The Problems Inside The Education System In The United States

Megan Anders

Dr. Zhao

English 102; Research Paper

August 6 2015

The Problems Inside the Education System in the United States Change is inevitable. We can try to stop it and fight it, but it is impossible. Without change the world will not grow, invent, and develop. People as a whole, do not like the process of change, it is painful and hard to work through, but it can be gratifying. The United States is growing and changing at such a rapid rate that it is creating problems in their public education system. The public education system of the United States is problematic because it has become one of the lowest scoring countries academically in international testing. These low score are a result of the domestic testing and opportunity gap between

The education system is ironic because of the lack of freedom in choosing a school. The United States prides itself on having freedom. We have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of press, but we do not have the freedom to choose where our children get educated and learn. Parents have no choice in who educates their children. Without choice student like Dorian Cain fall through the cracks (Stossel). Cain, an eighteen year old, struggled to read one line of a first graders book even with twelve years in the public education system. This is the result of a monopoly on education by the government, resulting in the mediocracy and children slipping through the crack because they have no one to compete from each student that attends their school. With just 72 hours of instruction from Sylvan, a private learning center, Cain went up two reading levels showing that he has the potential to succeed, but the lack of investment by the public schools

Teacher also have become mediocre because they have no reason to excel. They don’t get a pay grade because of good teaching or test scores (Stossel). Teachers gain nothing from being a great teacher verses a bad teacher and bad teachers are nearly impossible to fire. According to Hannah Kyle, an education major at Judson University, explains how many future teachers are unaware of the difficulties that come with teaching because they are only looking at the benefits of free weekends, nights, and summers and not the hard work it takes into educating a diverse group of students (Kyle). When teachers are looking at the benefits of job rather than having a passion for it produces an uninspired teacher in turn producing uninspired students. According to New York City school chancellor Joel Klein, their school tolerates mediocre teachers because every teacher knows they get paid the same whether they are amazing, descent, or a below average teacher (Stossel). Good teachers are protected under contract to defend against predigests, but below average teachers and downright awful teacher are too. In New York City, it took Klein six years to fire a teacher who was sending sexually emails to a sixteen year old student. Six years! Even though he was not teaching student in those six years, the school district paid him over $300,000 dollars. Klein claims to employ dozens of teachers that