Question of the Week Archives

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MA
I went through the public schools in the 1950s-1960s; I received a very good education in an average suburban school. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, I learned how to reason things out by looking closely at a problem, separating fact from fiction, coming to a conclusion, and testing the conclusion. This ability to look past the surface situation to underlying root cause has served me well.

Today, an elephant is in the school auditorium, and new common math requirements will not make it disappear. The truth is that the American education system—from local school systems up to our colleges and universities—has fallen into major disarray during the past 30 years.

Setting up a catch-22 situation, federal government education policy included drastically reducing funding for programs and personnel while mandating new national goals and requirements. To pay for the war in Iraq, which costs billions of dollars a month, the last U.S. administration continued to decrease funding for domestic programs including education. The intellectual disconnect is between why the funds were cut—to pay for the war--and the results of cutting education budgets—schools with overburdened educators and administrators who are struggling to meet their students’ education needs.

For example, fulfilling the requirements of the Bush’s administration’s No Child Left Behind Act actually ensures that many children will be left behind. These students graduate from high school and go to college without knowing how to read, write, balance their checkbooks, or how to tell truth from fiction. New government programs help community colleges provide tutoring to students who can’t read or write well enough to pass their courses. But who teaches them to reason to ensure that the education system that failed them will not fail their children?

Iowa
I believe that our educational system can easily be fixed, and it won't even cost the government millions of dollars. For our system to change, our culture needs to change. Children shouldn't be allowed to make family decisions. I see it all the time from what to have for dinner, where to go for dinner, what time to eat, and that's just one simple event in the day. When we start being parents that make the decisions and provide good role models for our children, along with letting them know the world doesn't revolve around them and that they might not actually be good at everything, and teach them to be respectful of others, teaching will be a lot easier!

disha gandhi - gurgaon, harayana
i think children will get confused and won't be able to cope with the studies.