Last of Our Kind

I recently saw a piece on CNN talking about our failing education systems. It got me thinking. Why are we so far behind the rest of the world, and what are we going to do about it?

In 2007 the USA failed to make the top ten in reading, mathematics, and science. That is shameful. The blame I feel lands with the public education system. Why are our students falling so far behind from the rest of the world?

Some may say it is the faults of the teachers, but with teachers unions being such a force to be reckoned with can we just fire all the “bad” teachers? And how do we define “bad” teachers?

Some would like to say that No Child Left Behind was a good thing. These people would argue that having standardized tests for children every year really allows us to raise the bar and to see which children are struggling, so we can make sure they catch up and therefore are not left behind.

However, the problem is that students are taught the tests. Period. Teachers are no longer allowed to create their own curriculums. They are not allowed to give much input to what they teach their students, and who knows these students (and more importantly the backgrounds and even neighborhoods) better than their teachers.

I feel it is important to challenge our teachers. We should give them more responsibility. Senator Obama said something around, “If we ask more from our teachers we can expect more.” We must challenge our teachers and reward our teachers.

There has to be a way to find out which teachers are getting the job done. There has to be a way to find out what their secrets are. Not all of our students are failing, but there is a problem somewhere and we have to fix it.

I believe we need more funding for education. We need more money for preschools. Studies have shown that children who know their alphabet before starting kindergarten do better later. Preschool is a great start, but without proper funding they will not work.

We need more teachers in the classrooms so that we can create smaller classrooms and focus more on students. The main problem here (and everyone knows it) is that teachers are not paid enough at all. There is something wrong in this country when CEOs and movie stars and athletes are paid millions upon millions of dollars every year, but our teachers struggle to survive with many moonlighting at night just to get by.

We need to strongly encourage every student to want to go to college, and help them achieve that goal by making it affordable. I feel Senator Obama’s plan to give each student a $4,000 credit per semester is a fantastic idea. Some may argue that this is government providing education, one step closer to Socialism. However, Senator Obama is not giving these students this money with no strings attached; they must earn this money by working in their community, etc.

We have to raise the educational bar in this country. I believe (and call me crazy) we can achieve higher standards by asking for higher standards. If we push for better teachers, and better schools we will get better students. We will get better futures.

This is a call to action. We can not fail. We must not fail.