Education In The United States Essay

In the United States children can begin school as early as three years old and usually graduate at the age of eighteen years old. Education is very important and everyone should have access to a quality education. There are a lot of problems with education in the United States but the biggest one is poverty. Public schools have a lot of students to teach but not a lot of money to do it with. Children living in poverty stricken areas often get a subpar education. They don’t get the newest books or latest gadgets. Most of the time the student’s parents cannot afford the materials they need to succeed in school. Schools often have to cut corners and go without just to make ends meet. For example, schools sometimes underpay teachers because their budget is too small, in turn the teachers leave and the teacher that stay behind get left having to double up on classes and teach forty to fifty students at a time. African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians are the groups most likely to fall below the poverty line. Students

Studies show that American children with wealthy parents do as well on tests as their foreign peers. The thing that drags the United States average down is their poverty rate is higher than other wealthy nations. In present times low income students are four times more likely to drop out of high school. Even those who are doing well academically complete college. There is a huge gap in SAT scores between the wealthy and poor students and that gap has only grown in the past few years. Financial stability has become less obtainable even for college graduates. Many executive function skills draw on a limited supply of mental energy. Living in poverty interferes with these skills by releasing stress hormones, and regular exposure to stress in childhood can hinder early development of neural connections leading to academic problems with