In this current presidential race, many topics have been suggested such as ISIS, tax implications, legalization of weed, deportation, and the occasional discrediting of fellow candidates. But one important topic in American society has not been duly noted in the 2016 presidential race. That topic is the decline of American standards for education.
American education standards rarely make appearances in the news today, but is a crucial aspect that must be addressed. Primary and secondary education (elementary school through high school) has seen a decline in a student's performance overall. In recent years, America was placed at 17th among 40 other countries overall in evaluating an average student's performance, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report. In front of the United States were the countries of Singapore, Poland, Taiwan, Finland, and parts of China among others.
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Most particularly, the United States fell behind in standards of math. In addition to the Economist Intelligence Unit report, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assessed that even the top performing states in the United States fell below Shanghai, China. The PISA stated that even the top performing American schools are at minimum 2 years behind that of Shanghai.
Many may be asking the question if adequate funding is the source to Americas failed education system, however, that is not a root cause. On average America is spending approximately 115,000 dollars per student. To put America’s education funding to achievements in perspective, the Slovak Republic spends approximately 53,000 per student and yet has similar achievements to that of the U.S.
The only countries to spend more than the U.S. on education per student are Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, and Austria. The similarities between the countries that spend more money per student than the United States is that they all have low populations with a strong stable and growing economy. All of these countries have indeed scored higher than the U.S. on an overall scale, but there must be something in the culture of education in those countries to explain the top performances.
It is argued that countries with top-performing economies also produce top performing education standards, or top performing education standards help to produce top performing economies. In the end, America’s performance in education standards, and most particularly mathematics, is but a clear representation that the U.S. economy is falling behind the rest of the world.
There are various ways to go about increasing American education standards, however not all approaches may work. Clearly an increased education budget is not the solution as it has only produced lower standards. What should be examined is the culture of American education, examine area by area and compare and contrast successful schools to that of particularly low achieving schools.
One possible reason for the low achieving results in American schools could be due to the fact that students do not receive enough sleep. There has been discussion in the past that opening schools later in the day would help increase a student’s performance. Research has proven the age gap in secondary education requires more sleep into the day than the average person. Especially for students who participate in sports, more sleep is critical. The concept of waking up early for school originates from when the U.S. was primarily an agriculture society and parents required the child’s help for later in the day. Everybody has been there, feeling tired and unfocused for school, as you did not receive enough sleep the night before.
The topic of education must be taken very seriously especially in this upcoming election as education directly deals with a future generations inheritance of a country with a falling economy.
