Education in America

I recently attended a lecture on the Inequality, Poverty and Educational Achievements given by Dr. David Berliner of ASU here as a guest lecturer. I thought that it pertained to our discussion last class about how our culture has changed generationally in America and one of the ways that was brought up was education and how education has evolved in the last 90 years. It was so astonishing to me to hear the short comings of the American education system compared to the other countries around the world. The lecture was based on the gap in wealth between the top and bottom 20% of people in America. The lecturer is a expert in the government programs like NCLB and the new common core standards. Many of us have lived with the effects of NCLB in our high school years not to long ago. The Dr. Berliner argues that NCLB has to much of emphasis on testing and test scores to base school funding and support by the federal government. Compared to other countries, the education system in America is thought to be failing its youth and parents because of the style of teachers being required to teach to the test in order to keep their job and get money for their school. Standards are not a bad thing, Dr. Berliner pointed out. They give us direction and a common ground to teach youth and base scores off of. However, the flexibility of how to achieve these narrow standards is the thing that needs to change.

We discussed in class about how there use to be punishment and harsh environments in schools that only taught reading, writing and arithmetic to children like our grandparents. Our system of education and the amount of government regulation that is evolved in America has evolved into one of the hottest topics in politics today as being insufficient and lacking here compared to leading countries like China. I just thought that this was a relevant topic in our discussion toward how cultures evolve and incorporate new ideas and practices all the time.