Education System
Essay #1: Education
REVISION
When it comes to education, many people automatically have a negative reaction; especially when discussing the United States’ educational system. Whether it is grade school or a higher education, most people would agree that something needs to be changed. However, finding the specific “what” that should be changed in the education system is hard, because it’s failure is a combination of many things, rather than one direct problem. As citizens, we know that flaws are expected in any sort of process/system and the education system, being so vast, is bound to have many issues in its own. Authors and scholars from around the world, such as Jonathan Kozol, David Orr, Sir Ken Robinson and many others, help present these flaws to the public through intense persuasive and informational writing/speaking. Data shows that the United States has been and continues to fall behind other countries like Finland, Hong Kong, Canada, Japan, and Korea in typical testing of subjects like mathematics, science, and reading (Husén 455). Standards of education are varying from country to country and this is a direct reflection of differing goals per country on national scale, in terms of education. The United States has seemingly lower overall standards of education, as well as various and less effective methods of teaching. According to Torsten Husén; the chairman of the International Assessment for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, a major difference in European countries and the Americas is that: “Some [European] countries deem it inappropriate to conduct examinations that aim at assessing individual levels of performance in a system where school attendance is mandatory. Failures depend not only on limitations in individual ability and motivation but on the competence of the system to cater to the needs of all students and to enable them to do their best.” (456)
In this quote, Husén describes one of the main issues of
REVISION
When it comes to education, many people automatically have a negative reaction; especially when discussing the United States’ educational system. Whether it is grade school or a higher education, most people would agree that something needs to be changed. However, finding the specific “what” that should be changed in the education system is hard, because it’s failure is a combination of many things, rather than one direct problem. As citizens, we know that flaws are expected in any sort of process/system and the education system, being so vast, is bound to have many issues in its own. Authors and scholars from around the world, such as Jonathan Kozol, David Orr, Sir Ken Robinson and many others, help present these flaws to the public through intense persuasive and informational writing/speaking. Data shows that the United States has been and continues to fall behind other countries like Finland, Hong Kong, Canada, Japan, and Korea in typical testing of subjects like mathematics, science, and reading (Husén 455). Standards of education are varying from country to country and this is a direct reflection of differing goals per country on national scale, in terms of education. The United States has seemingly lower overall standards of education, as well as various and less effective methods of teaching. According to Torsten Husén; the chairman of the International Assessment for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, a major difference in European countries and the Americas is that: “Some [European] countries deem it inappropriate to conduct examinations that aim at assessing individual levels of performance in a system where school attendance is mandatory. Failures depend not only on limitations in individual ability and motivation but on the competence of the system to cater to the needs of all students and to enable them to do their best.” (456)
In this quote, Husén describes one of the main issues of
Cited: Gurría, Angel. "Data Visualisation for Key OECD Data." Statistics:- Data Visualisation for Key OECD Data - OECD. OECD Publishing, 15 Feb. 2014. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. . Husén, Torsten. "Are Standards in U.S. Schools Really Lagging behind Those in Other Countries?" The Phi Delta Kappan 64.7 (1983): 455-61. JSTOR. Web. 08 Feb. 2014. . Kibaki, Mwai. “BrainyQuote.com.” Xplore Inc, 2014. 18 February 2014. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mwaikibaki178778.html Thomas, P.L. "Politics and Education Don 't Mix." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 26 Apr. 2012. Web. 18 Feb. 2014. .