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Rochell Battle

Professor Warren

ENC 1102

16 April 2013

Public School Issues

            The American public school system has been the topic of many disputes and discussions as of late, from presidential debates, to barbershop arguments; duly so, because the education system that is in place today has the future leaders of America falling behind in many major areas of education in comparison to other industrialized countries in the world. Test scores are falling, dropout rates are increasing, suspension and expulsion rates are rising at an alarming rate within minority groups, and increasing levels of violence within the schoolhouse, and falling standards for teachers, are all contributors to the cause. Budget cuts throughout the state and local level hasn’t helped the cause at all; teachers jobs have been cut and classroom aides have vanished. To fan the flames, curriculum publishers have been on a money hungry scheme to force school districts to repeatedly re-buy the same curriculum but with a different name. With so many factors working against the true progression of the public school system, it may be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel; but there are ideas of reform that could work out into the favor the children of today, leaders of tomorrow.

“Despite reform efforts, school performance is improving slowly, if at all, and continues to be very inequitable between racial and income groups. Though the causes are typically presumed to be located within the classroom, the system itself perpetuates inequity and poor performance. This paper proposes two systemic changes: allow funding to follow children to the school their parents choose and remove the exclusive franchise of school districts, thereby allowing multiple providers of public education within one geographic region. Together these changes would provide the framework for an education system that offers students and professionals a wide range of opportunity and freedom to pursue success” (Richard Meinhard).

Funding that allows parents to choose the school that their children can attend would send seismic shock waves throughout the education community; granted this is one of the major producers of inequality due to districts and zoning. Impoverished families who don’t qualify for the magnet programs are forced to settle for their neighborhood schools that have low test scores and letter grades, as well as a low morale. These families do not have the money to send their children to private schools, so they boxed into a situation that they do not want to be in. This is a legal, more subtle form of segregation; the wealthy people do not care about school zoning due to the fact that it doesn’t matter where they live, the wealthy have the funds to send their children to the best. Even if they sent their children to public schools, the geographic area that they live in would have the highest graded public schools. This is a flaw in the educational system that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Another flaw in the public school system is the exclusive franchise of school districts; in friendly competition between businesses the consumer always wins, the same goes for the school system, in which the consumer is the student. Any monopoly will cause the business become stagnant, knowing has a captive audience and it doesn’t matter what prices it has the consumer will always have to come back for more. This is the same theory within the school system; if there were friendly competition between schools in a certain district, then both schools would compete with each other in an attempt to attract the best students in that district. If there is only one school per district, as it is currently set within the system in place now, then the school has a monopoly in on the families and students in that district; as it is not concerned with providing the best product (education) for the student, but are just required to provide the basic necessities to the student, especially if they are located in an impoverished area.

“America lacks a theory that would explain how its current system of public schooling could function at an acceptable level. Such a theory would describe how the several components of schooling—finances, administration, curriculum, teaching and student characteristics—could come together in a way that yields educated children…Standards and testing are not a reform strategy; they are only a hope for high performance. The public school system will not significantly change with these types of ‘reforms’” (Richard Meinhard).

            The public school system currently in place is not geared toward the individual student; instead it attempts to cover millions of individual students in a broad brushstroke with a few different programs for exceptional and special needs students. Any system that doesn’t pay attention to detail is not efficient; it is the attention to many small details that make up the whole of the machine. Hence the saying “the whole is greater than sum of its parts.” The American public school system is a perfect example of how a machine is ran incorrectly. Founded on standard based programs, it sweeps many different learning styles into very general groups; if those standards are not met, and then there is no reprisal for that student, only failure.

“One of the problems with the American education system is that it has yet to form a consensus about the role of religion in the classroom. While this is not a statement meant to argue whether or not religion has a valid place in the public schools, it is fair to state that this is certainly an area of contention as opposing sides attempt to standardize how religion is treated, particularly in textbooks. Because of a lack of agreement, proponents on both sides use litigation and other actions to determine religion’s status in schools and this has caused textbook publishers and other educational entities to have to take a dramatic stance. For instance, some argue that the efforts to stay away from this debate ‘has pushed textbook publishers to excise religion altogether, even from history class. It is not just the teaching of religion that has become taboo…It is the teaching of religion’ (Goodman 1). No matter where one stands in the midst of this controversy, it is necessary to at least admit that a large portion of Western history revolves around religious ideas” (Smith).

Separation of church and state didn’t only take religion out of schools, it also made sure the educational system “politically correct” in not wanting to offend any of the religious or political groups of the time, which takes away from the educational experience due to the fact that America was founded on religion and escape from religious persecution. Many students do not get to speak freely about religion until post-secondary education in a humanities class. This is a vital part of education, to where students can at least learn about the origin of the different religions of the world without the bias of mainstream media.

All in all, the current educational system in America is flawed in some major ways, but there are alternatives that will help America to ascend back into greatness in the scholarly eyes of the world. Money cannot be a driving force, because money is the root of all evil. There must be an approach to the individual student instead of a widespread general approach. These factors, coupled with the steady drive of the students to want to succeed regardless of the situation, America can achieve greatness once again.

Works Cited

Archung, Kim Nesta. "School: The Story of American Public Education." n.d. PBS.org. ERIC Clearinghouse. 13 April 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/pdf/aacte.pdf>.

Richard Meinhard, Nick Weller. "Improving Public Schools Requires Changing the System." Policy Perspective (2003): 1-7. 13 April 2013. <http://cascadepolicy.org/pdf/edref/PP_1024.pdf>.

Smith, Nicole. "Problems and Weaknesses in the American Educational System." 15 December 2011. Article Myriad. 13 April 2013. <http://www.articlemyriad.com/problems-weaknesses-american-educational-system/>.

Thomas D. Snyder, Sally A. Dillow. "Digest of Education Statistics." Statistical Analysis. National Center for Educational Statistics, 2011. <http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012001.pdf>.