Improving American education: challenges and strategies

Improving American Education: Thoughts and Ideas

There are a multitude of ideas that could be used where the improvement of American education is concerned, but unfortunately many of them are not being utilized in the best ways possible to help the largest number of children and teachers make the most of the educational experience. It is, therefore, time that some of these ideas and thoughts were brought to light again and examined in order to determine whether they are truly worthwhile when it comes to implementation in the American educational system. Seven different ideas will be addressed here in order to ensure that the reader is aware of all of the possible scenarios that could help the American educational system.

The first one of these is the lowering of class sizes, especially in the early grades. Younger children need more structure and discipline in their school day, and they also need much more individual attention, on average, than older students do. Because of this, larger class sizes stop these children from getting enough attention and this can cause problems. Their grades can suffer because they are not understanding the material clearly and not receiving the extra help that they might need. In addition to this, they can then become upset, bored, or disenchanted with school and start acting out in class because they feel as though they are always going to struggle and will not be able to do anything better than they already do. These children need to understand that they can continue to excel, but they obviously find it difficult to do this when they feel as though they are ignored. These larger class sizes are also often in the inner city schools, where children have more poverty and less attention at home as well. This, coupled with the problems at school, can send them into a spiral of drugs, peer problems, violence, and other societal problems and difficulties as they get older.

Another issue that should be addressed is the possible extension of the school day and/or the school year. Both of these have gotten shorter in recent years in many areas of the country, and this is a serious concern for parents that now must deal with babysitters and others issues when they must work and their children are home very early in the day or are off of school for a long time in the summer. Parents used to take summer vacations with their children, but it seems as though that has lessened in recent years due to longer work hours and tighter financial constraints. Because of this, children and teenagers are being left alone more often with little to do and no one to supervise them, which seems to be leading to some of the more serious societal problems that are being faced today, such as increased drug use and violence. For teachers, this also poses a problem because they do not have as much time to teach children everything that they need to know and should know to function in society, get better jobs, attend higher education institutions, and perform all of the basic duties of a 'responsible adult.' This is very worrisome for those that are charged with teaching America's youth, and it does not appear that it will get better in the future.

Group study for struggling students is another idea for the improvement of the school system in this country. Many students have trouble with a specific subject but yet they cannot afford to hire a tutor, and some of these individuals might be shy or uncomfortable to the point that they do not want to join in with after-school tutoring that may be offered because they feel as though they are inadequate. Because of these kinds of issues, these students then do not get the help that they need to focus on their studies and better their grades and their self-esteem. This is becoming a more serious consideration today with the increasing pressure to perform well in school that is being forced upon many students today by their parents, teachers, and peers, and with the larger number of extracurricular activities that most students are becoming engaged in today.

The idea of group study for students that are struggling, however, also ties in with another idea for the improvement of schooling. The students that are performing the best at a particular subject could help organize and operate these study groups, in effect acting as tutors but yet not providing that service in such a way that they would be paid for their services or would work exclusively one-on-one with students that were having difficulty. This could help these struggling students to feel more comfortable and less 'singled out' if they were to work in groups with one or two other struggling students and a student that was performing much better. The help that these students receive in this kind of setting could be very valuable to them and also to the students that were providing the tutoring because those students would gain experience at helping others, which could be important for them in their future, with whatever type of job they might end up holding.

Parents also play (or at least should play) a very strong role in the education of their children. Many parents are very busy today with work, smaller children, aging parents, and many other things, and because of this they do not spend the time with their children that they used to. However, this can be changed in many instances if parents are completely made to realize the harm that they could be doing to their children when they do not give them the time that they need. This includes things like help with homework, but it goes much farther than that as well, and can extend out to other issues such as making sure that the children understand their importance to the family and their place within it. If the children feel as though they do not belong at home they may take this alienation to school, which can cause problems for them there as well.

While many of the standardized tests for students in this country are being rallied against by parents because the schools spend so much time preparing the students for that instead of actually teaching them anything, testing in some ways can be very helpful. More and different types of testing could be utilized in the future to find students that were struggling with certain subjects and get them help early on, before problems arise that become difficult to correct. If a problem with a child's academics is left untreated for too long, it is much more difficult to fix because there is more material that the child has not understood. This means that more tutoring would be needed, the child's self-esteem is likely lower because he or she feels that the problems are insurmountable, and the parents may also berate or belittle the child for poor grades because they are frustrated with the academic progress and do not realize that the child is struggling. Instead, the student may simply be branded as 'lazy,' which is often not the case with students that are performing poorly.