What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education

all of these are true school has a hard balance especially as you get older

In countries that have a board exam to test academic knowledge, students' learning outcomes are more uniform. Students’ stress levels are lower too. It also moves the pedagogy away from freequent testing and gives all teachers the time and a template for learning goals. If a teacher wants to venture beyond that, they can do it but minimum expectations have to be met. For India, where 10th grade or 12th grade board exams are offered– students and schools have clear milestones and will find absolutely free resources to accomplish their goals. For example, there will be a fixed number of science labs every year that all students have to complete. School based exams for grades and there is a lot of subjectivity across schools and districts. While we do not need SAT type of broad standardized testing, comprehensive answers and student understanding can be graded by subject experts. Deemphasizing SATs is the first step for creating access for marginalized students, however, American Education should not take away the global competitive advantage from all students. We are wasting talent. American politicians of the Left and Right need to think more globally and not just about short term vote gains by making slogans for access and diversity. Schools and colleges create an environment for fostering love for learning.

I honestly feel like the AES is outdated, it was standardized during the industrial age to create cookie-cutter factory workers, and now it's the same, just more difficult

I learned to despise reading in high school. None of that "classic literature" ever put beans in anyone's pot. I am totally pissed off about the time I wasted studying it. My time is to valuable to be studying dead authors and writings that would be out of print tomorrow if not for academia.

Some of this I agree with, not all of it. When i read that kids in the 1800s read at a college level , i think kids ae not being pressured enough. Also, instead of listening to students that want everyone to *go easy* on them, i would look at countries like Japan and China and see how they do it.

I have an okay time at school but in my classes i either teach myself everything or I’m lectured on it for an hour and a half. The only class i enjoy is my language arts class because the teacher is so open to our opinions on what we’re learning and how she teaches it. My math class has a ridiculous amount of homework given by a teacher that talks too fast and explains it all poorly, she backtracks and explains seven different ways to do a simple thing so that you forget the first way which was the easiest way. When you have over 100 math problems due every other day there’s no wonder students aren’t getting stuff done. I am a tennis player for my school and I’m in 2 choirs and i play so many instruments. I am smart!! But when you don’t teach well and expect me to do well that isn’t going to happen!!

An issue that I have with the schooling system is just what we're taught. You should be taught *BASIC* math and ELA for your elementary grades. From then on everything, except for important life skills like FACS (formerly Home ec), should be electives to help the student pursue what they'd like to do in life. Teachers, also, need to be more interactive, and there should be specially trained teachers for the SPED kids.

I absolutely hate the system this generation has inherited. It has done us a great injustice. We focus on stress, social cliques, and what a future even is supposed to look like. We're growing up faster than we can keep up with. We can't slow down and learn because we only have twelve years to become adults, and if we aren't ready, then our future is ruined. I have become so lazy because all I want to do is look up the answer so I can get my work down. We don't need to improve our system. We need a new system. We need to be taught not told. I can't even begin to imagine how our children and their children will be educated. If we don't change it...what kind of injustice is that?

How about rethinking the whole entire educational system. I live in a smaller town and they push us towards Agriculture. They teach us all the "how tos" in many classes but not enough of the "whys". Are our classes even caught up with where the modern world is now or where it is heading? I feel like they need to stop pushing students into careers that are irrelevant, are causing environmental harm, or even harm to the physical and mental health of the people worldwide. I'm all for education, as long as it speaks the complete and total truth.

Most people don't realize that the American Education System needs more than just tweaks and polishing. The basic structure of AES is antiquated and fitted for industrial-era American society. There's just no basis in human psychology; in fact, it managed to turn evolved psychological conditions, such as OCD, ADHD, BPD, ASD, etc, that were advantageous for millions of years into extreme hinderences. The AES boiled down is just several dozen textbooks to be read out in sequence over 12 years, and students are periodically tested to see if they were listening. This is an absymal system that shouldn't still be in place.

At this point the dress code is more important than learning to the teachers. i´m not even learning anything they give us work and just say do it.

When we are in school it feels like what we are learning is useless and we will never use it in real life. I mean we learn how to do all this math when we could just use calculators on our phones just like that. What I think they should do is ask children what they would want improved and see if the schools would do that. In all schools just need to modernise schools and adjust them to the technology we have now.

