American Education

Education in America: The Dumbing Down of the U.S. Education System One of the most horrifying tragedies I have seen in my lifetime is the United States education system. Education has become nearly communistic, in that, due to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) and the Instrument to Measure Standards tests, which most states have, schools are now micro-managed by state and federal regulations. Teachers are told what they will teach and how they will teach. For a while, the charter schools broke away from that, but over the last three or four years, the state and federal regulations have infiltrated those school systems as well, and my prediction is that this will continue until the entire education system in the United States will be one huge cookie cutter of what they want students to know in order to be successful under their ideals. This has created a larger workload for teachers, while their paychecks remain unchanged. Money is dropped into states for education, but that money is not equally distributed. Therefore, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) is not helping all students, but only those in the richer communities, who do not need the funds. Furthermore, Special Education (SPED) students and English Language Learners (ELL) are dumped into mainstream classes and teachers are expected to split their lesson plans into three sections in order to compensate for the range of learning needs. All of this creates a system where teachers are required to continuously put out more money for continuing education, attend workshops on how to deal with all the new regulations, and manage their time wisely, so that they are not spending more than 80 hours a week on performing a balancing act between what schools, districts, states, and federal laws require. In the meantime, students suffer from a lack of education. Because the content must be dumbed down for ELL students and rearranged to suit SPED students, the mainstream students get less of an education than they normally would. Mainstream classrooms are producing students that still cannot spell correctly, read a novel, or write a coherent sentence. I have seen students graduate from high school that have difficulty filling out forms for employment or structuring a cover letter for a job. Is the education in this country helping our children or is it failing them? Are all the state and federal controls keeping our teachers limited in what they can actually do? Do we just say, "Oh well, they'll get it if they go to college?" It's time for a reformation of the education system and it's up to the parents and voters of this country to step up to the plate and take responsibility in getting some action that will rectify this situation. Otherwise, we will simply be a group of robots that are programmed to be less than what we ultimately could be. The American education system requires that students complete 12 years of primary and secondary education prior to attending university or college. This may be accomplished either at public (or government-operated) schools, or at private schools. These 12 years of schooling (or their equivalent) may also be completed outside the USA, thus giving foreign students the opportunity to pursue the benefits of the American education system and obtain a quality American education. Perhaps one of the most impressive facts is the large number of presidents, prime ministers and leaders from other countries who have experienced the American education system and graduated from a university or school in the USA. In many fields and industries, the American education system offers the most cutting-edge, sought-after programs at the world's best schools. That is why graduating from an accredited American school and being exposed to the rigors of the American education system is an investment in your future. Primary school American children start school at the age of five years. The first year at school is called kindergarten. It is required of all American children enrolled in the American education system. The second year at school is considered the first year of primary school and is referred to as first grade. In America, the word grade has two meanings: (1) the score achieved on an exam or in a course, and (2) a year of education in primary or secondary school. Primary school most commonly consists of five years of education, referred to as first through fifth grades. Secondary school Upon completion of fifth grade (the last year of primary school), American children enrolled in the American education system advance to secondary school. Secondary school most commonly consists of a total of seven years, referred to as sixth through twelfth grades. The ninth through twelfth grades are most commonly referred to as high school. Upon completion of twelfth grade, American students are awarded a certificate called the high school diploma. In the American education system, students must have obtained a high school diploma before they are admitted into college or university. Foreign students who would like to attend an American college or university must have completed coursework that is equivalent to what is taught at an American high school. Foreign students who would like to attend an American high school, need to consider how the high school they select will give them access to the best colleges. You can also learn about some of the finest girls boarding schools and boys boarding schools in the American education system. Undergraduate school Students who have completed high school and would like to attend college or university must attend what is referred to as an undergraduate school. These are schools that offer either a two-year degree (called an associate degree) or a four-year degree (called a bachelors degree) in a specific course of study. That course of study is called the major. While most schools that offer a four-year degree will admit students who have not yet chosen a major, all students are required to select (or declare) a major by their second year at school. Students who complete an associate degree can continue their education at a four-year school and eventually complete a bachelor degree. Graduate school Students who have obtained a bachelor’s degree can continue their education by pursuing one of two types of degrees. The first is a master’s degree. This is usually a two-year degree that is highly specialized in a specific field. Students are sometimes admitted to a master’s degree program only if they have a bachelor’s degree in a closely related field. However, there are many exceptions to this, such as with students who want to pursue a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) degree. Students who want to advance their education even further in a specific field can pursue a doctorate degree, also called a PhD. A PhD degree can take between three and six years to complete, depending on the course of study chosen, the ability of the student, and the thesis that the student has selected. The thesis is a very intensive research paper that must be completed prior to earning the degree. It is always required of students pursuing a PhD, and may sometimes be required of students pursuing a master’s degree (depending on the school).

