The last two decades have brought many changes to the world of education, some of them positive, many of them negative. With respect to the latter, perhaps most tellingly, the United States continues to lag behind other countries in science, reading, and mathematics. There are many factors that are contributing to this drop. For example, there continues to be a wide socioeconomic gap with a growing number of students living in poverty. Impoverished students cannot be expected to learn if their basic needs are not met. Just as the socioeconomic status gap is widening, so is the achievement gap. Minority students tend to lag behind their peers in academics.
Politicians have not improved the educational system in the United States. For example, politicians and supporters of the No Child Left Behind Act strongly promote standardized testing. Standardized tests perpetuate clustering, so students of lower socioeconomic status are placed in low-achieving groups. Standardized tests encourage rote learning rather than deep learning of concepts.
Many politicians insist on disenfranchising teachers. For example, many politicians want merit pay for teachers. Merit pay does not take into account the natural composition of classes. In other words, some classes inherently have low-achieving students. Thus, test scores would be lower, and therefore wages lower. Another example of being against teachers’ rights is what happened recently in Wisconsin. Their governor struck down collective bargaining, effectively eliminating better working and tenure conditions. If the US follows this trend, the US cannot be expected to retain and hire phenomenal teachers.
The weakening of the economy has been detrimental to education. Many programs have been cut or reduced, such as foreign languages. Cutting foreign language education is foolish as languages help us compete in a global marketplace. Other countries require students to learn a second language from an early age, while the United States lags behind. Also, class sizes have increased. The student-teacher ratio has worsened, creating havoc for teachers and less one-on-one time with students.
Another factor that greatly affects education is technology. Technology has been both a blessing and a curse. Regarding the curse, technology may play a role in widening the performance gap. Those who are lower socioeconomically have less access to technology. Technology is a huge expense for districts. Thanks to technology, like phone cameras and text messaging, student cheating has become more sophisticated and harder to detect.
As for the benefits of technology, students can research topics at the push of a button. Never before has learning about any subject been so accessible. Computer programs help students learn new skills. Computer programs for teachers allow educators various lesson plans and help keep grades accurate.
A beneficial educational movement, character education, is a response to a negative trend, social incivility. Character education is school-wide efforts to teach students to be part of a community by encouraging positive character traits, eg, honesty, trustworthiness, perseverance, hard work, etc.
Education will never lack trends. Education is a reflection of society and vice versa. As mentioned above, the lack of civility created character education. Technology creates diverse learning experiences. The positives are mixed with the negatives. It may seem that the negatives far outweigh the positives. This may be the case, but over time the trends may change. Let’s hope the trends once again favor the US so we can once again be the leader in education.