A Broken System

America loves its students. In fact, the United States ranks 2^nd in dollars spent per student, at around $9,000 each. But there’s a startling irony hidden in these numbers. While we spend almost double what a country like Finland spends, we rank 17^th internationally among the top education systems according to the latest study. Finland on the other hand, spending half as much as we do, ranks 1^st in the world for the best education system. Our system is among the most impersonal systems in the world, something not often seen in the US. The United States is in need of a major shift in the way we view our teachers and the creation of excellent schools for all students.

We’ve all had a teacher that we feel impacted our lives greatly. We’ve all had that teacher that even if you weren’t the best student in their class, you somehow connected with them, and they made you feel as if you played an important role. Whoever that teacher was in your life, you always wish they could be recognized for the great influence they’ve had on you. Why is it that great teachers are so underrated by society? The foundation for our future rests upon us, the students. But our teachers are responsible for providing us with the knowledge, skills, and wisdom we need in order to better our country. Our view of the educators in public schooling must drastically change before we can make any form of progress in the field of education. However, it is not only the perception of teachers that needs to change. The way we reward and recruit teachers is in need of improvement as well. According to the documentary film, Waiting for ‘Superman’, 1 out of every 97 lawyers loses their license to practice law and 1 out of every 57 doctors loses their license to practice medicine. However, only 1 out of every 1000 teachers is fired for performance related reasons. The obvious reason for this statistic is tenure; a process originally intended to act as a check against school officials firing teachers for illegitimate reasons. But tenure has digressed from an effective policy to making it almost impossible to fire a bad teacher after a just few years of working. If teachers are of as much importance as doctors and lawyers, it should not be difficult to eliminate teachers that are not effectively teaching their students.

 Bad teachers are not the sole reason for our failing education system. A large portion of the problem roots from unmotivated students. Dropout rates are holding the United States back in the rankings in education, and across the nation, there are about 2,000 schools where 40% of the students drop out of school between the 9^th and 12^th grades. These unmotivated students often go unsupervised during the day, and have to turn to other ways of life in order to survive. There is a direct correlation between high drop out rates and high crime rates across the country. Clearly, fixing the drop out problem could also lead to progress with many other social issues. One of the major reasons these students are dropping out of school is not because they are failing the schools, but rather because the schools are failing them. These 2,000 “drop-out factories” as Waiting for ‘Superman’ calls them, lack an effective and enticing learning model for their students. Most families that live in a drop-out factory’s district have little to no other options for their children to go to school elsewhere. If there are other options, they are either expensive or virtually impossible to be accepted into for many families. This leaves students with two options, waste time in a place where they aren’t learning everything they need to be successful, or drop-out of school, and becoming just another number.

Education needs to become a top priority to our county. That doesn’t mean just saying it, it means taking action in order to fix a serious issue we have with public schooling. We need new national policies about setting standards for our educators and creating excellent schools for all students, no matter what zip code a student lives in. There is no one in the world that this problem affects more than it affects us, the students who are the product of the system. It’s our future that is at hand here, and we shouldn’t settle for anything less than the best education in the world. I challenge you to own this great issue, and to take action in order to solve it. Whether it be writing a letter to a congressman or emailing that teacher that changed your life and thanking them. Maybe even consider becoming a teacher, and being the first generation of a new breed of educators that treat their role in society with the respect and responsibility it deserves. It doesn’t matter what you do, or how you do it, but the reality is that our country has come to a fork in the road where we can either continue the destructive path we’re on, or choose to reconstruct America’s broken education system, and return to the top of the world in school efficiency. Right now, as we sit in a classroom, we are presented with the choice of which path we want to take in order to ensure a better America for generations and generations to come.