Many of the problems with the american school system to day is not only the fact that they are teaching too much, they also try to punish you for speaking out about it. Last year in freshman biology, I came in with a sour attitude due to the fact that I had forgotten something for Geometry. We were doing a blood lab that day and I was so frustrated that I refused to work on something that would never again be used in my life. The teacher came up to me and said that I needed to work. I snapped and retorted, "Give me one way that doing blood testing will be in automotive mechanics and maybe I will." I got kicked out of class for the rest of the day. The schools systems also just don't listen. They tell us to talk to our higher-ups if we have concerns but never do anything about it. There are things that we will use later in life, like budgeting, but do they teach that in school? Not until senior year where they have barely any practice. ANSWER ME THIS, AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEMS: WHEN WILL A MECHANIC USE THE KNOWLEDGE OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS OR THE MUSICIAN TRIGONOMETRY? They are also cheap, trying to fund all of the sports teams and not giving the student populous good tech. They get the cheapest computers they can in a bundle package, and they run slow and can barely do anything. Get us some good laptops and just learn that we aren't the slaves you think we are!

And for the love of God, DROP THE OBSOLETE IMPERIAL "SYSTEM" and TEACH and IMPLEMENT the universal SI (metric system) Why on earth do we react like someone is trying to snatch our baby from our arms when we bring up embracing an international, rational and modern measuring system as a primary means of measure? Why are we wasting time teaching kids archaic, obsolete and impractical units that are not used anywhere else on the globe except for the American pleb? Pints, quarts, feet, inches and furlongs are not used in science or industry and by God, it's about time we reintroduce the discussion of a metric America. While it's not a panacea for our failing education system, having generations of kids who are intuitive in it will certainly help.

I honestly believe that education system fails a student like me. I read history and news and government. I study what is happening in current and events and the world and am more up to date on the issues and the news than most other students or even adults, I speak with on a daily basis. I am creative, play instruments and write and compose music. I will work in the arts and write. There is plenty of time wasted memorizing subjects which do not require me to actually think and use and expand my mind. It is simply the exercise of memorizing and putting it in test form that i am graded on. It is frustrating to me. I do believe there is lots to learn and discuss but not in the format that current traditional school demands.

My experience is the same as some of the writers because I had a lot of pressure when getting grades for tests and quizzes. I also had trouble trying to keep up on assignments, I get distracted easily, and I get grades that are not that good with my parents. However, even with all of this in my life, I still work very hard to get better grades in school so I could get into college and have a better life. This is why I'm going to tell you all, even with all these distractions hindering you in your life, you will get past them eventually and move on.

I could definitely say that teachers are pressuring students and making us feel as if we don’t have much time to complete the assignments given to us. Sometimes that pressure could cause us to become a little stressed and frustrated. There are lots of students who don’t always understand the things being taught to them the first time around. It ma take two or three more times for these students to finally comprehend the lessons being taught. Not all of us are very intelligent. Our intelligence levels varies, and with that being said, teachers should understand that and be once more lenient towards us. They should offer more help, and put less pressure on us. Because that could lead to us focusing too hard on our work, causing us to distance ourselves from family, friends, and other charitable moments.

In my opinion the main ways to fix the American education system must include but are not limited to: increasing teachers pay and funding for classroom improvements, lessening and/or eliminating homework, making lesson plans more interactive and entertaining to catch student attention so that they can take in knowledge better, allowing students to share their opinions on the classroom environment and what they believe they need added to the curriculum, making classroom smaller to allow more dedication to each student to make sure every student understand the lesson and gets the help they need.

As a student, I feel all of these are absolutely true. As a daughter of two teachers, I will also add that they (teachers) are overworked and underpaid, and have to jump through hoops almost every single year. At my school, we've have over 6 teachers leave in the past three years. One of the counselors was fired, and I'm sure other teachers have been fired as well. The problem is not with the teachers, but with the administration and the policies instated by the government. If there were better policies and teaching standards, we would have better teachers. With the enforced curriculum we have right now, teachers find it near impossible to teach in a way that makes students want to learn, and therefore we are forced to turn to page X, Y, Z in a textbook because that's what we have to learn to succeed. We need a looser learning curriculum, less standardized testing, more trade schools, and more hands-on learning. This way students will be motivated to learn what THEY want to learn, they won't have to memorize facts that they will forget by the next year, and they will feel that their learning has a purpose.

