Another area for change - Education

There are so many areas within our educational system that need help and I know I don't understand half of it since I'm only viewing it from the outside as a parent. Where to start? Salaries for teachers? Standardized testing? Class size? School Size? No Child left behind? The list could go on.

There's been an email that circulates from time to time listing the things a fifth grader, or eighth grader, used to know before 1900. We all chuckle and go on about how irrelevant that is. Yet I look at what I was taught in high school and compare that to some of the current college graduates, I understand why that email continues to make the rounds. I feel I had a more expansive and rounded education by my senior year than many of the college students who slide through school. Granted, I had access to various AP classed and took advantage of them, but still, there are too many who graduate lacking some of the necessary skills for today's world.

If you look at high school graduates, the situation becomes even scarier. Too many don't have the requisite cognitive cabilities to excel. We no longer push students to excel since classes are taught at a level to ensure as many pass as possible. No longer are teachers given the true freedom of teaching the way they feel is best since the funding for the school is dependent on meeting the criteria set forth by No Child Left Behind. The students who would normally be allowed to speed through the material and move on to other topics must now wait on those who are struggling. Not that this is all bad since it might help the faster or smarter students gain an appreciation for the talent they possess. At the same time, they will lose interest in the topics and for education itself. The slower students will likely grow bitter with themselves as they realize they are holding others back. The teachers will lose interest in teaching since they now have to follow a very specific syllabus designed to bring a supposed parity to the education a child receives. There are too many tests designed to make sure each child grasps the concepts before they can move on that the teacher has no time to add additional topics or sections if the class shows interest in a section.

Maybe this will be changed with the new administration. Stay tuned for the next little rant.