Education Reform Continues To Top The List Of Issues Facing The Nation Today - EbooksCheaper.com

Education reform continues to top the list of issues facing the nation today. Americans are better informed than ever about school performance and its implications for our future, and many feel a sense of urgency about improving their children's education. This urgency is leading to a shift in focus for education policy at all levels - federal, state and local. Many states and localities are enacting policies that put the needs of children and parents over systems, focus on improving student achievement rather than on processes and procedure and policies that empower communities, enterprising school leaders and teachers.

 

A tide of freedom, innovation and accountability is sweeping the education landscape in our states. This has been reflected in the adoption of high academic standards with rigorous assessments to measure student performance, increasing educational choices through strong and autonomous charter schools and reducing regulations that impede the progress of creative and enterprising teachers and school leaders. However, the federal government has not caught up with the changes occurring at the state and local level. Washington remains far too focused on micromanagement through thousands of pages of regulations attached to hundreds of programs. Simple compliance with ever-increasing procedural controls, inputs and processes has become an end in itself with little consideration given to results.

 

The federal government has a legitimate role to play in recognizing national priorities in education. But that is not to say that every federally expressed priority must have a corresponding federal program. For example, a national priority to improve elementary school reading scores might produce innumerable local strategies to accomplish that goal. Prudence suggests that federal funds should go to the states and their local school districts so they can decide how best to employ those funds. The people closest to the children being served should decide how best to meet their needs. We have an enormous opportunity and responsibility to improve public education and allow federal education policy to deepen and sustain the reform energies that abound in the states.

 

Title I came into being as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and remains the centerpiece of the federal role in public education. Part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society legislation, its intent was noble: to provide supplemental services to improve the academic performance of poor and disadvantaged children and reduce the performance gap between rich and poor. It is well documented that the academic achievement of disadvantaged students has not been significantly improved and the performance gap between rich and poor has not been reduced. This pattern of failure can be traced to some important flaws that were part of the program's original design or that crept in through the subsequent program reauthorizations.

 

First, among these flaws are funding formulas that elevate the wants of educational systems above the needs of children. Because Title I dollars are aimed at school systems rather than individual children, some eligible students currently receive no funding or services at all. Many others receive very little money and few services because they live in states with low per-pupil spending. Title I funding formulas also encourage concentrating poor students in the same schools in order to make the schools eligible to receive funds. Funding formulas must be changed to assure that every single disadvantaged child receives assistance. Rather than funding school systems, dollars should accrue to the benefit of the student. Title I should be an entitlement for disadvantaged children.

 

Title I also focuses on inputs, bureaucratic process and paperwork rather than accountability for results. The program demands only that money be spent in directed categories and that mandated processes be correctly followed. There is no need to demonstrate results in improving student achievement and there are no consequences for failure to do so. This must change. States and localities should be freed from inflexible, burdensome regulations. A more effective approach is to set performance priorities and give state, local and school leaders the freedom and flexibility to make decisions on how to accomplish them. In exchange for this flexibility, state and local officials should be held accountable for improving the academic performance of children. Affected districts are also eligible to receive special implementation grants that can be used to purchase new instructional materials and technology; establish after-school, summer and weekend programs; develop curriculum; or provide professional development training for teachers. The goal is to give failing districts new tools, new resources, new ideas and enough time to turn things around. But if the schools continue to flounder, provisions in the law authorize the state to get more directly involved.

 

Finally, much of federal education policy fails to recognize the critical importance of involving and empowering parents. Educators know that parental involvement is vital to educational success, particularly among disadvantaged students. Yet we have created a system that makes it very difficult for parents to get reliable, understandable information about school performance. What is even more troubling is that when parents get useful information, often they cannot act on behalf of their children.

 

For example, parents unhappy with the education a child is receiving cannot transfer that child to another school - traditional public, charter or private - and expect federal dollars to follow. Parents are also prohibited from using funds generated by their child for other services such as tutoring from private providers. Research and common sense tell us that the more educational authority is returned to parents, the more engaged they will become. Once the funds are targeted to individual students, and state and local officials are given freedom and flexibility in designing programs that address their needs, dollars should follow them to the school or educational provider of their choice, within limits set by each individual state. If parents are happy with a child's school and progress, their Title I dollars remain. If they are not, they should be free to choose another public school, including a charter school. States could also offer such options as tutoring by approved providers.

