United States education system improvements and reform strategies

Education System

Cover Letter:

What was the purpose of this essay? In your response, explore the deeper meaning of this question. The goal is not to just complete the assignment but instead to convey a message. What do you plan to accomplish with this essay? What do you hope the reader takes away from this argument

The purpose of this essay was to investigate some of the shortcomings in American public education. Consequently, the focus of the essay is on the need for reform in areas such as diversity sensitivity. The hope is that the reader leaves this essay with a sense that the need for reform is considerable.

What did you learn from completing this assignment? Did you experience a new understanding of the topic? Did you change your perspective after completing the research?

One particularly interesting fact I learned is that standardized testing has been detrimental to student learning. This didn't change my perspective so much as reinforce it. The essay offers several sources which support the claim that this mode of testing is destructive to learning interests.

3. What difficulties did you encounter during the research, writing or editing phases of the assignment?

The greatest difficulty I encountered was in writing about the counterpoint to the essay's primary argument. Because I believe that standardized testing as a tool of accountability is highly flawed, I was hard pressed to write any argument in support of this strategy. Ultimately though, I was able to describe this position with objectivity.

4. What did you enjoy about this assignment?

My favorite aspect of this assignment was the opportunity to address a problem that impacts all of us. I enjoy the prospect of contributing a discussion on educational reform. I enjoyed offering my research-based position on said reform.

5. What made you decide to write about this particular topic? Is this a topic you are discussing in another course? Is this a topic that concerns you in particular?

I chose the topic of educational reform because it is something that I believe is especially pressing today. This is also why diversity would be an important focus of the essay. This is an issue that is becoming ever more pressing to deal with as our population diversity grows.

6. Is there anything else you would like for me to know before reading your essay? One thing to know before proceeding is that, in spite of the pressing need for reform, I believe that legislation is moving in the wrong direction today, intensifying rather than reducing our dependency on standardized testing.

Improving the U.S. Educational System

Introduction:

The United States projects itself as being at once the most powerful and advanced nation in the world. But its recent performance in the field of education suggests that if this was true at one point, it is increasingly less true with each passing generation. According to the article by Moore (2013), in a study "conducted among industrialized nations every three years, American students finished 25th in math, 17th in science and 12th in reading on the latest PISA assessment. Obviously, in our global economy, this nation's international educational attainment is discouraging for our future prospects." (p. 1)

It also denotes that there is a serious pressure on our education system to find ways to move toward improvement now. The discussion here considers the best path forward and addresses the counterpoint to this strategy as well.

Claim:

One of the most troubling realities of America's educational system is its sheer inequality. Minority populations often suffer the lowest performing, most resource-strapped and most neglected public schools. According to the article by Mehta (2013), "half a century after the end of official segregation, huge gaps continue to divide students by race and class, with the average black 12th grader scoring in reading at a level equivalent to the average white eighth grader on the National Assessment of Educational Progress." (p. 1)

A disregard of America's growing ethnic diversity is underscored by the stalwart ethnocentrism of America's academic curriculum, content and strategy. As the article by Hurtado (1999) et al. argues, there is a need for schools to begin to think of education as an avenue for exploring diversity rather than denying it. According to the article, "the needed fundamental institutional changes would include a conceptual shift in thinking about diversity and about an institution's overall teaching and learning priorities, in addition to structural changes that would allow for increased interaction and involvement among students from diverse backgrounds." (Hurtado et al., p. 1)

This idea of a structural change is further girded in the article by Hiebert & Morris (2012), which agues in favor of altering the fundamental strategy of instruction. To the authors, the focus on improving the characteristics of educators rather than the educational resources and parameters given to these educators if wrongheaded and problematic. Hiebert & Morris "expose the assumptions on which this logic is built, propose an alternative approach to improving teaching that engages teachers (and researchers) directly in the work of improving teaching, present some indirect evidence to support this approach, and examine the cultural traditions and beliefs that have kept the conventional approach in place for so long." (p. 92)

The article by Hiebert & Morris challenges the idea that teacher qualifications are the flaw in the present educational system. The opportunities for improvement lay, instead, in bringing about greater intuition and flexibility in curricular design, learning materials and even the overarching structure of the traditional public school.

Opposition:

The opposition to the proposed strategies for philosophical and structural reconsideration of our educational system is largely formed by members of the federal and state governments. The rigid standardized testing and accountability strategies that have marked the last decade of educational policy are, in many ways, responsible for the deplorable state of American education. However, the opposition argues that a further reinforcement of this approach is the best way forward. According to Coffey & Alberts (2013), "an organization established by the 50 U.S. state governors to improve academic standards and testing will begin finalizing its draft document (released in January 2013) of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). This document aims to establish new common standards for science education for students aged 5 to 18 in the United States, and it explicitly builds on the U.S. National Academies' 2011 Framework for K-12 Science Education." (Coffey & Alberts, p. 489)

The strength of this strategy is that it offers greater opportunities for student participation and hands-on learning in science classrooms. However, beyond this stated strategy, the approach is weakened by its reliance on the standardized testing ideology that has done little to improve student performance in recent years.

Annotated Bibliography:

Coffey, J. & Alberts, B. (2013). Improving Education Standards. Science, 339(6119), p. 489.

The article by Coffey & Alberts reports on standards devised by the assembled governors of the 50 states in order to strengthen the use of standardized testing in evaluating students. The standards reported on here relate to the field of science. The article contributes to the position of the opposition in the above research discussion.

Hiebert, J. & Morris, A.K. (2012). Teaching, Rather Than Teachers, As a Path Toward Improving Classroom Instruction. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(2), 92-102.