What is wrong with today's education system?

I strongly believe that education needs reformation for the success of student's and for our country overall. As a child of an educator, a student from the public school system, and a tutor for children who have either fallen behind or feel that their schools are not as advanced as they would like; I feel as if I can truly say something is wrong with schools today in the United States. I fully agree with the video, Changing Education Paradigms, our education system is still based upon an old system that will not work for today's students. It is increasingly obvious to students that regardless of how much education is obtained there is still the strong possibility of there being no permanent jobs on the other side.

I will speak from the perspective of my job as a tutor. I work for an enrichment program called Kumon. This program is for both students who do not feel challenged at schools and for children who are struggling and need to catch up. It primarily focuses on math and reading, key subjects that have resulted in low scores in the United States for quite some time in comparison to other countries. The levels that are covered range from preschool to AP Calculus and AP Language & Literature. This program focuses on raising the child's self-confidence in their abilities in these subjects, something I feel that many public schools forget are necessary for their student's future. The primary goal of Kumon is that each student eventually study a grade level if not levels above where they're at. My boss and her husband have both been running their current location for 26 years and I myself went there as a student. They are from South Korea and something that my boss always reminds me of is that in Korea all that they have to stand out from others, is their knowledge. I feel other countries have truly realized the doors that knowledge can open, while the United States has turned a blind eye towards. Another common comment from my boss is that schools today are pushing their students to simply learn a required topic. The students never truly grasp the basic concepts and later fall behind when it is necessary to build off of them. I do not believe it is by mere chance that most engineering jobs in the U.S. are held by primarily immigrants from other countries. The primary students who come to my Kumon, are primarily either Asian, Indian, or European. There are some other students who attend ranging from caucasian to hispanic but primarily they are the minorities. The students who are from the Asian, Indian, or European descent, their families do not accept the idea that their skills in either or both math or reading be average. My boss primarily tells all her workers to push these kids harder, because it is these children who will always have that extra push at home to put forth their very best.

The topic of education resonates with me most, mostly because I believe I am a victim of this lack of care that schools have for their student's level of grasping concepts. My mother was a reading specialist and I was fortunate to never have any difficulty in my language arts abilities but I did begin to fall behind in math around the 4th grade. While I was watching the video Waiting for Superman, I could not help but understand what some of those children must go through in subjects that begin to slip their grasp and lead them down roads to dropping out. Had it not been for my mother finding Kumon, I do not believe I would have ever gained the self-confidence in my math abilities or passed my classes. Unfortunately, I realize that not many people are as lucky as I was. Had my parent's not been willing to pay extra out of pocket money for this extra tutoring I believe that I would have fallen victim to the deteriorating school system.

A similarity between the videos, Waiting for Superman and Changing Education Paradigms, shows that children have the potential and the aspiration to succeed and be anything that they want to from a young age. I do not believe I can say, 'here's where the problem is in the education system,' I believe it is a culmination of a wide array of things. I believe that the government is less focused on education that in other areas of the country. Most schools in the Tempe District focus on sports rather than other areas of schools, such as clubs and the arts. Although I do not agree fully with the idea of awarding teachers based on their student's success, because I realize it is not solely the responsibility of the teacher's to spark an interest in students, I believe that it should be in every teacher's best interest to guide their students to adequately want to be successful without simply letting their students pass at average. Perhaps a merit based pay for teachers is what is needed to raise their level of interest in their students, rather than rely on the students that they know will succeed over the ones that they think will not. On top of this I believe parents and guardians should be spoken to more, in the hopes that an extra push outside of school to work hard will raise their child's willingness to learn and succeed. I believe that both teachers and schools focus primarily on getting a child to reach a certain level, regardless of how a child does it, rather than focus on if a student understands what they are being taught. 

The video, Changing Education Paradigm came up with the realization that the education system is run like a factory including the separation of students because of their age. Perhaps we must step away from that way of thinking. I have a best friend of mine who was adopted from Russia at the age of ten, he joined my fourth grade class even though he was a year older than most of his other peers but ultimately by the time we graduated high school he had surpassed many of the people from my fourth grade class. I often wonder if had he been placed in a fifth grade class if he would have done worse or better. At work we have a student who is ESL from China who is extremely gifted in everything except language arts and should be in college because of his age but has not passed his AIMS, which is a requirement for any Arizona student to graduate high school. He was pushed to stay with his age group in school, and now he is the one that has fallen behind his classmates and is struggling to match his abilities so that he can go to college. The argument could be made that being around children around the same age is a psychological necessity but I believe that success in their future overall in comparison to social acceptance far outweighs the argument.

The education system truly needs some reformation. It is ridiculous that the families that cannot afford to place their children in private schools or extra tutoring be the ones who fall victim to the increasing number of students who are not prepared to graduate or are drop-outs. The government must take action in some way on a national level to aid the students. It is not right that prisoners who pay no taxes, get three meals a day, get to take college courses/get a GED, and are the ones who have committed a crime be the ones that cost the government more money than a student who has attended a four year private school. It may as well encourage student's to drop out and commit some type of crime to be able to receive benefits that regular student's and families are not privy to.

Why the homeless predominately reside in densely populated cities

Having grown up in Arizona, it is hard to argue with many native Arizonans that Phoenix is not predominately the location to find people who are homeless. Perhaps it is because of the large quantity of homeless people surrounding the Phoenix area that it gives many visitors the impression that most of the area is low-income and poverty stricken. Depending on what part of Phoenix someone goes through, there is either a large majority of homeless people or hardly any. This brings the question, why are there large groups of homeless people mostly located in the Phoenix area?

