Fixing Our Broken Education System

I have been apart of our countries education system for a good portion of my life, and I have always liked school. Although there are parts of our education system that are fine the way they are, there is much about it that needs to be changed.

Part of what is right about our education system is that in our country, people get to choose their own profession, and the most of the people who decide to become teachers really enjoy the children and the job in general. Some teachers are so dedicated to their children and the communities they work in, they often times pay for school supplies out of their own pockets, in order to ensure that the children have what they need to get a good education. Some teachers also fill an emotional void in the children, since sometimes their parents are too busy, or they simply can't be there for their children on an emotional level.

Although these are some of the things that our education system can pride itself on, there are many things that need to change.

One thing that needs to change is the care that goes into the inner city schools. It seems as if the government does not care very much for the schools in the inner city, because many of them are very worn down. It is here that many of the books are donated by other districts since the school does not have money in the budget for new books. It is here where many of the teachers have to spend their own hard earned money in order to make sure that no child in their class has to go without paper to take a test on, or a pencil to write with. The government should take charge of these schools and do what they can to help the teachers and the districts repair these schools and increase the amount of money in their budgets in order to purchase more books, and supplies.

The government should also be less concerned with standardized testing and the scores of those tests, and more concerned with the quality of education that these children are receiving. I have been subjected to standardized testing since 1st grade and through my 12th year in school. You have to sit in your classroom for most of the day and take two or three different tests depending upon grade level. We do this in order for the state government to receive the test scores and decide that they are not high enough and change them when reporting to the national government, in order to give the appearance that the children in that state are working harder than they actually are.

I have also had the privilege to work with exchange students from many different areas of the world throughout my years in school. I have learned that children in other countries may not have the same resources, and their governments spend half of what we do on education, and yet they get better results. Their children have higher test scores, and they are better prepared for university and the real world in general. I find this extremely disappointing, and I hope that this election year will provide us with a leader that cares less about test scores, and more about the quality of education that the children are receiving.

Although children in this country have an amazing opportunity in this country to get an education and be whatever they want to be, the quality of that education has slowly been deteriorating. It is my hope that this trend will improve before it is too late.