Competitiveness issues
The national Results in international comparisons indicate that the US education system is below average. As well in OECD pro gramme for International Student Assessment 2003 indicate 15 year-old ranked 24 out of 38 in Mathematics, 19 out of 38 in Science, 12 out of 38 in reading, and 26 out of 38 in problem solving. In addition, many reputable business executives have expressed concerns of the quality of US education system. For example, Bill Gates has famously mentioned that the American High School system is obsolete.
As discussed above the US public education system has considerable issues to be resolved if it wants to improve it's educational quality in elementary and secondary level.
In my view assessing the public education system there must be some centralization or standardization because US pubic education system is very decentralized and produces different quality among public schools and in some private schools, which are parochial in nature. Therefore, some students groups may be left behind in such system of education because of accessibility and afford ability of student groups. This structural problems of control and funding as well as curriculum issues must be resolved more than adequately to improve the quality of the education system. It is also necessary to raise the competitiveness of US Public education system to the standards of advanced western countries as well as countries like Japan and Korea because the competitiveness of US economy depends on the skill of future generation of skilled students. The US educational authorities also must set national standards for teacher education and must radically revise the teaching practices and involve schools with the external business environment to raise the academic, social and problem-solving skills in a rapidly changing world to improve the issues of competitiveness of the US education system. The curriculum to some degree must be centralized to become uniform because there exist different curricula in different districts and the quality differs. Curricula is an important variable which affect educational quality outcome differing quality affects the overall quality of education in US Public education. However, the curriculum must also have some flexibility addressing specific local educational issues.
Science education must be more practical rather than school teaching and students must experience how the science works in the outside world and try to solve practical science problems in the real world and must continually update skills and experience as the changes in science field is rapid. That is the Science curriculum and teaching practices and assessment must be radically overhauled.
This is also applicable to Mathematics education to raise the Mathematics education quality and standard in US public education system. In addition, in US in Science education the teaching of creationism in science must be resolved more than adequately to improve the quality of Science education and stress the importance of evolution theory in Science compared to creationism as creationism do not have substantial scientific evidence to be taught in Science classes in US public education system.
In summary the US Public education system have considerable issues that affects the quality of US Public education system as discussed above. It must resolve these issues more than adequately and must continually reform the structure of US Public education system to have a comparable quality with advanced countries and to satisfy the needs of a rapidly changing world. There are problems arising from segregation and in equality in education and disadvantage in the US public education system, which if not addressed adequately may produce a high proportion of students do not have the adequate skills or fall behind other students and they may become unemployable and cause social problems and may also cause social instability in the future. That is if access ability is not addressed in the US education system and remedial action is not taken in time it may contribute to a significant minority student groups failing to meet the skill necessary to survive in the rapidly changing world of work.
In US public education home schooling is an important factor at least in some states and these states must consider the negative impacts of home schooling and provide adequate safe guards to ensure the quality of home schooling and monitor progress continually to upgrade and to reconsider home schooling if they produce poor educational outcomes.
As discussed above it is certain that the US public education has several issues affecting its quality in a negative manner. It must reform the public education system in funding, the role of charter schools, role of home schools, degree of decentralization and control and curriculum issues, hours of education and flexibility, teaching methods, teacher quality issues, standardized tests, regulation of private school system particularly in parochial private school system, cost of higher education and access by minority student groups, role of business in education to improve its quality of public education system in US.
