My Boarding School Blog

The quality of education today is far improved and centralized than it was centuries ago. The method of teaching back then was just instructional with little or no student participation at all. The primary aim of education at the early times is to just give information to students. There were no opportunities for self learning, exploration, analytical thinking or problem solving. It is all concentrated on knowing the facts.

Government institutions have structured education reforms to uplift the face of education to the people. Programs have been implemented to make education free for all and available to all society classes. Bringing a positive change in education is deemed very idealistic though it is not impossible. With education reform there are many aspects that need to be considered like assessment, technology and curriculum.

Here are just some of the issues that various education reforms are trying to address.

• Class Sizes – this refers to the student teacher ratio in a class. A low student ration is considered by some to be very effective in student learning. With a smaller class size the teacher will be able to concentrate on a handful of students and will further determine their areas of strengths and weaknesses which she can utilize to help them improve in their academic performance. For developed countries like the US in which their Department of Education is allocated with high funding for education can employ many teachers to keep a low student teacher ratio but unfortunately for most states this is not always the case. Funding may be insufficient or there are no teachers available in their area. Big classes is not advisable for optimum child development as not all have the same learning ability and for those who are lagging behind, the teacher cannot slow down for them to accommodate their learning speed and information uptake thus producing poorly educated students.
• Quality of teaching – this is an ongoing issue for most educational institutions as there are fewer teacher who are qualified to teach students nowadays. Let’s face it being a teacher, with its low income and huge amount of workload it is not the most popular career choice. Teach for America (TFA), a non profit organization in the U.S. recruits new college graduates to teach for two years in low income communities in America. The goal is to help out and make an impact to the students in pursuing their education. Members are given a five week summer training to prepare them for the commitment. Criticisms towards the TFA program have been raised many times. A USA Today 2009 article stated that the program replaces experienced teachers with new inexperienced ones who have not developed teaching effectiveness yet to save on costs for tenured teachers. Some schools are rumored to lay off experienced teachers and employ new TFA teachers with beginner’s salary. The hope of receiving quality education for these low communities is now taken away from them.
• Curriculum standards – standardization of school curriculum is proposed but has never been implemented as schools choose to have their own structured curriculum based on their resources and facilities which is a sound argument. The government in turn wants to implement a standardized way of evaluating student performance through standardized tests like what the No Child Left Behind Act is trying to carry out.

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“Waiting for Superman” is a documentary made by film maker Davis Guggenheim and producer Lesley Chilcott. The film talks about the failure of US American public schools in meeting the standards of education. The film is recognized at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival by receiving the Audience Award for best documentary. The documentary premiered in the US last September 24.

The film is very powerful and moving as it evolves in following the lives of children and parents who hope for a chance to education. It features Black families and Latin American whose income is insufficient to send their children to private schools; they then turn to public schools in the hopes of giving a future for their kids. The aim of the documentary is to provide quality public education for children who cannot afford private schools. The film has inspired Microsoft founder, Bill Gates to promote the documentary. Although Bill Gates received his education in a private school he shares the belief that every American has a right to a quality public education they can use to succeed in life.

When the Bush administration passed the “No Child Left behind Act”, it sparked hope for educators and teachers that the quality of education in the US will see an increase. The “No Child Left behind Act” or NCLB aims to raise the quality of education through standards-based education reform. It believes that by raising high standards and specific goals, academic performance will improve. Some may argue that the goals of NCLB are unrealistic and unachievable. Alabama State Board Member Mary Jane Caylor disputed that the 100 percent proficiency is attainable come 2014.

The NCLB will give funding to states that are able to meet the standard test scores set by each state. The likelihood of states lowering their standards is possible to meet the criteria for the incentives of the NCLB program. Critics say this may cause some states to manipulate their test results or cause teachers to teach the “test”. It will then disregard the true purpose of raising the quality of education through this act.

“Waiting for Superman” is an outcry for legislators and educators to provide quality education in public schools. To face educational reforms head on to dissolve animosity of teacher’s unions in the educational reforms pushed by the government and organizations. The film is emotionally engaging when it showed parents’ frustrations for their children as they go through the lottery system for a better chance of education in a better public school than the one they are currently stuck in.

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