The final chapter starts off with a very powerful statement, “Our nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, science and technological innovation is being taken over by competitors throughout the world.” Claiming to be an important message, not only do I agree with this statement completely but I think people are not seeing what a threat this can be for our country in the future. All this reflects on education. As we all know, countries who seem to be behind compare to U.S is slowly improving and making progress. However, our country seems to be stuck in one place or is falling behind. If we look at our education standards, we can easily say that it is beyond compared with other countries. In my opinion, Americans value very highly of ther views and opinions. The reason why education is not improving is because no one is willing to meet in the middle. Therefore, we’re not able to come to a conclusion and take action. A perfect example would be the Democrats and Republicans, they are constantly bickering on issues and claim they are trying to improve the economy and society. However, in the end they are only making matters worst. Most importantly, they are slowing down the improvment while other countries continue to advance. As we all know and some may disagree, the problems in education is not so much on matters that can easily be solved. Do you think it is possible for us to once again regain the advantages we had before the whole education crisis began?
One of the matters which U.S continues to feel strongly on and continues to debate over is whether or not we can place religion and school along the same line. I do not think that it is alright to combine the two, mainly because it is unfair to certain people in this country. As we all know, U.S is known for its diversity. With people coming into U.S from different countries, their culture and background are brought in as well. Therefore, it is impossible to enforce one religion in America. Which leads to my next point: Education. After the signing of the “No Child Left Behind”, people were afraid of the loss in religious values in school. I understand this is a big change considered that religion had a big impact in the education system. However, I think it is for the better because immigrants entering into this country is growing. Most importantly, U.S stands by the word “freedom”. Therefore, I think it is only right for them to respect the views of Americans. I do not think it is considered a loss because religion can be practiced else where, such as churches and home. As I mentioned multiple times, immigrants enter U.S every year along with their beliefs and culture. However, what about children from these immigrant families who are born in the U.S, do you think these children will carry on their parents’ values?
Another issue which I feel strongly about would be the standardized testing in schools. I completely disagree with the idea of determining how the schools and students are performing based on these test scores. I understand that this approach is best to show the government how schools in general are doing. However, they need to be more involved in education and see what the real problems are as to why certain schools’ test scores are so low. One might argue that this will cause unnecessary spending, but the way I see it, money is well spent when one can find the core issues in educations. If the government invest more time in certain schools, they will find that low scores are reflected on the limited resources schools are being provided for. One can say that students who are given more attention to will most likely do better than those who don’t, and one can also say that schools who are given more funding to help students engage will most likely succeed compare to those who doesn’t have these privileges. These are only a few factors as to why testing scores should not be the only way in determining how schools are doing. That being said, aside from the spending increasing, do you think there are other reasons as to why the government is unwilling to pay more attention to individual schools?
