4 Ways to Fix Our Education System

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In 2002, President George W. Bush and congress reauthorize ESEA with the new name No Child Left Behind. The bill approaches the issue of education reform through test to measure the student’s education gaps. While this bill is considered a failure, it brings up the idea of what is the most effective way of teaching and how can we better our nation’s education system. In a world of constant competition between peers and other nations, it has more important than ever to focus on education and the strength of the American youth. However, in order to reform the education system there are many parties that would have to agree on a solution. As with any major overhaul, it affects many people and can have negative repercussion if not done with a delicate hand. Education reform-affecting the students, the teachers, the parents, and the nation they live in- provides a nation with an educational foundation to build its future on through the implementation of more “active learning” methods, STEM education, more incentives for teachers, and optimizing the learning atmosphere. By doing these things, we are creating a more effective school system, setting students up for success, building a better nation, supporting academic thought, and providing hope for future generations.

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In the current education system, students are taught through a series of lectures building up to a test which the students are required to remember the information from the lecture. The current flaw of this system is it supports memorization and cramming for tests and does not encourage true understanding. After the test, many students forget the information they have studied for the test because they do not need to know it for a longer period of time. In order for our education system to be as effective as it can be, we need to focus on molding the children’s brains to think well. Holly Green points out that our current education system needs to be changed because “the way we teach our children doesn’t align with what we know about how the brain learns (6).” Another issue facing our education system is the budget. Since the budget has been cut multiple times in recent years, the education system has less money to produce even more effective students, so it is imperative that the system can change with the time. Many public high schools are currently failing their students willing because they do not have the budget or the qualified teachers to pass them. Situations like this need to stop because our future generation needs to be the number one concern if we want our nation to success.

In order to counter these issues, education reform must happen to some extent. With multiple attempts in the past failing, the issue lies in what to do not whether we need to do it. Critical issues facing education reform appears to be holding the core standards of learning and not adapting to modern technology and teaching. Peter DeWitt from Education Week claims that one major issue with our current system is that dozens of states are trying to “back out” of the standards of learning (7). This issue is most likely due to lack of high quality teachers and a decrease in school budgets. The fact that multiple states have to cut back educational standards because the government has mismanaged money is terrible. The education of the students’ needs to be a top priority in a state because they are our future leaders. Another issue that has become more apparent is the lack of modern teaching mechanics. With the modern technology, the education process can be made more interactive and personal allowing students to learn and retain information quicker. Providing alternate ways to learn will allow students who might are struggling new ways to survive and thrive in class. Using modern teaching techniques will vastly improve our classrooms and will directly affect the student’s success rate. Iowa State University has been experimenting with alternate techniques to encourage creative teaching. One technique that stood out to me was Negative Brainstorming, where one looks at a list and finds all the problems with the each solution to find the best one (7). By encouraging creative teaching and core educational standards in the Education System more students will turn out successful.

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One way to improve our current education system is through more “active learning” activities. A study by J. Patrick McCarthy and Liam Anderson support this claim, proving that college students who participated in these activities perform better than their peers (8). This study and many other studies have proven the point that if teachers incorporate more “active learning” activities into their classrooms, students perform better. Group activities and diverse learning atmospheres boost a student’s memory and support the student’s ability to retain the information better. Professors at California State further support this idea by claiming that “active learning” is merely doing anything other than the general lecture style (9). Giving students work, like a small writing assignment, after a short lecture increases a student’s ability to retain the information (9). The California State Research Team separates “active learning” techniques into multiple categories: Individual, Feedback, Critical Thinking, and Group Work (9). Each individual category has its own set of rules that will benefit the student. The purpose of promoting active learning experiences is to help students retain information and think critically because that is what makes the difference between an educated smart person and a person who’s good at memorizing.

Another important focus or the education system is STEM education. STEM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and has become a huge focus for the future. Rep. Mike Honda recently has introduced a bill to improve STEM education funding and put STEM education into more schools (10). This move clearly shows that the government recognizes the importance of STEM education, but just recognizing the problem does not fix it. America currently place in the middle of the pack with math and science scores, lagging behind number one by almost 100 points in both categories (11). In order to get our math and science competitive with the rest of the world, America needs to take STEM education seriously with a sense of urgency. Many people claim that math and science need to be taught as early as kindergarten which would help if an effective system for teaching basic scientific and mathematical concepts can be developed. Currently America is slowly improving in STEM education but if America ever wants to be internationally relevant again, our school systems need to spend more resources on educating the youth about STEM and its applications.

One aspect of the education system that is constantly overlooked is the value of high-quality teachers. As the saying goes, “the highest form of understanding is being able to teach it.” In our current system, teachers lack the proper praise and wages that they deserve. Teachers have become more like glorified babysitters than actual intellectuals and need to be championed. Without teachers, our society would lack any form of structure and logic, therefore, it is paramount to focus on their well being. A passionate teacher teaches their classes with more energy and has better results than a teacher who does not care about his student’s success. If we provide higher wages and better work conditions to teachers, it will make teachers more passionate to teach and share their knowledge with their class.

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Nothing can change an outcome more than the environment. As students attend school, they need to sense an academic environment, which is safe and well run. Currently there has been 142 school shooting since December 2012, these events cause students to feel at risk when they seek higher education (13). Providing safe school campuses for students needs to be a priority. Education has become a cornerstone in the modern world and to have people afraid to study out of fear of being killed should not be a common thought in our modern day. However, this problem happens to be difficult to fix from a predictive and mental standpoint but providing a way to better secure campuses from shootings, drugs, and rape needs constant attention. The learning environment plays an important role in a student’s developmental process. In 2007, a Strong-Wilson & Ellis study shows that children learn from teachers and their surroundings (14). The environment trains the brain to receive information and listen to the adults in the room, that’s why schools need to maintain a clean, healthy learning environment where students can grow into educated citizens. The teaching environment greatly impacts the students so the necessary conditions for this ideal environment need to be met. Providing food, water, shelter, safety, and clean facilities needs to happen in order for the school system to get the best return for their investment.

Clearly, Education reform brings up many difficult issues that our nation will have to deal with, but in the long run it will be worth it. The current education system of lecture to test has been around for centuries, but it is time to change it. Our world has become global, where every nation fights for placing number one. Our educational comparisons branch out from county to state to nation to world. In order for our nation to be successful and remain a powerful nation, the education reform needs to provide solid answers that will benefit all stakeholders and the budget. It’s time to change an outdated system and move into the modern days of “active learning” and STEM education. Through implementation of more “active learning” methods, STEM education, more incentives for teachers, and optimizing the learning atmosphere, America can create a thriving educational system that returns America to the forefront of scientific and mathematical discoveries.

Works Cited

1: http://www.ed.gov/esea

2: "An Education." Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 15 July 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015. <http://www.nature.com/news/an-education-1.17972>.

3: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/08/29/stem-education--its-elementary

4: http://www.nap.edu/read/10126/chapter/2#5

5: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2014/01/10_critical_issues_facing_education.html?intc=main-mpsmvs

6: http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/03/05/time-for-an-education-system-makeover/

7: http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching-resources/classroom-practice/teaching-techniques-strategies/creativity/techniques-creative-teaching/

8: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:IHIE.0000047415.48495.05

9: http://web.calstatela.edu/dept/chem/chem2/Active/

10: Swallow, E. (2012). Rep. mike honda introduces bill to boost STEM education. National Defense, 96(700), 38. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/927947886?accountid=12725

11: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/02/u-s-students-improving-slowly-in-math-and-science-but-still-lagging-internationally/

12: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/teacherincentive/index.html

13: http://everytown.org/article/schoolshootings/