 

For schools that don't measure up, there are consequences as well as assistance available for improving. State money allocated for the education of that child follows. We place the needs of children over those of the system. But it is important to remember that scholarships are only one part of a comprehensive accountability package. Clear and measurable expectations, understandable information to parents about school performance, remediation and assistance to low performing schools and choices for students in schools that do not improve are other components of the package.

 

Parents should be allowed to decide what type of education their children receive. If states and local districts choose to use federal funds to empower parents of targeted children to attend charter schools, receive tutoring, or take advantage of private school choice, so be it. It is a logical extension of local control. Indeed, it is the truest form of local control. State education reforms begin with high standards and expectations. They identify clear indicators for measuring progress toward desired results and are flexible with regards to the means for accomplishing the results.

 

Source: https://ebookscheaper.com/2021/02/25/education-reform-continues-to-top-the-list-of-issues-facing-the-nation-today/

Vision, Commitment and Leadership In Education

Many educators, policymakers, Republicans and Democrats are now talking reasonably about the future of education. It is important to prescribe what should be done. The belief is that the federal government could provide the answers. Driven by the spirit of reform at the state and local level that has changed the focus of education from inputs to outputs, there is now an educational bottom line. Education seems to be the only sector of the economy that is not competing for top talent. Almost every state has created some sort of alternative route to teacher certification — though many jurisdictions make limited use of them.

 

The focus on education policy must be changed to progress on student achievement, not process and micromanagement. Hailing an important change in the terms of debate, accountability, flexibility and choice are now part of the mainstream education discussion. The fact that policymakers are debating education on those terms is reason for optimism. What's truly amazing is that it took us this long as a nation to collectively realize that student academic progress and a public education system that remains fully accountable to everyone for ensuring that progress are just plain good ideas. There's nothing magical or controversial in demanding tough academic performance.

 

We urge colleges to mandate more history studies and parents to send their children only to universities that have substantial history requirements. The knowledge of U.S. history is the "civic glue" that gives a diverse America a singular purpose. Ignorance of the past, unfortunately, is all too commonplace today — and not just among youngsters who know more about their favorite video games characters than the presidents on Mount Rushmore or teens who couldn't begin to explain the significance of Gettysburg Address. The problem extends even to institutions whose very mission is to provide higher education.

 

History is essential to full and informed participation in civic life and to the larger vibrancy of the American experiment, and without knowledge of it, bedrock principles like liberty, justice and equality will be forgotten. According to a new survey, 79 percent of seniors at elite colleges and universities could not answer basic high-school level questions about U.S. history.

 

The presidential election of 2020 will be remembered for many things, surely, but perhaps what should most immediately concern all Americans is just how little we understood the political process. Americans came to grips with their need to figure out just what happens when they vote, what counts and what doesn't, what an Electoral College is, and why the popular vote isn't what they thought it was cracked up to be. The relative political illiteracy of the American people should come as no surprise, particularly to educators who daily confront good, earnest hardworking students who can't tell them who sits on the nation's Supreme Court, let alone who sits in the state House. And it shouldn't come as a surprise to members of Congress.

 

The students who took the test were ignorant of the history of America's most familiar leaders, of basic constitutional principles and of defining moments in our past. An unbelievable 40 percent apparently needed a lifeline or two to even pinpoint the timeframe of the Civil War as being within the 50-year period 1850-1900.

 

The events of the last few years - the impeachment and trial of a president - have provided compelling evidence of the resiliency and vibrancy of our constitutional republic. Those events also remind each of us just how much might be at stake should the American people lose touch with the principles and practices that help to mold and sustain the republic.

 

Jeff C. Palmer is a teacher, success coach, trainer, Certified Master of Web Copywriting and founder of https://Ebookschoice.com. Jeff is a prolific writer, Senior Research Associate and Infopreneur having written many eBooks, articles and special reports.