According to Central Place Theory, in a specific region there is a hierarchy of places. The central metropolitan area, such as Phoenix, is where it is the most densely populated. If I were homeless in Arizona, it would be much more beneficial for me to reside around the Phoenix metropolitan area. The assistance offered to people in poverty, such as homeless shelters and food kitchens, are much more prevalent in this city than any of the surrounding cities. Phoenix offers many non-profit organizations seeking to assist the less fortunate, such as people who are homeless. If I were homeless I would rather locate to an area that I know would offer me some kind of assistance with staying warm in the winter or being able to receive a hot meal, as opposed to being completely on my own in a city with less focus on the homeless. Not only would having these types of locations available to me be helpful, but being able to see other people who could very much be in the same type of situation that I am would make the whole ordeal seem slightly less lonesome.

Phoenix offers locations and organizations that would be able to assist me if I were homeless, such as St. Vincent de Paul, Assistance housing, Health Care for the Homeless, UMOM, the Phoenix Rescue Mission and more. Having these types of assistant programs available and near would make Phoenix the most ideal location to reside around. There types of businesses and organizations can act as both a centrifugal and centripetal force. In some aspects it may drive some businesses and households to go to a more rural area to get away from the homeless. In other cases, these businesses may have been brought to the Phoenix area due to the centripetal force.

I would not venture to state that the tolerance level of the homeless in Phoenix is much more prevalent but that the local community and businesses are much more able to find ways in which to create organizations or groups to help fight poverty and assist the homeless as opposed to the suburban areas that is much more residential and primarily focuses less on business types of organizations. In a location where there is much more for the homeless it would be very hard to try and compare the living of the Phoenix area to anywhere else in Arizona.

Reflection of Policy Approaches

Entering this course only with a slight grasp on the types of policy organizations involved around the United States and further, made both the lecture and readings very informative and influential.

Out of all the theories discussed in class and in the readings the one theory that stuck out to me the most was the Rational-Choice Theory or Public-Choice Theory. I do believe that people ultimate seek to maximize some type of overall goal or picture. Now I am not stating that people ultimately look to become the ultimate leader for some type of fame or fortune, but I am saying that people seek to maximize a decision in hopes of gaining something in some form. In the matter of policy though, the reading in Public Policymaking brought forth the idea of Congress and how they act in manners to ultimately raise their chances of reelection. I found it difficult to not align with this thought that Congressmen and Congresswomen sought to find ways to align to the most popular choices with the thought that it would help them in reelection. In my political science course last semester, I learned that once a Congress member was elected that they immediately began to campaign for reelection, thus supporting the belief that these members act on some type of attainment in the end.  I strongly feel that an individual no matter how detached from a certain issue or idea cannot fully separate oneself from a value or belief. These characteristics are molded into people while they grow and encounter experiences in their life. Let me state though that I do not believe that people base decisions simply out of their own values but that the underlying factor would be that values and preferences can never truly be left out of a thought or idea. This can fall in line with how one Senator can stop the whole Senate if it truly impacted their personal value whether it be moral or based off of a type of preference.

The differences between the regional approach and the communitarian approach is slight I feel. The regional approach is based more on elements from both communitarian and individualism in the idea that individuals with ideas who encourage innovation and work ethic can ultimately come together to revitalize a city and work as one in a collaborative effort. They also believe in more government and that their should be an extra layer in the local level. The communitarian approach focuses simply primarily on the whole working together and puts faith on the government to spark a social change.

On the idea of people vs. places I feel that there is not ultimately one to choose from because both need to be changed to help revitalize cities. I do believe that much of the United States has turned into a suburban living area rather than city living. I myself grew up in the suburban part of Arizona. I do see though that the people and places need to both change. I was placed in public schools and many times my mother questioned putting me in private schools. The idea of education and how it must change is often overlooked in both state and federal government today I have realized. I come from a family of educators and working in a tutoring facility run by a Korean family that values the idea of how an individual can stand out in the U.S. made me believe that the generation today in the U.S. has gotten lazy and has been willing to accept the average. My boss continually tells the co-workers that the criteria taught in most schools, mostly in math, has fallen far below other leading countries such as Korea, China, India, etc. I feel that today students are not realizing the opportunities here in the U.S. and therefore have added to the increasing number of failed public schools. In the Tempe school district I do know that there is some type of approach to improving schools that many teachers dislike. Teachers, principals, and schools will now be evaluated based off of how well their students do. I feel that this is a good step in the direction at seeing where schools can be improved in both instruction and in material. My hope is that public schools can begin to be able to step out from a poorly painted description of them today and their failures.

I feel that out of all the types of policies that were discussed in class it will be very interesting to see how redistributive policies will be dealt with in the upcoming election. Unless someone is taught policymaking and understands how policy will work I feel that how any candidate will portray a type of subject may spark an interesting debate and provide a type of elite theory to form once numbers have begun to become a factor in the election. 

Introduction

Hi!

This will be my first time writing a blog, let alone creating one for a class, so as I learn please bear with me.

My name is Leonor but most people refer to me as Leo. It's a nickname that has stuck with me since elementary school after writing a report about lions. It's always a popular question when I introduce myself because most people ask me why I have a guy's usual nickname when I'm obviously not a guy. I'm a sophomore studying Public Service & Public Policy and so far have really been enjoying it.

I am involved in the NROTC (Naval ROTC) as a Marine Corps option at the Tempe campus. So I will be that one person who may be dressed in a uniform in class.  On top of being involved in the NROTC, I also hold a part time job as a tutor at Kumon Math & Reading Learning Center. I love to help and work with kids and I have been working there for about two years now.

The first class seemed very interesting and I look forward to the rest of our lectures.