Being so closely connected to education, we are in the know of the pain points of the educational system. Today, we want to share the main problems the current US educational system faces.
Applying technology to education
On the one hand, modern technologies offer a great potential to keep students engaged and interested. They make education more interactive. Boring lectures now can be iterated with surveys, videos, and engaging content. On the other hand, students tend to get distracted from studies to check social media, shop online, or even play a game. Some research shows that multitasking during classes makes students less successful. In addition, the usage of personal data by educational institutions can also impose a threat to data security. Fraudsters can hack the colleague system and get access to the personal data of students.
Common core approval
The Common Core State Standards are academic standards developed by the government to guarantee an equal level of education across the country. Though the application of standards indeed helps to guarantee that all kids get the same level of knowledge through 12 years, there are discussions about it as well. First, many teachers say that a rigid program prevents them from organizing really interesting classes. Second, students with disabilities simply can’t manage to learn things at the same speed as all other students, and can’t be effective in tests. And according to polls, only 45% of people support the introduction of Common Core tests.
Test standardization
The idea of standardized testing was to ensure that all students get the same level of education, regardless of their income and status. Schools and teachers are judged based on the marks that students get. Schools, where students get low marks, are checked and sometimes even closed. However many people claim that these frequent standardized tests are a real nightmare. Being so pressed to have good marks in particular subjects, students stop caring about the classes that are not tested (say, art, music, or PE). This approach results in problems with maintaining the health and broad education of students.
Low salaries of teachers
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that teacher salaries have been going down over the past years. Even though it is said that teachers get compensation and bonuses, including pension, it still covers only a small part compared to the financial losses that they face.
Mental health issues caused by too much pressure
Another growing problem is related to mental health. Recent studies carried out by the American College Association state that about 75% of students suffer from anxiety and high stress levels. Unfortunately, the number of students who seek treatment because they have suicidal thoughts or are engaging in self-harm activities is growing. And what adds to the severity of the problem, there are way more suffering students than professionals ready to help, so many students have to wait for quite a long time.
Mess with college rankings
Though there are commonly recognized college rankings, in reality, many people don’t understand completely how ranking positions are formed. Ranking organizations tweak their ranking methods and this way the position of this of that college can go down or up depending not on objective factors, but on the efficiency of the mechanism. It is also close to impossible to compare the ratings of different years. So the problem is that though rankings give crucial information, people should be ready to analyze it wisely.
Human safety at school
The mass shootings that have happened over the past several years in the US caused a lot of deaths of innocent people and of course raised a lot of concerns about how safe schools are for students. There is still an open discussion about giving guns to school officials. However, according to FBI stats, 50% of trained professionals get injured in the real shooting, so there is no chance that a teacher can stay safe or be more efficient than a professional law enforcer. A more sane approach is to check people’s mental health and cut the selling of guns and weapons.
Bullying
Bullying is unfortunately still a huge concern for many schools. The NCES study showed that around a quarter of students have been victims of bullying at schools. The majority of kids who answered the poll suffered from bullying once a day. However, about 6 % of them were humiliated up to 10 times a day. Bullied students experience anger, fear, helplessness, and for evident reasons suffer from low self-esteem. Though all states have special anti-bullying programs and all schools are supposed to create their own measures to fight bullying, the problem still remains very acute.
Large class sizes
Though teachers say that smaller classes lead to better results, during the past years, class sizes have increased considerably from 26 to 40 students per class. Many states try to control this situation by introducing regulations, but budget limitations simply prevent schools from keeping to these norms.
