America\'s Education System With Support

America's education system with support from Benjamin R. Barber's essay, America Skips School

According to Benjamin R. Barber, "Americans pay lip service to the idea of quality education, but they continue to place a higher value on materialism than on knowledge and civility. Improved teaching conditions and increased parental involvement in education are necessary." (Barber, 1) Our politicians, our government, and even the citizens of the United States of America speak of the importance of education, but our actions do not convey those words; our words must be followed by action when it comes to education.

Much is said about education in our contemporary society and everybody agrees to its importance. However, factual data seems to demonstrate that the appreciation takes place solely at a verbal level. The American people spend a small fraction of their overall income on education, and, furthermore, the U.S. is ranked 10th in the world when it comes to educational spending. It is safe to assume that the manner in which we invest our economical resources demonstrates which our most important concerns are. According to these numbers neither our country as a system, nor the individual citizens are really interested in education. Based on the conclusions of a research made by the Department of Education which Barber quotes "more than 90 million adult Americans lacked simple literacy." If education is not what we spend our money on, then what is?

According to visualeconomic.com, the average U.S. consumer spends 1.9% of their income on education, whereas that same consumer spends 3.8% on apparel and services. In addition, the U.S. ranks 10th in the world in education spending as a percentage of GDP, at 4.8%. These facts are more than relevant. We spend on various goods and services double than what we spend on our education or on our children's education. What does this imply? It implies that the values which dominate our society are the consumerist ones. We could state that being pleasure-oriented people generally tend to satisfy their desires, hence they invest in things which could bring them various sorts of satisfactions (although one of the most important ones is actually that of possession). Professors are definitely not a well paid category. In addition, the social contract which ought to force the adult to pay taxes so that children will be able to benefit from free education has, just like Barber says, almost collapsed. It is time to face things and admit that the educational system is facing a real and severe crisis. Besides the fact that children with poor education are more likely to develop into delinquent teenagers, there are many other reasons for which the situation ought to change. The question which naturally comes to mind is: what should we do then?

The answer is not that difficult. We must take education seriously and make a concerted effort to improve our current situation from our President down, to the department of education, to state and local departments, to schools, administration, teachers, parents and students. In Barber's opinion, "the education crisis stems from a dearth of democracy: an absence of democratic will and a consequent refusal to take our children, our schools and our future seriously" (Barber, 6)

America declared that it has serious intentions about reforming this situation. Yet, its seriousness remains theoretical until some measures are actually implemented. Barber believes that since lawyers earn between 70 to 80 thousand dollars, beginner teachers and professors ought to be granted the same level of remuneration. In addition, he suggests an improvement of the very buildings where education is taught. In this regard, finding financing sources other than property taxes might be a supporting action. Thirdly, class size could be reduced and the academic year could be extended by a month or two. In this way there would be more teachers paying greater attention to students who would learn not more, but perhaps better. The level of education is one of the most important concepts in this discussion and it is directly connected to the required standards. If these are lowered then everyone will "pass," but this success is ephemeral and is not translated into capacities or resources which could be afterward used outside school in the real life. Excellence in education is a must for a strong democracy while at the same time, one of the most important challenges that democracy faces is that of finding a way to provide all the citizens with the opportunity to an education of excellent level.

Last but not least a measure which could help improve the present situation of the educational system is reducing the bureaucracy. The work of teachers and professors ought to be simplified by the administrative and political experts and not made more difficult. Barber underlines how striking it is that "in New York half of the city's teachers occupy jobs outside the classroom. No other enterprise is run that way: Half the soldiers at company headquarters? Half the cops at the stationhouse desk? Half the working force in the assistant manager's office? Once the teachers are back in the classroom, they will need to be given more autonomy, more professional responsibility for the success or the failure of their students." (Barber, 7)

It is obvious that trying to reform the educational system means going against the trend.

The consumerist values are the dominant ones and if the citizen will not fight to defend his own best interest, then nobody will do it for him. Instead of trying to transform the young readers into young consumers, we ought to direct the interest of our children in the very opposite direction where solid life values are taught. Many voices suggest that such an approach is idealistic. There are so many factors which contribute to keep this ideal a utopian one. Among them we could mention the present economic crisis, the absence of funds and the attitude of the general public who is highly unsatisfied with the performances of the public institutions.