Students Lagging Behind

The school system exists to ensure that all individuals passing through it are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to go through demands of life. This noble task, however, does not culminate in ultimate success since many students do not have what it takes to be successful academically. In essence, these students tend to lag behind their peers, which then compromises on the overall quality of educational outcomes. As it is, there are several factors, which contribute to this situation where some students are less proficient as compared to their peers. These factors range from political, economic, psychological, and social factors depending on each individual who is lagging behind. Nonetheless, it is possible for schools and concerned stakeholders to come up with the right policies, which create equal opportunities for all students. The United States is perhaps one of the many nations, which has continually faced a challenge when it comes to the academic achievement of her students. According to DeSilver (2017), the US continues to lag behind especially when it comes to Mathematics, Science and reading scores, which is witnessed across all educational levels. As it is, the US has continually been ranked in the middle as other advanced nations continue to take the lead. In 2015 for example, Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) placed the US at position 38 in Mathematics and 24 in Science in the 71 nations that participated (Xie, Fang, & Shauman, 2015). It is believed that the US students will continually lag behind in the STEM subjects unless the concerned stakeholders address this discouraging trend.  As established, there are several factors, which are associated with students lagging behind across the country. In essence, these factors point to the fact that there lack equality and proper structures in the way students receive instruction from the teachers which are gendered at times (Kessels et al., 2013). As it is, academic institutions are differentiated in terms of social structures meaning that some schools have better facilities and equipment than others do. As a result, the students in such schools have better chances of succeeding as compared to those students in poor schools. Moreover, students from rich schools tend to get more exposure to learning experiences as compared to most public schools, which have to rely on political goodwill. Additionally, most teachers from poor schools are demotivated as their remuneration is limited which then translate to poor delivery of content (Allington and McGill-Franzen, 2013). The demotivation then means that such teachers are not keen on ensuring that their students are at par with those students from those schools with better facilities. The educational outcomes are reliant on an individual’s psychological makeup and disposition. In essence, some students lag behind in their education simply because their psychological makeup is not wired to grasp content as fast as normal peers. As a result, such students tend to present several challenges to their teachers, as they are slow learners who require specialized and individualized attention. According to Jackson and LeFebvre (2012), the situation is made worse if they are English language learners, which then means that they will have a hard time understanding varied concepts. Moreover, according to Tong and Moran (2016), the transfer students are the most affected when it comes to understanding concepts, as their literacy proficiency levels are shallow. Sadly, the curriculum has continually emphasized on measuring students achievement by use of test scores while ignoring other aspects of knowledge. Additionally this curriculum in an attempt to ensure that student performs well increase their workload, which translates to increased stress levels among students (Chraif, 2015). This then means that students who lack academic knowledge are seen as failures who are lagging behind and thus compromising on the quality of education From the discussion, it is clear that America just like other nations continue to struggle with the issue of its students who lag behind in their academics. These students pose a challenge as they comprise the quality of education the government is keen on offering its students. However, not all is lost as the various stakeholders can adopt best practices to reduce the number of these students in the learning institutions. According to Santi and Reed (2015), the solution lies in treating each student as an individual with personalized learning needs. Once a teacher identifies a student with learning challenges, the teacher can then help the student to learn the content which he or she will understand. Additionally, the concerned stakeholders should find out which policies the other top nations use to have students who are academically proficient and apply them in their learning institutions. The learning institutions in America and other parts of the world are highly stratified which translates to inequality in the way students’ access and receive instructional materials and methods. The situation can be reversed if the concerned stakeholders make conscious effort to secure access to educational material and equipment equitable for all students in spite of their demographics (Koshal, Koshal and Gupta, 2013). In essence, it would not help to have a few students excelling while others lag behind, as it will translate to a huge economic loss for the nation. Most importantly, it is clear that the curricula mostly emphasizes academics while ignoring the other capabilities that the learners possess. In line with this, the curriculum should be adjusted to address the whole student to boost their capabilities make them economically viable. However, all these solutions will only be applicable if the concerned stakeholders are ready to put away their differences and work as a team to address the challenge.

References

Allington, R. L., & McGill-Franzen, A. (2013). Summer reading: Closing the rich/poor reading achievement gap. New York: Teachers College Press. Chraif, M. (2015). Correlative study between academic satisfaction, workload and level of academic stress at 3rd grade students at psychology. Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, 203(2015), 419 – 424.   DeSilver, D. (2017). The US is falling behind academically: This is why. World Economic Forum. Retrieved on 10 July 2018, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/us-students-are-lagging-behind-academically-heres-why Jackson, D. & LeFebvre, E. (2013). Why am I behind? An examination of low income and minority students’ preparedness for college. McNair Scholars Journals, 13(2013), 121-138. Kessels, U. et al. (2013). How gender differences in academic engagement relate to students’ gender identity. Educational Research, 56(2), 220-229. Koshal, R. K., Koshal, M. & Gupta, A. K. (2013). Students’ mathematics academic performance: An interaction of inputs from the students, schools, and voters. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 12(5-6), 680-698.  Santi, K.L. & Reed, D.K. (2015). Improving reading comprehension of middle and high school students. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. Tong, M. &Moran, C.  (2017). Are transfer students lagging behind in information literacy? Reference Services Review, 45(2), 286-297. Xie, Y., Fnag, M. & Shauman, K. (2015). STEM Education. Annual Review of Sociology, 41, 331-357.