The current American education system is faced by many issues that form a significant and hot debate among the general public and in the media. Education in America is beset by numerous challenges that range from changes in educational policies to underfunding of the public K-12 education. All Americans agree that the provision of quality education to its students is paramount. Due to the existing many current issues facing education, diverse viewpoints have been adopted on how or what are the best solutions to address the problems. It is the varied viewpoints that have led to the development of hot debates where education advocates passionately support different sides.
It is essential for different stakeholders to discuss and understand the various issues affecting education. Parents, students, taxpayers as well as education policy formulators need to be versed with the material facts to make informed decisions. This paper is based on a literature review and provides an insight into the various issues in the education system. The noted problems include overcrowding in classrooms among public schools, family factors that impact students' propensity towards learning, technology that has led to the advancement of screen culture among learners, lack of diversity in talented and gifted students, slashed education budgets, static teachers’ education, inequality in education and finally the issue of teachers’ contracts.
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Literature Review on the Current Issues in Education
Overcrowding is one of the current issues facing education in most public schools in America. Currently, public schools in some states are experiencing overcrowded classrooms, which are literary busting out of the seam. According to the America National Education Association report, the state of Georgia has opted to lift the classroom size limits to accommodate the surging number of students' population in public schools (Rogers, 2017). Fairfax County in Virginia states developed a proposal to increase the student limits in a classroom. The same issue is facing the state of South Carolina, where the South Carolina board of education is weighing options on whether to increase the classroom size limits amid the education budget cuts. Research on class size, indicate that classroom with over 30 students proves ineffective to manage by most teachers. Thus, overcrowding in public schools is a growing problem among many American schools hence the need for intervention.
Another issue affecting education in the United States is family factors. The nature of the family environment affects the students' attitudes towards their life. The types of family have a significant impact on the students' propensity towards learning (Fasolya, 2016). Teachers and principals have noted that family factors play a vital role in providing active learning to students. Factors like poverty, single parenting, divorce, and violence are among the family issues that top in affecting students' propensity to learning. Family factors also affect the level of parental involvement in learning. In some situations, teachers and administrators have to deal with children from backgrounds who are not very supportive of education. Research done by Rogers (2017) noted that family issues significantly impact the level of parental involvement and, ultimately, the students learning interactions outside the regular schooling hours. Family factors pose a socioeconomic disadvantage hence lead to over-dependency on teachers for optimal students learning.
The use of technology is on the rise in the American education setting. Technology has been adopted all the way from kindergarten to the university level. However, the use of technology poses a new challenge in the education sector. The use of technology in education has increased the growth of screen culture among students at all levels of education. Screen culture is addictive and harms traditional education facilitation methods (Spring, 2016). Taking an example of learning in a kindergarten, once the kids learn how to operate the touch screens, parents download educational materials and allow kids to learn as they play. Thus, technology makes learning synonymous to entertainment hence making it difficult for teachers to use conventional teaching methodologies. At higher levels of learning, the screen culture leads to poor concentration due to the difficulty in keeping up with the traditional classroom setting. Thus, as the advantage of technology in education cannot be understated, the un-controlled use of technology in education poses a challenge.
The concept of Talented and Gifted Students (TAG) in American education is still not comprehensively explored hence lacks diversity. According to research by Pithouse, Lindsell, and Cheung (2018), students labeled as talented and gifted are the most advanced in learning or the brightest students within a learning context. TAG programs in America's education begin at elementary levels, where individualized activities are encouraged among separate students' peers. However, even though the ideology is right, what is practical in the ground, specifically in the public schools, is monotonous and unattractive hence may not offer the best results for the TAG students. In a study by Fasolya (2016), it was recommended that district schools develop a comprehensive formula of identifying different types of gifts or talents among student to improve on the tag diversity so that TAG become wide in scope beyond the typical "gifted" student model.
In a recent study by Rogers (2017), K-12 public school spending budgets have never improved despite the economic improvement from the recession years. A report from the Americas Center on Budget and Policy Priorities indicates that over 34 States contribute fewer funds to finance education. The law provides that states contribute 44 percent of the total K-12 funding, and with the lesser contribution by the States, it indicates low financing. Inadequate funding by states impacts the learning programs hence poor outcomes. The little finding is also linked to the existing achievement gap between public and private schools in the different states. In a study by Banks and Banks (2019), he noted that the budgetary slash on education was justified when the country's economy went down, but as the economy recovers steadily, funding education becomes a top priority. Thus, states need to reevaluate their budgets on education to ensure that K-12 education is appropriately funded to improve learning and its outcomes.
The current student population lifestyle is complicated and ever on the change. The modern classroom and learning environment are also on the shift to accommodate the changing needs and features of the learners. However, the state of teachers' education has been static over many years, with only a few changes to accommodate global concerns in schooling, such as the use of technology. Research by Pithouse, Lindsell, and Cheung (2018) concluded that it is essential that teachers' education to change to accommodate the diverse students' changes in the learning environment. Teachers' training has to be modified to reflect the demands of the modern K-12 education. Apart from allowing for policy and practice flexibility in the classroom with regards to cultural diversity, education in America requires teachers that are trained to meet the needs of the students' population to facilitate the learning process effectively.
A study done by Baker (2016) noted that there is an existing gender gap for students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) related courses. There are fewer girls than boys who enroll for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) based courses at the college education level. There has been a great effort to sensitize STEM education among women over the last decades. A study to analyze enrolment on STEM-related courses and funding for STEM courses indicates that young women do not wish to undertake STEM-related courses. This low enrolment of women in STEM-related courses has a long-term impact on the future workplace where gender balance shall not be attained in the near future. The inequality in STEM education preference is also associated with the existing disparities in the whole education system. The learning approaches and the objectives between public and private schools, as well as the learning strategies used, do not prove equality in education. Inequality in education also leads to the existing achievement gap (Baker, 2016). This is also supported by data released by the Department of Education indicate that reading and math achievements among eighth and fourth-graders show a wide achievement gap based on socioeconomic and racial demographics.
Another current issue in education is the issue of teachers' contracts that are beneficial to both teachers and students. There has been a hot debate between hardline education reformers and teachers' unions, either supporting or challenging the teachers' tenure. It is argued that contract tenures support underperformance among teachers hence end up punishing students in the long run. On the contrary, it can also be argued that due to the ever-changing K-12 education landscape, tenures are necessary for protecting teachers from doing their jobs effectively. With the emergence of teachers' evaluation systems, the concept of teachers' tenure can be paged on meeting the set deliverables in the learning process. A study by Banks and Banks (2019) noted that with the concept of year-round schooling, teachers' tenure needs to be specific and realistic as the year-round idea has shown to be academically viable without the three-month-long summer break.
References
Baker, D. R. (2016). Equity issues in science education. Understanding girls (pp. 127-160). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.
Banks, J. A., & Banks, C. A. M. (2019). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives . John Wiley & Sons.
Fasolya, O. (2016). The system of environmental education in the USA. Comparative Professional Pedagogy , 6 (3), 85-90.
Pithouse, A., Lindsell, S., & Cheung, M. (2018). Family support and family center services: Issues, research, and evaluation in the UK, USA, and Hong Kong . Routledge.
Rogers, R. (2017). Critical discourse analysis in education. Discourse and Education , 41-54.
Spring, J. (2016). Deculturalization and the struggle for equality: A brief history of the education of dominated cultures in the United States . Routledge.
