American Education Reform In The 21st Century: From Grassroots to the Lawnmower

I figure that I would eventually go on a rant about nationalizing education, so I thought I would funnel that frustration into writing a paper for poli-sci. My neurotic professor said that if our paper is good enough that he would publish it. I highly doubt anyones papers are good enough to be published, but that is just my opinion. I mean it took over 40hrs to write an EE that received a "C"...only highly researched papers that are well structured and prove a point have a chance at that. Of course, what do I know. Anyhow, life is about the same: sleep, eat, work, go to school and occasionally a game of chess or episode of Glee. Well, here is my paper, feel free to criticize it to the bone or flatter me with ridiculous comments.

Written by JT Newsome for POLS-1100- November 2010. For educational and entertainment value only.

If America's educational system was one big turf of grass, then each state would have its own section with unique methods by which to tend to it. These methods would be determined partially on both national and state education policy and, metaphorically, would include the need for watering, mowing and sunlight. Another factor would be the soil, which is dependent on how previous generations acted. Let's have a grass seed represent an individual student, their success measured by the growth of that seed and, lastly, their equality represented by the height of one blade of grass relative to all the other blades. This paper will first expound upon the past and present circumstances regarding the success and equality of this “grass”, then go onto discuss possible solutions to improving these circumstances.

Education has been extremely important in both the past and present. There will always be many countries competing against one another to gain a more voluminous sphere of influence and power. Education is a prime factor in determining the competitiveness of one country against another. It is what drives innovation, technology and growth in a nation. This is why it is exceedingly salient to think critically about the effectiveness of our educational system and continually strive for improvement. If we do not maintain our “grass”, then it will whither and become overrun by competitors. According to a Newsweek study, the United States does not even rank in the top 25, globally, in regards to education.¹ This demonstrates the reality of the situation and direness of educational reform in America.

Objectively measuring the effectiveness of education is difficult, per se, especially under our current education system. There are many factors which are observed to indicate educational success, but graduation rates are probably the most prominent indicators. Over the past two decades the average graduation rate in America has fluctuated. According to NCHEMS, the graduation rates were: (in percents) 71.2, 67.1, and 68.6 in 1990, 2000 and 2006, respectively.² We must be careful what conclusions we draw from this data. It may seem evident that education may may have slightly deteriorated between 1990 and 2000 and then had slightly rebounded in 2006, but we must carefully examine all conclusions drawn away from this data and their validity. For example, each state has its own individual laws in coordination with various federal laws and mandates. If graduation requirements in one state are more difficult in one, then the probability of failure would increase to some degree and thus decrease graduation rates. In 2006, Nevada had a graduation rate of 50.5% and New Jersey had one of 86.3%, for a difference of 35.8%. If a major cause of such low rates in Nevada is indeed because a rigorous curriculum and vice versa, then who did the better job: NJ or NV? Is producing 50 well qualified students or 90 semi-qualified students better? Furthermore, the variability of the data around the mean (68.6%) suggests inequality between states. How can we ensure equal opportunity among citizens when we cannot even obtain sufficient data for meaningful state-by-state comparison? Experimentation by each state is a great idea if it helps us deduce the best was to structure education, but how do you determine the best way from 50 completely different experiments?

One solution to this particular problem would be to nationalize education, at least to a certain degree. Education is primarily a state right, as stated in the Constitution, so it would probably have to be amended. Under the current sentiment of decreasing the scope of the national government and due to the difficult nature of amending the constitution, the probability of this ever becoming is reality is, at best, minimal. However, for the purpose of this paper we will go under the assumption that it is a viable possibility.

There are many different ways in which we could nationalize education. One would be to institute a national examination for each grade. Every state would have a delegate to go to a convention which would decide on what material would be on each exam (of course, not all the work would be able to be completed by the delegates alone and they would be able to select other persons to aid them in completing their tasks). The test would consist of 3 distinct parts: exam 1, exam 2 and additional projects. Exam 1 would be administered in Nov. and the 2^nd in May, each coving half of the specified material. Additional projects may be required, such as writing an essay or doing a certain amount of hours in an activity (e.g. science laboratories, community service, or extracurricular activities). These extra projects will help by: a)providing equality for students who lack aptitude in standard tests b) increase civic responsibility by requiring students to give service to their country and c) allow students to try and apply academic concepts to a topic that interests them.

One problem that arises from this is feasibility. One possible remedy is to only administer one annual test to children in elementary, then starting in 6^th or 7^th grade we can begin to introduce other requirements to them so that they can get practice for when it begins to be officially recorded in high school. Enforcing a bi-annual exam may be overkill and could be likened to staring at the grass waiting for it to grow. However, in theory, it should help provide insight into their progress. Whether or not that is feasible should be decided after at least one cohort has successfully completed high school under this scheme.

Fairness and reciprocity in grading and assessment of proficiency in a certain area will also be difficult to formulate. One way is to have each exam be worth 40% and extra projects 20%, with slight variations between different subjects. Based on performance a curved grade between 1 and 10 would be awarded. Out of the core topics: social science, math, science, english, etc...two topics would be chosen to focus on and would last two years instead of one (exams would be annual for focus topics). In order to get a diploma, students would need to earn an average of 5 in all subjects and score higher than 3 in focus areas. This would allow for students to compensate for ineptitude in one area by aptitude in another.

As you may be able to see, I personally support the nationalization of our education system, but have attempted to discuss the subject critically and provide remedies for many issues that will emerge from nationalizing education. There's much evidentiary support that suggests that our current system does not ensure the equality that is such a tenet of American government nor does it provide the competitive edge we need to succeed in an increasingly international world. While nationalization is one of many solutions to this problem, I believe it would be the most simple and efficient one- Randi Weingarten, President of AFT, perfectly summarizes why: “Should fate, as determined by a student's Zip code, dictate how much algebra he or she is taught? Such a system isn't practical: Modern American society is highly mobile. And it's just not right -- every child attending U.S. public schools should be taught to high standards, regardless of where he or she lives...The time has come for a serious consideration of national academic standards.”³ There are going be numerous other problems that will stem from creating 'national academic standards', but if we just take them each one step at a time then we can at least know that we are going in the right direction.

Just as the community stimulates grassroots growth, the Federal government is needed to function as the lawnmower. We should not be frightened of the big bad lawnmower, we should embrace it. We need to put aside our deeply rooted ideologies and find a compromise that satisfies both of these seemingly contradicting things and do what is right for America and finally get some sort of educational reform passed!

1. Newsweek. "Interactive Infographic of the World's Best Countries - Newsweek."Newsweek - National News, World News, Business, Health, Technology, Entertainment, and more - Newsweek. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2010. .

2. The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. "HigherEdInfo.org: Public High School Graduation Rates."Web. 6 Nov. 2010. .

3. Weingarten, Randi. "Randi Weingarten - The Case for National Education Standards - washingtonpost.com."Washington Post - Politics, National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - washingtonpost.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2010. .