So What's Really Wrong with American Education?

Having been a teacher for the past 26 years, it's is easy to see what is wrong with American education, but it isn't easy to fix it. First of all, schools have gotten too large. If you check statistics for high schools of less than 500 and compare the progress of those students to the ones who attended high schools of 1,000 or more, I'll bet any amount of money that the smaller schools have a higher graduation rate and a lower dropout rate than the larger ones. Track students for the past 10 years and you will find that the majority of the smaller schools' students graduated and are productive members of society with higher morals to boot! When schools become too large, the closeness and the idea of belonging are lost. That's when students becomed disenchanted and dropout.

Another problem in our system is that parents no longer really take the time to care about the education their children are getting. When was the last time you actually went to your child's open house or attended parent conferences? Did you sign up for PTA or to help out in some capacity? You say, "I work full time. I don't have time." Do you have time to bail your son out of jail because you never took the time to get him interested in something to occupy his mind so he wouldn't get involved in drugs? You say, "I don't have the money to pay for extracurricular activities." Do you have the money to bury your son when he kills himself after drinking heavily and running his car into a tree?

The main problem is priorities. Parents don't realize the importance of raising their children to become educated, productive members of society who know how to help others and provide for their families. They are so busy trying to "keep up with the Jones's" that they don't TAKE the time to do what is the responsible thing to do.

Last, but not least. Everything comes down to money. It is cheaper to educate 30 students at a time, but more productive to teach them 10 at a time. Perhaps we should home school all students and go to online instruction. There you have it! I have just talked myself out of a job.