Coming from a public school in America, I say that the biggest way to improve American school education is criticism. By getting to hear the opinions of every students schools can understand the situations of every student and their pros and cons. At my school, our school system had implemented individual surveys for every student that targets their personal problems and how they felt throughout the average school day. The problem of the American Education is that it is mostly made up by rules created by officials and are not yet tested or agreed by the subjects or students. It would not be right to enforce anything if the majority dislikes that rule. It is simply a count of heads on those who agree and those who disagree. For example, having school starting as early as 6:00 AM was decided not by officials but the voices of students who disagreed on a early arrival.

I like Anders Olsen answer about teachers. I get the government wants students to do well to compete with the other countries but this can't be solved by giving state testing made up by the politicians and governments. Let teachers control what students learn, how long it takes to learn something, and allow students to fail. I'm a education reporter and I've been covering the new graduation requirements in Ohio and it seems like the government doesn't want students to fail but with the school report cards give ungodly marks to hit in order to get a good grade for the school. Learn the government out of how students learn and let students fail in order to get better.

As a high school student, I believe that education systems need to be improved because their performance is displayed through the students and according to the Program for International Student Assessment, American teenagers’ reading math skills have been debilitating. The majority of the students have been appeared to be demotivated due to the immense pressure of maintaining adequate grades by preparing for tests, exams, projects and turning in homework on time. Therefore, teachers should not pressure students by assigning huge amounts of homework and tests every week, but instead, they should focus on teaching students the items. Although teachers expect students to understand the lessons, we actually end up memorizing the pieces of information because the lessons are less engaging. Students are thrown all the work and expected to be prepared at an assigned time, however, that does not help us consume any of the information because they are all quick memorization. Therefore, schools should put effort into working towards the understanding of the lessons instead of waiting for unnecessary homework and tests. On top of schoolwork, students also have a life outside of school and teachers tend to forget that. Students are already stressed by family issues and life after high school. That is why schools should also try to prepare high school students for the real-life rather than expecting them to have perfect grades.

i feel like there are a few ways to improve education all around the world.

I started my teaching career in February 1989, I am a mom of a teenager, and I spent years in school, myself. We can complain about teaching pedagogy (I noticed the Project Based Learning, PBL, comment below--I learned all about PBL over 20 years ago--it is not a new concept). We can send kudos to the journalism teacher below, as well. I am actually a good teacher. What I can say, without a doubt, is that our society has lost its way in helping youngsters find themselves. We have a prescribed method of madness, built into an assembly line of sorts. School has most certainly gotten more academically rigorous over the years. But, we cannot ignore everyone's part in signing up young children into soccer leagues and when they aren't so great on the field, we sign them up for all sorts of other activities that will make them better soccer players. We do the same with academics--more, more, more--tutoring, evaluations, private evaluations--occupational therapy--so much--all to turn our youngsters into the same product at the end of the assembly line. Gone are vocational high schools that teach trades (plumbing, hairdressing, etc...). It is no wonder our children aren't as successful as we expect. Too many do not possess a strong sense of self, which would guide them into figuring out what they have to offer society when they get older. Let's lighten up a bit on the academics, especially when children are young. Children should guide us into making right choices for them.

I was absolutely an underachiever for variety of interests, one day my father brought home a bag of books, not that he read books, most likely told we needed to read. The Call of the Wild by Jack London was the first followed by the Hardy Boys and others. Managed the get into college and after a poor year began to get it together. Concluding my education with a MSW at age 50. Everyone is different. I only had the distractions of TV and socializing. Today's students look around and there is a distraction web everywhere all day everyday and are told that only a college education will offer them some semblance of a comfortable life. But that seems to be changing as the service industries growth has slowed and the need for skilled artisans and tradespersons has grown. It's a challenge to motivate children individually and as a group, their needs will surpass the average public school sysytem's ability to provide resources. Considering the unjustified costs of higher education in this country and the educational policies stressing college education over many other options, you might think there is some kind of educational industrial complex like money maker going on.

As a high school English/Journalism teacher, I don't give tests because I learned decades ago that multiple-choice tests are useless. My students either write something or present something, and they have to meet my standards. In Journalism classes when the number of re-writes drops from seven to three they are ready to face the real world. I know this because my former students report back to me about their promotions and academic success in college – No ditto sheets, no homework except for free reading (must keep a diary), no multiple-guess tests, no test prep, self-reflection writing, and culturally relevant literature.

As a student, I would agree. As a community member, I applaud. As an educator, I believe it is urgent that we change our approach. Having experienced a complete transformation in the engagement and work motivation in my personal classroom, I would highly recommend Project Based Learning. Check out PBLWORKS project ideas and free resources. Our students need authentic work that is relevant and purposeful. Our community needs our students. Let’s make the match. PBL is a great tool to do just that!

