Condition of American Education System

¶ … education system in USA

The education system in the U.S. has over the years raised a lot of criticism and concerns among critics from all sectors despite having undergone continued changes and improvement since its inception by the founders of education system in the country. Various task force teams have been set up to help adjust the education system as a whole to be the most relevant that it can be but still, over the years, challenges have been experienced in implementing the accepted curriculum and especially in the applicability of the education system to the American society after school. Basically, the American students are expected to attend both primary and secondary school for a period of 12 years combined commonly referred to as first to twelfth grade. The children start attending elementary school at an average age of 6 years. After the graduation at the twelfth grade, students go to the university or the college level (Study in the U.S., 2015). The education is primarily the responsibility of the local governments and the federal state contributes only 10% of the national education budget. It is therefore imperative that each state has its own department of education and formulates their own laws that regulate the hiring of staff, curriculum, finances and the attendance of school. Each state also does regulate and control what the minimum compulsory number of years is for one to attend compulsory education with most states putting it at age sixteen. This indicates that each state has a great control over what is taught in their schools and the requirements that the students must meet.

In some states, the education system in public schools is further segmented into local school districts which represent the local community and are run by the school board. The local schools within the given districts also have considerable autonomy and freedom to make their own curriculum. Since they rely mainly on the local property tax to finance their expenses, they significantly reflect the educational values of the community within which they are based as well as their financial characteristics. These above indicate that there are significant variations in the educational content within the U.S. depending on the state as well as the location of the school (Bunker A.C., 2015). The education system is not controlled by the federal government and it can be said that the education system does not get controlled from a central point within the U.S. despite being expected to have outstanding results across the country. These standards are left in the hands of accrediting agencies that ensure the educational levels of each school are to the required standards. This type of education system is significantly predisposed to several challenges and problems within the society that it serves. The American education system has proven to present significant disparities between the white population and the minority races with most of the benefits being in favor of the white students. The education system also presents the challenge of diversity in the standards adhered to in different states hence some level of confusion and differences that compromises on the ability of the education system to shape the students into individuals with applicable skills in the market place, with solution oriented approaches to the daily societal challenges.

Analysis

Since each state is entrusted with setting the curriculum and the standards that are to be followed by the schools within their borders, the historical approaches to the contemporary education that saw the passing down of books that had been used and exhausted by the white children being passed to the coloreds are perpetuated in different forms. The presumption that the curriculum should be set according to the community that the schools serve is inevitably influenced by the aspect of the majority of the people within that community, otherwise the curriculum would be deemed to be out of touch with the realities on the ground and the facts of life by the people it is meant to serve and train. This hence means that the curriculum will inevitably be influenced by the majority of the people in that state. This goes without challenge that most curriculums will be formatted with the whites in mind, either explicitly or implicitly or covertly without even the team formulating the curriculum realizing. This curriculum in this context is not confined to the class room content but what goes on even in the extra curriculum circles. Attention is drawn to the shortcoming of the education system when disparities are realized from the very beginning of schooling and through the other years of schooling. Here, despite the African-Americans making up only 16% of the enrolments in most majority white schools, they constitute 32% of the students who receive in-school suspensions and another 42% of al the students who receive out of school suspension (Lindsey C., 2015). The curriculum is also often set without due consideration of the background of the minority groups and there is an overall assumption that despite the background, the content of the education set within a given state will be suitable for all across the economic and social divide. This is often not true since the minority races grappling with lower economic standards, lower health standards, lower literacy and educational levels among the parents as well as dealing with historical injustices will not be in an equally balanced playing field with their white counterparts who have the advantage of better economy, better heath, better environment and a background devoid of historical injustices. With parents that have lower economic levels, they will have lesser time to mentor their children academically as they will be engaged in double jobs to provide for the family hence the academic development of the minority child ends at school unlike their white counterparts who will have one parent at home to help with revision and school assignments. With the lower out-of-school learning chances, the colored parents will have lesser chances to communicate with their children especially about academics and the parents will as well have less-positive attitudes towards school system hence not providing positive reinforcement to their children about school.

The difference in the curriculum of the schools in various states also means there will not be consistency in the product of these systems, with the trained individuals in given fields displaying varying capability and qualities that brings inconsistency that was instilled by the education system into the work place where the candidates are supposed to be professionals. The difference in approaches in education system will therefore mean that the levels of competence will also vary from state to state. The result of the inconsistent and widely varying educational systems is the workforce that is unable to apply the academic trainings at the workplace. There are several grey areas between one state to another in terms of the content of the curriculum and even the academic requirements for each stage, hence the inevitable result of workforce that is not able to implement the solutions that are in line with their trainings for many years. The change in technology and the globalization has also significantly pushed the diverse education curriculum to irrelevance in that, many states have failed to adjust their academic approaches to the contemporary societal realities can challenges. If it were that the academic standards and curriculum are centrally coordinated, there could have been a universal revision of the curriculum to put it in line with the prevailing global trends. Since each state dictates what is to be taught in their schools, many schools remain predominantly averse to the changes hence as a few states adjust to the contemporary realities, majority remain conservative to their previous systems. The No Child Left Behind campaign that was launched in 2001 was aimed at ensuring each student has requisite skills that will enable them solve the practical challenges in the society, this has not been achieved by any standards. The main reason behind the failure of the NCLB campaign is due to the diversity in application within the states yet it originated from the federal government.