 

Source: https://ebookschoice.com/vision-commitment-and-leadership-in-education/

Time To Set High Academic Standards - EbooksCheaper.com

For decades, political and business leaders have demanded education reform because bad schools were putting our nation "at risk" of losing its economic advantage. Many years, billions of dollars, and hundreds of reform strategies later, the schools survive largely untouched while America enjoys one of its greatest periods of prosperity in history. To some this is an enigma: how can we lead the world economically while trailing the world educationally? How will our economy fare when generations of poorly educated students comprise its workforce? Contrary to conventional wisdom, our schools do not exist just to train tomorrow's workforce. They exist, primarily, to produce a well-educated citizenry. Education in a democracy has many dimensions-civic, intellectual, economic, and moral, to name a few. As instructors teach literature, algebra, history, and physics, on a deeper level their schools are recreating American society. When they falter, our cultural legacy-even our civilization-is what is truly "at risk." That is why school success and pupil achievement matter-not just for the gross domestic product.

Americans today are rightly concerned about cultural decay-the erosion of traditional values, loss of our national identity, and balkanization of our communities. This is a real, heartfelt desire to disentangle "We the People" from "We the Consumers" and "We the Employers." America is defined by far more than its economic might and military muscle. It stands for high principles and the legacy of the Enlightenment. Liberty, reason, equality, justice-these ideals are not innate in humans. They must be taught and cultivated. This solemn duty falls squarely on the shoulders of families and schools.

But the schools largely reject this civic mission. Afraid even to ask what it means to be an American, schools instead harp on vague concepts such as self-esteem and diversity. Valuing individual differences and talents is surely important, but so is understanding what binds us together. Schools must concern themselves with the unum as much as with the pluribus.

Furthermore, educators complain that it is virtually impossible to make some kids study things that do not seem immediately relevant to their adolescent lives-such as algebra and Aristotle. It is so much easier, many argue, to let kids pursue their own interests and study what they like. No bitter pills to swallow, no unhappy campers. Anyway, what really matters is "learning how to learn." And feeling good about it.

That certainly makes it easier for the teachers, and is all well and good until those high school graduates enter the voting booth knowing precious little about American history and the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. It is fine until the American people debate a war in the Persian Gulf without knowing where that is-not to mention why it's important. It is harmless until conversations about global warming degenerate into empty rhetoric and shallow posturing because so few people possess the tools to comprehend the science or even ask the right questions.

The situation is little better in higher education. Universities, having shed their core curriculum and sloughed off any pretense to moral leadership, not to mention stewardship of souls, have degenerated from knowledge centers into training centers. As students have flocked to financially attractive fields, disciplines such as literature, history, and philosophy have suffered greatly. As our schools and universities adopt a single-minded, utilitarian rationale for the education they provide, a degree today has become less an affirmation of knowledge than a resumé-booster. Education is trivialized when it is reduced to a venue for vocational marketability.

Achievement tests measure more than future workplace skills. They also gauge whether our schools are fulfilling their mission to produce well-prepared citizens. Certainly knowledge is not all it takes to be a contributing citizen, but it is a prerequisite. Dismal test scores indicate that this basic democratic need is not being met. Fortunately, we can reverse this trend. The first step is to set high academic standards. Standards spell out what students are expected to know and be able to do by certain points in their schooling. According to recently released and hard-nosed appraisals, most state standards are poor. They lack clarity, content, and rigor. Well-constructed standards clarify priorities and expectations. They specify what is essential for all citizens to know, no matter where they come from or what occupations they will choose. Should all future citizens understand the Constitution? The Bill of Rights? The 14th Amendment? Romeo and Juliet? The Pythagorean Theorem? Newton's Laws of Physics? Standards answer these questions.

We must develop world-class standards and then hold students and schools accountable for reaching them. Without incentives and real consequences, we would be naive to expect changes in behavior and performance. We have to make knowledge count. High school seniors should have to know certain things to obtain a diploma. Most other democracies have challenging high school exit exams because they understand this. Low test scores are a chronic, not acute, problem. Our standard of living will not plummet tomorrow if today's students don't learn more math, science, literature, and history. Like a high cholesterol count, low test scores indicate a general illness and foreshadow problems down the road. Our economy might remain strong for a while regardless of what our educational system produces, but our body politic will surely sicken as more and more of our citizens know less and less. We must start treatment today to prevent illness tomorrow.

Megan Wilson is a teacher, life strategist, successful entrepreneur, inspirational keynote speaker and founder of https://Ebookscheaper.com. Megan champions a radical rethink of our school systems; she calls on educators to teach both intuition and logic to cultivate creativity and create bold thinkers.

 

Source: https://ebookscheaper.com/2021/02/20/time-to-set-high-academic-standards/