986). Implementing Effective Schools Research: The Audit Process and High School Observations. Paper presented at AERA Conference.
8. Chesterfield, R. and F.E. Rubio (1997). Impact Study of the BEST Teacher Effectiveness in Guatemala Primary Education. Washington DC USAID.
9. Chubb, John E., and Terry M. Moe (1990). Politics, Markets and America’s Schools. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute.

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.

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.

After almost 50 years, year-round school is starting to fade away but needs to go away faster. In my opinion, we need to abolish year around school as year-round school is obviously a bad idea.

One reason why year-round school is a bad idea that needs to be abolished is the teacher problems. According to an interview I had with Mrs. Groom, my 8th grade ELA teacher, who has been a teacher for 20 years, she thinks that having a year-round break would be nice, but she also thinks that having one big break is better. She also thinks that teachers do not have enough time to spend with family after school is over. When I asked her about having to prepare for students to come back from break, she had to get to school early, maybe even come a day before, to prepare the classroom. But one more thing she has to do is prepare her mind, because when students come back from break, they aren’t good at following the rules, so if there were a whole bunch of breaks, she would have to prepare a lot of things.

The second problem associated with year-round school is wasted money. According to William White, schools will save money if year-round schooling will be eliminated. You may be asking how not doing year-round school saves money. Well, not doing year-round school saves money in multiple ways. The first way they save money is with food when the kids are constantly needing to be fed at school because they are there all year. They will have to buy more food to feed the kids. The second way year-round school costs more money is the payments. When the kids are at school all year the payments of the Internet bill and the eclectic bill are high. This is because they are always on their computers and the school has to keep air conditioning and lights on more than they have to if they do normal school. So, all the payments are higher doing year-round school than just a normal schedule.

And the third reason why year-round school is a bad idea and should be abolished is that it does not succeed with the plan to improve the achievement in the classroom. According to William White from the SIRS research program, time after time again schools have switched to year-round school hoping to improve achievement, but they seem to never get their hope fulfilled. There has been a study from 7 schools in Colorado that started year-round school to see if there was any improvement, but there wasn’t much if anything the scores got worse than they were doing a normal schedule. So, these schedules seem to not succeed with the plan to improve test scores.

Some people may say that year-round school increases test scores. But according to Jennifer Graves from the SIRS research program, they really don’t increase. If you are wondering why, it is because time in the classroom is not actually increased. An average normal school year is around 180 days. But with year-round school, the average school year is around 185 days. So, it is hard to make you learn more in 5 more days of school. Something else some people might say is that students will not have summer learning loss if schools switch to year-round learning. But research shows that students’ minds need a break to remember what they actually learned. So even with the summer break, students will have a break to remember and go over what they had just learned that school year.

In conclusion, year-round schooling should be abolished because it costs more money. The teachers need a longer break off to spend time with family. And the biggest reason why academic achievement does not improve. So, this is why year-round school needs to be abolished and is starting to fade away.

The education system is a problem that needs to be addressed because education is very important. Many jobs require certain degrees and certain knowledge to get the job. Only 36% of Americans end up graduating college, and about 6,211,000 Americans end up unemployed. This needs to be fixed.

Today’s school focuses on test taking, but in the future, most jobs will be automated, so successful people will have to be curious, innovative, and adaptable. Don’t believe me? Maybe you’ll believe the 1,500 executives who said: “Creativity is the most important leadership skill”. People won’t be hired by their knowledge or whether they memorized a fact. They’ll be hired by what they can do with their knowledge. By finding a creative solution to real-world problems, not by following instructions or directions or bubbling in multiple-choice questions.

The way school is now, many people don’t get employed or have a chance at higher education, so do we even need it? Do you own an iPhone or MacBook? They both were created by a dropout. Social media like Snapchat, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Facebook were all created by dropouts. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, never went to school at all. It’s not only people today, many idolized people in history were dropouts. Sure, there’s Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Michael Dell, but there’s also Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Mark Twain, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. I’m not saying dropout, I’m saying what we’re learning now isn’t so important in the future. We shouldn’t be learning how to do robotic tasks because nobody can do a robot’s job better than a robot.

Students have trouble in school, and it’s not their fault. Everyone learns differently and at different paces. Everyone is interested in different things and has different strengths, needs, hopes, and dreams. Scientists will say no two brains are the same, so why are we teaching all students the same thing, in the same way? If a doctor prescribed the same medicine for every patient, the outcome would be tragic. Having everybody sit in the same room and listen to useless information that won’t help them in the future is pointless. Obviously, reading and basic math are needed, but is knowing about tectonic plates and the powerhouse of the cell more important than self-care, self-control, and emotional health?

The education system needs to change, and quickly. The longer it stays the way it is, the longer it deprives students of a greater future. Today’s school puts so much stress on students that it completely changes them. If it’s a safe place for learning, then why do students avoid eye contact with the teacher so they don’t get called on? They don’t raise their hand for fear of being wrong. Not to mention, school and its educational ways haven’t changed in over a century. To me, this raises a couple of red flags. Today’s school prepares children for working in a factory. Sit in neat, straight lines, raise your hand to speak, short time to eat, and talk to friends.

Another thing we should change in schools is all the tests we have to take. Frederick J. Kelly, the man who invented standardized tests, even said: “These tests are too crude to be used and should be abandoned”. Tests may be 70% of our grade, but there is 0% of our future. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have structure, but maybe not so strict. Take Finland for example, shorter school days, no homework, focuses on collaboration rather than competition, and its education system ranks higher than every other country in the world.

So, it is obvious that the current education system needs changes. This education should not only be about learning and grades but also about leadership and art. We should use our time wisely, but we spend six brutal hours of our lives in school, and that’s probably the worst time management ever. Students are 20% of the population, but 100% of the future. We must do everything we can to help change education for the better.