Compare and contrast the three most significant positive and negative changes in education
The education sector has seen a number of changes implemented over the past years. These changes have had different effects on the learning of students with some being positive while others negative. These changes have specifically affected the morals of students as well as the teachers and the quality of preparations made for children to enter the world of adults after graduation. Overall, every change implemented in the education system has profound impact on the quality of education that students get at school.
The first change implemented in schools, which has had negative effects on the quality of education, is about the role of teachers in disciplining students. Initially, teachers used to discipline students in the classroom when they commit a mistake. The teacher had all the rights to decide the type of painful punishment to give a student who had erred (Carnoy & Rhoten, 2002). The forms of punishment included beatings and corporal work in the school. Although this kind of discipline was very harsh, it maintained very high standards of morals in the school. The good morals upheld through these harsh disciplinary actions by the teachers led to good and high quality of education from the schools. However, this disciplinary role of the teachers has significantly changed and now they do not have any right of punishing students in school. Today, students are no longer held accountable for their actions and mistakes. Things have changed such that teachers have no control over the classroom discipline. The reason for this loss of control over disciplining students by the teachers was the change of the education system policies, which prohibited this action after protests by civil society groups, who described corporal punishment and beating pupils as child abuse. The net effect of this move has been increased cases of lawlessness in schools and poor performance. Therefore, this change brought about negative effects within the education system.
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Another notable change is the NCLB Act. Formerly, schools used to pay much attention on teaching students to impart them with high quality and detailed knowledge. However, today the focus of education has shifted from teaching and imparting students with knowledge to testing them. The main goal of students in schools today is not to gain knowledge, but simply to pass examination. This change has increased cases of examination cheating as students struggle to use all unorthodox means to ensure they pass their examinations. Students are not being properly prepared for the future life since most of them even do not attend classroom lessons (Hopkins, Stringfield, Harris, Stoll & Mackay, 2014). What matters to modern students is doing examinations and passing.
The major positive change has been the introduction of the completion agenda by former U.S President Barrack Obama. The completion agenda enables education institutions to pay their attention on the graduation of all students instead of concentrating only on the ones who enter as part of a specific first-time full-time freshman cohort (Rutherford & Rabovsky, 2014). Moreover, introduction of the Massive Open Online Courses has also increased the rate of degree completion through the online learning environment. Moreover the cost of education has significantly reduced with the introduction of online learning programs.
Discuss the changes/reforms you think still need to be made and defend your choices
A number of reforms still need to be made within the education system in order to improve it significantly. Currently, the rate of higher education drop-outs is at its all high level. The reason for the current many cases of university as well as high school drop-outs is the skewed education system, which is in dire need of changes. It has been established that while all the policy-makers are equally alive to the fact that the level of students drop-out from school is high in the United States and are worried about this trend, their diagnosis of the causes of the problem have been consistently wrong (Wals, 2014). Students like learning in an environment that is friendly and where they feel related to the teacher. Therefore, there is high need of building reforms that make the school environment quite friendly and attractive to the students. Among the needed reforms include making co-curriculum activities to be compulsory in all schools. Sports make the learning environment to be lively and interesting to the students. Most students drop out of school because of lack of interest in the learning environment. Moreover, sports are critical in building good relationships among the students.
Another key reform that needs to be implemented in the educations system is the differentiation of learners in the class. Differentiation of the learners within the classroom based on their learning capabilities is the basic requirement today for the improvement of the quality of education. Students are simply human beings with very varying skills and natural abilities. A class of many students has diverse skills and levels of learning capabilities. Therefore, offering them standardized lessons is being ignorant of the differences that exist among the students and making the learning process poor (Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006). Through the use of groups, teachers have to classify students based on their abilities in class so that each group is given customized education. The government has to make this issue of student differentiation a federal policy so that all schools are made to implement it as a formal reform.
Finally, the government needs to implement reforms geared towards shifting learning from being a classroom affair to a largely practical thing. Practical lessons need to be intensified through relevant policies formulated by the government for the schools. Most people enter fields that have no connection to what they learned at school. Moreover, the current education has been criticized for not being relevant in terms tackling the existing challenges in the society. Most people are not assisted by their education. Therefore, there is need of making the learning process to be largely practical so that students move away from the classroom towards the fields. This will be a better way of preparing students for the future opportunities in the world. These are the main reforms that should be implemented within the education system.
How these changes will affect ethical dispositions of educators
These reforms will bring about ethical dispositions related to effective teaching among the educators. The student differentiation reform that still needs to be made will significantly improve the values of effective teaching for the teachers. It is an ethical practice that the educators should embrace easily. Building good relationships with the students with the students is part of the good ethical dispositions that educators need. Student differentiation will offer the educators an opportunity to closely relate with the students in the small groups and build constructive relationships aimed at making teaching and learning quite interesting. Moreover, introduction of extra-curriculum activities within the education reforms to make sports imperative practice for all institutions will make teachers have an interesting teaching environment. Therefore, this particular reform does not only benefit the students, but also makes teaching an interesting affair. Some of the unethical behaviors of educators like leaving the school before the right time and abandoning classes are caused by a boring teaching environment. With the introduction compulsory extra-curriculum policy in schools, teaching will become interesting hence will enhancement the commitment of educators to educating the students properly.
References
Carnoy, M., & Rhoten, D. (2002). What does globalization mean for educational change? A comparative approach. Comparative education review , 46 (1), 1-9.
Hargreaves, A., & Goodson, I. (2006). Educational change over time? The sustainability and nonsustainability of three decades of secondary school change and continuity. Educational administration quarterly , 42 (1), 3-41.
Hopkins, D., Stringfield, S., Harris, A., Stoll, L., & Mackay, T. (2014). School and system improvement: A narrative state-of-the-art review. School Effectiveness and School Improvement , 25 (2), 257-281.
Rutherford, A., & Rabovsky, T. (2014). Evaluating impacts of performance funding policies on student outcomes in higher education. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , 655 (1), 185-208.
Wals, A. E. (2014). Sustainability in higher education in the context of the UN DESD: a review of learning and institutionalization processes. Journal of Cleaner Production , 62 , 8-15.