Certain courses of study are only available at the graduate school level in America. The most notable of these are law, dentistry, and medicine. Students who want to pursue a degree in one of these fields must first obtain a bachelor’s degree.

What's Right about American Education Sandra Feldman, President, American Federation of Teachers In 1983 a report came out called "A Nation at Risk." It said that American education was suffering from a "rising tide of mediocrity," and that this fact was actually putting the country in danger. The report suggested that if something was not done, the economy would go into decline and the country would lose its place in the world. At that time, my predecessor, the great Al Shanker, took the position that rather than being defensive, we ought to embrace the report and start fighting to make the kinds of changes needed to bring education up to where it belongs. Our union started then to fight for the changes I will talk about in this presentation. That was in 1983. It is now 1999. And I'd like to point out that the American economy is the strongest in the world; we have low unemployment and we have low inflation. Yet there is no report out there saying, "look at our economy -- the schools of America have done a fantastic job." Education has many problems, but we don't seem to be getting any credit for the contributions made by the public schools. So I think it is appropriate to begin this discussion by acknowledging that there has been improvement -- significant improvement -- in American schools since that report came out. We are now educating the broadest spectrum of racial, ethnic and class diversity of any nation in the world. Achievement is rising. The National Assessment of Educational Progress tells us achievement is steadily rising. We have fewer dropouts; we have many more graduates of high schools; more and more of our children are going to college, and this progress is found across all racial and ethnic groups. This optimistic view is shared in an article by Greg Easterbrook in the recent issue of The New Republic entitled, "America the OK." He says, "I don't wish to alarm you, but American life is getting better. Crime has fallen sharply. The economy is booming. Teen pregnancy is declining. The federal budget is in surplus. The air and water are getting cleaner. Health is improving by almost every measure, including the first-ever decline in cancer incidence. Death from accidents is decreasing. Standards of living continue to improve. The use of drugs and cigarettes is waning. Levels of education keep rising. Women and minorities are acquiring an everlarger slice of the national pie. Personal liberty has never been greater, while American culture becomes more and more diverse. Even home-runs are at an all-time high! Yet," he says, "the steady betterment of American life is practically a taboo subject for intellectual debate." So it is important to acknowledge this progress. Most of the newspapers and the pundits you read may cause you to think that the New York City schools, for example, are no good, but there are lots of children who are getting very well-educated in those schools, and that's true of schools all across this nation. I graduated from a neighborhood high school in New York City, James Madison High School. My niece just graduated in June from that very same high school. My nephew goes to that high school. I have a grandson in a school in Brooklyn. We have all received an excellent education in the public schools. The Root of Education Problems – Inequality The American economy has a long way to go. While it is the strongest in the entire advanced industrialized world, it also features the widest gap between the haves and the have-nots. This gap is actually getting wider rather than narrower. The gap is particularly wide when you compare the incomes of the top educated people and the lesser-educated people. Childhood poverty in the United States has persisted at roughtly the same levels over the past ten to fifteen years. It has not gotten any better. We still have the highest poverty rate in the advanced industrialized world - the strongest economy and the highest childhood poverty rate. There is obviously something very wrong here. This dichotomy is also true of the schools. We have public schools that are among the greatest in the world, where children are getting a really good education. We also have schools that are educating the poorest of our children, and those are the schools with enormous problems. If you compare some states -- not the whole country but some states – with the other advanced industrial nations, our education system produces the highest achievers in the world. But when you include all the states, including those with the poorer children, America drops enormously in that comparison. It is commonplace to say, "You can't throw money at the problem, money is not the answer." Yet it is indisputable that most schools with poor children have fewer resources. Poor districts spend a lot less per student than wealthy districts, maybe half as much. They have larger class sizes, less well paid teachers, and too often, less well educated teachers. They have dilapidated buildings and they lack funds for arts and sciences. These schools also don't have the technology that they need; there is a dearth of books and supplies. That is shameful in America, in 1999. What Works? The Third Way is the Hard Way Yet within these schools, millions of children are doing okay. We have examples of successful schools in urban centers all over the country, public schools as well as parochial schools. It is said that Catholic schools do well with poor children. There are just as many - even more - public schools that do well with poor children. What do they have in common, these schools that do well? They usually have an orderly, disciplined environment, and there are ways to accomplish that. They also have good leadership, which means good management -- usually a good principal. They have qualified teachers, parental involvement, higher standards and expectations for the children, a challenging curriculum. And they use proven programs and methods. There is considerable agreement about what works for children, and more and more states are now putting these practices into place. There is considerable change going on in America. There are still problems, but the change is pretty exciting. There are states putting standards into place. Some of them are very high, perhaps too high. There is debate about whether cut off

