Educational trends: very negative, peppered with positive

The last two decades have brought many changes to the world of education, some of them positive, many of them negative. With regard to the latter, perhaps the most telling is that the United States continues to lag behind other countries in science, reading and mathematics. There are many factors that contribute to this drop. For example, there is still 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 gap in socioeconomic status widens, so does the gap in achievement. Minority students tend to lag behind their peers academically.

Politicians have not improved the American educational system. For example, politicians and supporters of the No Child Left Behind Act heavily promote standardized testing. Standardized tests perpetuate clustering, so that students from the lowest socioeconomic status are tracked into lower-performing groups. Standardized tests encourage learning by rote rather than learning concepts in depth.

Many politicians insist on taking away teachers’ rights. For example, many politicians want a merit pay for teachers. Merit pay does not take into account the natural composition of classes. In other words, some classes have inherently low-achieving students. Therefore, test scores would be lower and therefore wages would be lower. Another example of being against teachers’ rights is what happened recently in Wisconsin. Its governor repealed collective bargaining, effectively eliminating better conditions of work and permanence. 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, such as foreign languages, have been cut or reduced. Reducing foreign language education is foolish, as languages ​​help us compete in a global market. Other countries require students to learn a second language from the very young, the United States lags behind. Also, class sizes have increased. The student-teacher ratio has worsened, creating havoc for teachers and less personal 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 socioeconomically lower have less access to technology. Technology is a huge expense for districts. Thanks to technology, such as cameras on phones and texting, student cheating has become more sophisticated and harder to detect.

As for the benefits of technology, students can research topics with the push of a button. Never before has learning about a topic been so accessible. Computer programs help students learn new skills. Teacher computer programs allow educators a variety of lesson plans and help keep grades accurate.

A beneficial educational movement, character education, is a response to a negative trend, social discourtesy. Character education is a school-wide effort to teach students to be part of a community by fostering positive character traits, eg, honesty, dependability, perseverance, hard work, etc.

Education will never keep up with trends. Education is a reflection of society and vice versa. As mentioned earlier, rudeness created character education. Technology creates diverse learning experiences. The positives mix with the negatives. It may seem that the negatives far outweigh the positives. This may be the case, but over time trends can change. Let’s hope the trends turn back to favor the US so that we can once again be a leader in education.