FREE ESSAY ON PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

Today, the way the educational system works in the U.S. concerns a large number of people
in this country. Only 25% of adults have a great deal of confidence in the people running
education, according to the General Social Survey, down from 49% in 1974 (Russel 4). A
lot of discussions have been held to find the best ways to improve teaching methods. At
the same time, people recognize that a very valuable solution to increase the level of
education in the United States is to look at some problems that cause difficulties and
hamper the enhancement of the quality of education. The first step is to define these
problems.
As in every country, the U.S. wants to develop its national standards in education and
wants them to be high. This has always been a government function. Being democratic, the
government is trying to fit the qualities of democracy into the way to set these
standards. Of course, this is not an easy task since this country has a very diverse
population. To please everybody has always been an almost impossible task. Despite this
impossibility, national standards have already been set. If a visitor from another nation
was dropped into an American public school classroom without knowing the state or the
region, he or she would be likely to see the same lesson taught in the same way to
children of the same age (Ravitch 9). Everything seems right except the fact that the
abilities of children are different. Not everybody is able to study at a college; not
everybody wants to continue being educated. It is obvious that every country wants to
produce as many educated people as possible. But, at the same time, every country needs
workers because, regardless of the fast development of technology, there is still a great
necessity for human labor. To satisfy all the necessities of the country, the government
should provide different kinds of education. This does not mean that we need to eliminate
all of the standards; they could be set in each field of education.
Although standards are set, there is still a very big difference in teaching methods in
different schools. Perhaps, the most serious problem starts in high schools: some schools
provide a higher level of education than others. Students from most city schools graduate
with the confidence in their knowledge; their level of education is high enough to attend
a university. On the other hand, students from small towns, suburbs, and villages do not
have the opportunity to get that kind of education because schools in small areas of the
United States can not provide the same level of education as schools in large cities. The
democratic idea of everybody having an equal education is breached.
The high school problem further extends to most of the nation's colleges and
universities. Students that come to colleges do not have the same level of knowledge.
This could be proved by the results of the ACT (American College Test). According to the
information provided by the ACT, Inc., out of all the students who took the test in 1997
(959,301), almost the same number of students scored 27 (36,566) as those who scored 14
(36,100). To solve this problem the general education program was brought into the
college curriculum. It provides every college student with basic knowledge and, at the
same time, balances the general level of education. It seems to be a perfect way to solve
the problem of inequality in the educational system. This would be acceptable if it did
not impede the system itself. A lot of students that have already gotten enough general
education are held back because they are required to take the courses they already had.
Most of them think that it is a waste of time and money.
The other significant problem is the dropout level in the U.S. colleges. In states with
high postsecondary matriculation rates, the college dropout rates can run as high as two
thirds...about one half of those who try the baccalaureate college game will fail (Gray
530). This means that around 50% of those who attempt to go to college do not get their
degrees, thus wasting their time and money. Personal and family problems are the most
general reasons for students to drop out. Yet, there are a lot of students who once were
convinced by their parents and teachers to continue education, but now realized that they
can live without it and that there are ways to make good money having no college
education. These students' attitudes toward the higher education influence the decline of
national standards in education.
For better understanding, it would be appropriate to draw a parallel between the
educational systems in Russia and the United States. In Russia, people that do not want
to continue their education in college are not required to finish high school. Thus, the
last two years in high school provide those students who are willing to go to college
with the necessary amount of general education, so that, after graduating from high
school, they are well prepared to start working on their college degrees. But there is
still one concern: 
Russian high school students are overloaded. In the United States, high school students
do not have such intense studies and as much homework as students in Russia. They have a
lot of free time; that may be one reason American teen-agers experiment with cigarettes,
alcohol, drugs, and sex at earlier age than Russian teen-agers, and that hampers them to
perform well in school. The other reason for poor performance in school could be the
recent decrease of adult supervision in both countries. Today, parents, working more than
in any other years, rely on their school communities and pay less attention to their
children's studies. It [was] an axiom of ... education that parents are partners in their
children's education (Berkowitz 47), but today it is more often not the situation. These
deficiencies show that neither of these countries has a perfect high school education
system. A compromise of the two systems might be a better choice. The only way to create
this is to cooperate: to share experiences and ideas.