scores are too low or too high. But standards are being into place, and it is being done quite transparently. This bears watching. Many states and districts are ending "social promotion" - the practice of sending children on to the next grade without having mastered the requirements. States are lowering class sizes, especially in early grades where research indicates that this makes a tremendous difference for children. In high schools, some states are requiring more rigorous courses. Tests for new teachers are being put into place. There is more and more support for our peer evaluation and review programs. We find that teachers evaluate other teachers much more rigorously than management does. The result of all these changes is substantial gains in achievement. Efforts are underway to ensure that tests and assessments of achievement are meaningful. There are problems with these efforts, but solutions are being found and they are having a big effect. Whole states have made such changes. The state of Texas, for example, where there are tremendous numbers of poor children and many non-English speaking children has made very substantial gains in achievement in a fairly short number of years. So has North Carolina. A number of cities are also working very hard to upgrade education for poor children: Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C. Joyce Ladner will speak about Washington, D.C., which has just begun its efforts. It has a very long way to go, as do many of these other places. But as they put in place the programs that work, they quickly begin to see increases in achievement. There will still be headlines about a high percentage of failure on statewide tests. When that happens we need to honestly look at the reasons. Perhaps the cutoff score was not done right; perhaps the test was flawed, but perhaps the schools failed. We need to fix what's wrong, not abandon them, or the kids who will inevitably be in them. But there are changes under way which are improving the education of children, and we have to stay the course -- if we care about having a public education system in the United States of America. The Trouble with Privatizing Education Some believe that the solution to our education problems is to privatize schools, to put vouchers into place, and to let market forces determine how to provide the best education for children. Support for this view comes largely from the Right, but also from some minorities and from some parents who are frustrated about the pace of change. This argument says basically "Let's have marketplace competition in schools, and let's make sure that there is no union in those schools, because the union is a big part of the problem." It should be noted that there is no advanced country in the world that has a marketplace school system. They all have national systems, and they are all very strongly unionized. (By the way, the best U.S. schools are also highly unionized, such as those in Scarsdale and Shaker Heights and other wealthy suburbs). Other advanced countries have national curricula, and they have very high standards. These countries also have real social safety nets. People are not allowed to drop into an abyss in these societies. They provide health care for children who need it. For example, France has a large immigrant population with many problems. A few years ago, France launched an early childhood program for three-year olds. It was basically aimed at immigrant children, because they don't want to have two school systems like we have in America. Rather, they wanted one school system where everyone meets the same standards. The program was open to all parents using a sliding fee scale. France now supports universal education of three-year olds. Middle class mothers, even the stay-athome mothers, wanted their children in these preschools because they offered such a rich educational experience. They are now making these pre-schools available to two-year olds. There is still a slight gap between poor immigrant children and native French children, but it is nothing compared to what we have in this country. Countries like France rigorously educate their prospective teachers. They pay them well; they give them respect. (I don't know how many of you remember that Simone de Beauvoir was a high school teacher.) The idea of giving an emergency credential to a teacher is a totally foreign idea in these countries. They don't understand it. In this country, one of the really harmful practices, especially with the neediest and the most fragile and the poorest children, is the provision of emergency credentials to huge numbers of people who are not qualified to teach. This practice has to stop. (I am not talking about alternative certification -- those programs for getting good people into schools by helping them get their credentials, like the Troops for Teachers and Teach for America. Those are nice programs. But you're not going to massively educate 53 million children in America with Troops for Teachers.) So the push for vouchers, for privatizing American education, and unfortunately, for certain kinds of charter schools, is not something that is being done in other advanced countries which our critics say have