Pressure? Over half of my students are failing and don't care one bit. If they feel pressure to perform it isn't coming from their parents and certainly not from me. They under perform because they don't care, not due to pressure. At least that's the case at my school.

Re: Praise for Great Teachers They all came from one school. And one that is hardly representative of US schools Masterman High School named top school in Pa. by U.S. News & World Report PhilyVoice April 30th 2019 A more typical urban school would be a more informative pick

Anyone else notice that most of these comments come from one high school in North Carolina?

As a teacher, these essays both resonate with me and break my heart. Over the 27 years I've been a teacher, I have seen significant changes to education, and those changes fill these students' writing. Many of the changes are based on economics - larger classes, fewer resources, buildings in disrepair, and all disproportionately affecting students of color, minorities, and those with lower parental income - these effects have been well-documented. Economics also drives assessment; in theory, testing is intended to create market forces that drive parents to place their students in the "best" schools - but there are many definitions of "best", and many factors that have nothing to do with the parent's understanding of which school is "best" for that child: transportation, cost (what kinds of fees does the school charge? What materials are students required to have?), culture (where are other students in the neighborhood attending school?), focus/specialty of the school - the list goes on. Politics also drives these issues; top-down legislation for high school graduation requirements does not address the developmental needs of students. It is all well and good to say "students need THESE skills at graduation, so they must learn THESE skills at this age to reach that point", but just because a law says "teach at this age" doesn't mean that students are ready to learn it. In the attempt to ensure students have what they need, we are taking it away instead.

I believe the central problem is more fundamental. Students thrive in relationship: with family, teachers and others. Punishment and reward systems damage relationship and make children hate school, and even more importantly, hate learning. Other approaches have been well researched for more than twenty years, but only rarely make it into school culture. And there are alternatives. More families than I ever realized keep their children home from school either because they believe in helping them to love learning, or because a toxic school culture has driven them away.

I echo Rob Bligh's (San Antonio). I would add that screens are the biggest problem in schools lately. This was expressed by some of the students' comments. Big tech and the charter school movement has damaged public education through years of propaganda, take overs and misinformation. Screens are bad.

The central problem with these well written student essays is that they all seem to be based on the false premise that teachers and schools can reasonably be expected to overcome the developmental damage inflicted on children during the 50,000 hours between conception and the first day of kindergarten during the 14,000 ours of classroom time between kindergarten and the end of Grade 12. Infants and toddlers who are each forced to live around adults who treat them more like annoyances than treasures show up at school unprepared to benefit from pedagogical interventions and most of them do not. This is not a problem caused by teachers and schools and it cannot be repaired by teachers and schools. Infants and toddlers who are guided by their families to fail in school do not need better schools. They need better childhoods and that is beyond the reach of K-12 teachers and schools. Ivy League colleges operate breathtakingly successful undergraduate academic programs. Imagine how successful Ivy League schools would be if it were not allowed to enroll applicants selected exclusively from among the very most academically able high school graduates in this country. The most successful schools are successful because they enroll the most able students. The quality of any final product is limited by the quality of the raw material no matter how skilled the artisan.

Who knows better in the market than the customer. If the product is poor and the service terrible. off we go to another door or onto the internet and second day shipping. If only K12 education were such a purchased commodity, it might actually improve. Though, the many charters have done only a little to change it. Maybe it's time for a K12 makeover. Total makeover. Try these: • Put the learners in charge of their own learning plan....what do I know and what do I need to know • Make more learning online, that's where it's gone in higher-ed, and it will work just as well in K12. They all have smart phone and iPads. If they don't, lend them one. • When it comes to basic 3R"s group students by needs and not by age. Consider letting the US Dept of Education manage this massive need, without which students can't progress. • When it comes to other content learning, let the local school districts take charge, with a definite inclusion of the arts. Start over and change as needed. Nothing else has worked. We have never needed fundamental K12 change as we do today. Read this piece by The Learning Network. Add your student ideas and your own passion. Surely we can do better. Ask the kids...

I often find that a lot of people in high school do just what needs to be done to get by or to get the test grade they need but nothing more. I can remember as a kid when I used to love to find a good book and get lost in another world or just learn about a topic that interests me. I think that schools and society place too much pressure on kids to perform in school in order to prove their worth and kids are valued too much based off of standardized test scores. I think schools should emphasize the joy of learning and finding areas of study that interest and suite specific people.