The Oklahoma Education System

In the United States of America, there is a ranking system based on public education. As an American, I believe everyone has the right to a great education, but this ranking for Oklahoma is insane. Oklahoma’s state ranking in education in 2014 was 49%. Yet there were nearly 700,000 students enrolled in public schools in Oklahoma with the average daily attendance being about 644,000 students. Yet Oklahoma was still 49th in education with 93.7% of its students showing up to school every day. Why are Oklahoma students being set up to fail? American education is discriminating our students, and because of this discrimination, our students are being set up to fail, and what they fail most at are standardized tests.

As a private school student,

Why does the system cheat the youth of today that are supposed to run our future tomorrow? Evidence shows that standardized testing removes creative outlets for students because funding goes to the test and not courses the students need for educational development. According to Alfie Kohn, an author and lecturer in education and many other areas state that “The time, energy, and money that are being devoted to preparing students for standardized tests have to come from somewhere. Schools across the country are cutting back or even eliminating programs in the arts, recess for young children, electives for high schoolers, class meetings, discussions about current events, the use of literature in the early grades, and entire subject areas such as

According to TheStreet, an American financial news, and services website, ”In Nebraska, 91.87% of 8th graders in 2010 were proficient in math according to the state test. According to NAEP standards, only 34.6% of students were proficient, leaving a standards gap of 57.23%. Nebraska ranks 25th in the country with 55.1% of college students graduating with a bachelor's degree within six years. Of the students who graduate high school and go on to college, 77.8% of Nebraska's college freshman go on to their sophomore year, ranking the state 20th in the country for college retention rates” (Owusu 1). If our youth can’t perform and excel in the classroom, then how do we expect them to perform and excel in the real world? What is even the problem in the first place that has our kids failing and making their teachers look bad? It can’t be the teachers unless they’re bad teachers, but could it be the curriculum? If it’s the curriculum, the government has to fix the curriculum, but these states that are failing are also states that lack funds in education. So the real question becomes where is all the money supposedly going towards education in these failing