higher educational achievement levels than the U.S. Vouchers would take the responsibility for education away from our society. Advocating vouchers and subsidies for private schools is much easier than taking public responsibility for educating children, especially if our commitment is to educating all the children. This requires dealing with the many problems that some of our children bring into school. It requires up-front investment, and changes are difficult to implement . The voucher route provides an easy way out. You can satisfy the people who are complaining and you don't have to assume so much responsibility for the outcome. You can avoid some of the difficult work that is necessary for real change. Charter schools are a mixed bag. We support charter schools where they are laboratories for new ideas, smaller schools, and alternative schools for disruptive and violent children who can get a lot more attention than they would in a large school. I personally participated in the development of a hundred and fifty small charter-type schools in New York City. Unfortunately, a lot of charter school programs are being used by Republican legislators and governors to create private schools which get public funds and which are not held accountable in the way that the public schools are held accountable. According to the studies, such schools don't do any better, and some do worse, than regular schools. This approach will not ensure that we educate all of America's children, including poor children. These approaches remind me in some ways of the fight we had over community control. The community control movement had a similar argument: the education bureaucracy has failed, so let's turn the problem over to someone else – in this case, the local communities and the parents. In New York, the community control movement won, and we lost a couple of generations of children.

When its failures became apparent, there was a return to a more centralized system. It was discovered that you can't have standardsbased reform without some authority making sure the reform is working. Unfortunately, the voucher movement to privatize the schools and subject them to market forces may also make it harder to make sure that every school meets a high standard. I am not against the market economy. (There was a time in my childhood when I was, but now I am not.) The market economy certainly has been good for America. But the market economy is not good for all its citizens. It does not work for everybody. In poor neighborhoods, for example, you don't find these huge, beautiful, shining supermarkets that you find in the suburbs. Instead, you find some 7-11 or some dirty grocery stores. The market economy has not provided this choice for poor people. I don't know why -- I'm not an economist. But I notice that poor people, especially poor children, don't get the kind of health care that wealthier people get; they just don't get it. The market economy has not provided this. So we have to decide what we want government to take responsibility for. Government should not take responsibility for making sure that companies make a lot of money, or for regulating the whole global economy. But there are certain things that government must take responsibility for, and public education is one of them. If you want to educate all of your country's children, rich and poor, then government must assume the responsibility. The market will not do this. The Road Ahead – the union must change So we are left with the hard work of implementing the things that need to be done in schools -- the high standards, the ending of social promotion, the redesign of low performing schools, and public school choice, which we favor of as long as every school becomes a school of choice. This agenda presents a very big challenge to our union. Although the AFT has been in the forefront of fighting for these reforms, it is clear that in order to succeed, the union has to do ever more. The union has to shift from a situation in which it fought mainly for benefits and salaries to an organization that can also deliver the help and support our members need to improve the schools. To be able to help the children, teachers need help. They need more access to information about what works, and they need staff development. Our union is providing such help in many places, especially where we have a partner on the management side, such as with the mayor and superintendent in Chicago and Boston. Partnerships are necessary because it is very hard for unions to support teacher testing and high standards in a high-stakes situation in which members are blamed when the standards aren't met. We need help and support from the people who hold the purse strings. Our union is now in the process of becoming a vehicle for our members' professional development to make these changes happen. We are pushing for this even in places where the school district is not. Our leaders -- our elected people -- have to be out front, encouraging our members to do some very difficult things. I've done this, and I know how difficult it is. To succeed, we need support. We need the support of political leaders and intellectuals. Currently, the privatizers are dominating the op-ed pages. Their market vision of society is very different vision from the kind society we want. Our vision is for a more democratic society: more economically democratic and socially democratic. To get there, the people in this room will have to get involved in the fight to support the difficult, step-by-step, one school at a time changes that are necessary to improve the public schools. If we fail and education is left to the tender mercies of the market economy, we will have a very different society from the one we want to leave to our children. http://www.usastudyguide.com/index.html http://www.socialdemocrats.org/NewApproachesinEducation.html#Feldman