With all its own problems, the U.S. seems to have even more of them when compared to the
other countries. It has become rather fashionable, on all sides of the political
spectrum, to bemoan the failed American public school system and to envy the education
systems in Japan, Germany and other industrialized countries(Aviel 130). Various studies
of educational achievements in the United States, some of which were conducted by such
prestigious institutions as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), have
been showing how poor the academic performance of American students is compared to Asian
and European ones. The studies have emphasized that most of the U.S. high school students
do not pay enough attention to their studies, do not do enough homework, and do not have
responsible attitudes toward their education. This continues to be the situation in
colleges and most of the time appears to be the main reason of the high percentage of
dropouts.
Most people blame the educational system in the U.S. for having wrong teaching methods
and a poor educational philosophy. For example, schools in Japan center their methods on
teaching students to memorize and recall a huge amount of information. [The] Japanese
never-ending drive for achievement, evidenced by their high demand for admission into the
elite schools and universities and later into the top bureaucracies and corporations, may
be considered obsessive by American standards (Rehder 42). American schools, on the other
hand, promote critical thinking, oral communication skills, the ability to work in
groups, and, in addition to all of these, take it easy attitude toward education. That
may explain why American students do not perform well on standardized tests. Moreover,
multiple-choice tests were criticized because they are oriented to low-level basic skills
and discourage students to go deeply into the subject. The admission polices in the U.S.
schools are not as selective as in most of the schools in Europe and Asia and all types
of students are accepted not only to high schools but also to colleges.
Furthermore, American schools are always compared to European schools in their teaching
methods. Not surprisingly, they are judged by the academic performances of the students
that happened to be less productive when compared to the Europeans. But grades, perhaps,
are not the most important things: the kind of knowledge a student receives and a degree
of satisfaction are more significant factors that characterize the efficiency of the
teaching methods. In this case, the U.S. schools can not be argued to be on a lower level
than European schools. As an example, the author of the article A closer examination of
American education, David Aviel, tells about his daughters who spent half of a high
school year in a private school in Spain and the other half at a public school in San
Mateo, California. When sharing their experiences, they were pointing out the differences
in the teaching methods, the requirements of the teachers, and the different attitudes
the teachers in Spain and California had. Students in the Spanish school were required to
keep neat social studies notebooks that were later graded on accuracy and similarity with
the notes on the blackboard. On the contrary, the social studies notebooks in the school
in San Mateo were graded on their contents that were required to include critical essays
and comments on the issues that were discussed in the class. In Spain, the students were
taught to memorize a large amount of information and then master the facts that they had
learned in the class. In San Mateo High School, teachers were not satisfied with these
ways of teaching their students. They were trying to teach them to think and express
their thoughts in the form of either writing or oral communication. As a result of going
to the California high school, David's daughters were many times taken for the students
from the private school, although they really went to a very public one.
Because of the great emphasis on the weaknesses in the educational system of the U.S.,
critics tend to ignore its strengths and positive qualities. These teaching methods
should not be considered wrong; they are just different. There are a lot of reasons for
the U.S. to have the educational system that it has. The first reason, the presence of a
diverse population in the U.S., appears to be a great challenge for most of the teachers.
[Students] come to school today with different diets, different religions...different
individual and group loyalties, different music, different languages (Phi Delta Kappa
619). They make large inputs to the way teaching methods are changing in the U.S. and
deserve fair feedback from their teachers. Thus, it becomes a very difficult task to try
to provide equal education to unequal students. 
The other reasons for keeping the current educational system are: high poverty rates,
increasing percentage of divorces, and the large amount of disabled children in the U.S.
(2.5 million children are classified as having learning disabilities (Sternberg 23)). All
these social changes emotionally influence more than half of all students in the U.S.
Thus, there is a great necessity for creating the curriculum that is not highly intensive
and pays a lot of attention to the development of individuality. The problem is that
this, of course, automatically creates a large number of talented students that are
tracked into this type of curriculum. On the other hand, the results of the Advanced
Placement (AP) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) tests showed that most of the top
students do not need as much effort from the educational system as poor students do (on
the GRE the mean verbal score increased by 16 points, the mean quantitative score - by 36
points, and the mean analytical score - by 30 points (Phi Delta Kappa 623)).
