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.