Yet, due to the educational system, the level of academic achievements in the U.S. is not
high enough when compared to most of the European and Asian countries. Still, a fair
amount of attention should be paid to the positive qualities of American education.
First, the U.S. government devotes 3.5 percent of GDP to the public funding of education
(Nelson). These expenditures are above average. Second, the school year (180 days) is
short when compared to a school year of 240 days in Japan. Nevertheless, the college
programs in the U.S. are so intensive, that for the same number of years, American
students get the same amount of education while having 60 days less each school year.
Furthermore, the U.S. colleges attract the large number of foreign students which proves
the high value of American education in the world. 
Talking about the weaknesses of the U.S. education, people tend to use the results of
standardized tests as an example and support of their point of view. But not many people
actually know the real results of entrance college examinations such as the ACT or SAT.
According to the results on The 1997 ACT High School Profile Report web page, the
national average score on the ACT rose from 20.9 points in 1996 to 21.0 in 1997 (the
maximum score is 36 points). One will say that the progress is not really significant,
but for such a big nation as the U.S. this change means a noticeable improvement.
Moreover, this is not all of the good news about the standardized tests. The results have
increased even higher in some of the states and specific schools. For example, Wisconsin
students had the highest average score in the nation (22.1 points compared to 21.6 last
year), and Christian High School Briarcrest in Memphis, Tennessee, had the class with the
average score of 23.0 in 1996 (Online).
Obviously, there was enough proof presented to provide a fair defense to the efficiency
of the teaching methods in the U.S. schools. Then the question arises: What is the reason
of the poor performance of American students? Perhaps the main factor that directly
influences the decline of the students' performance is the attitude the students
themselves have toward their studies and education in general. Interesting facts were
revealed during an interview with Maxim Sinitsyn, an instructor of Economics 112 at the
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIUE). He allows his students to retake all
the quizzes and tests if they do poorly on them. Out of 120 students (two sections), only
three students were really concerned about their grades and came to retake the test after
spending more time preparing for it. However, the most interesting fact is that about 10%
of the class received failing grades. This tells us that most of the students either do
not care about their grades at all or just do not try to improve their results when they
are given an opportunity to do so. Here are some other statistical facts that are based
on the survey of 250,000 freshmen from 464 institutions: ... 36.0% say that they were
frequently 'bored in the class'... 34.5% say they missed class or an appointment because
they overslept ... only 33.9% in 1997 spent six or more hours a week studying or doing
homework ... (McEachern 1). This survey has been conducted every year, and, every year,
the results are getting worse. 
Of course, to find a solution to the problem that centers on the apathetic attitude of
the students toward education is almost an impossible task because it is impractical to
make the students study better. Yet, a good idea could be to increase the requirements in
the nation's high schools, especially the homework requirements. Home assignments help to
review the new material studied in class, increase understanding, correct errors, and
give a good opportunity to practice (Berkowitz 46). If all these purposes of homework
were accomplished, the performance of the students would greatly improve. Also, the
increase in the number of classes that students take during the school year would keep
them busier and leave less free time for doing the wrong things.
Students in the U.S. schools are treated more carefully than students in other countries.
They are provided with enthusiastic teachers and perfect equipment, with a variety of
financial aid programs that are available in most of the schools, and, finally, with a
lot of opportunities to succeed in their studies; in most of the schools, especially
private ones, each student will get an individual approach. For example, if you need
special testing conditions, such as enlarged type or extended time, you [may] provide
documentation of your disability to the College Board or American College Testing (Smith
14). It is absurd not to use all these opportunities and to waste time and money trying
to get any education just to assure oneself of having a high salary, forgetting that the
real purpose of education is getting more knowledge and increasing one's ability to
function more effectively in the society. 
The government aims its efforts to raise the overall level of education in the United
States, and, by doing this, it hopes to bring the whole country forward in its quest for
prosperity. To accomplish this goal should not only be the government's, but also the
whole society's striving. Since the level of education is one of the most important
determinants of the nation's standard of living, everybody in this country has to assume
these responsibilities in order to make any educational reforms proposed by the
government successful.
Bibliography
Works Cited
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