Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Second Education Discussion Topic: Decline in American Education
In the second edition of The World Is Flat: Chapter Seven, "The Quiet Crisis," discusses concerns for trends in American education. Fewer young Americans are pursuing careers in math and science, and overall there is a demise of both ambition and brainpower among American youth. The National Science Board found that the US has fallen to the 17th ranked country in the world for students receiving science degrees. What do you see as the cause for this? Why are American students less motivated about education than students in other countries? What can we do to change this perceived trend in American education?
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First generation immigrants see education as THE path to success. As their children have been educated in America, the drive to "have" has become the next rung in the success ladder. And the ability to acquire things in America comes from more than education: celebrity and athletic skill have overshadowed academic achievement. The measure of success has changed. The emphasis from within the home and from the outside culture pushes education out of the picture, and "smarts" into the fast lane. Our wealthiest and most famous citizen, Bill Gates, is celebrated for having achieved so much, and made so much money, without a college degree! Public schools increasingly struggle for dollars to deal with the social and behavioral issues confronting them in the classroom. High academic standards and excellence are buzzwords of the '70s, and personal integrity and achievement seem to be luxuries that public schools don't have time or resources to demand. Many families are either fragmented or distracted away from such old-fashioned measures of success. And many children come from home situations that make schools the closest thing they have to families. Decline in American education reflects declining regard for education and academic achievement in the culture.
I agree that education is not regarded as being as important in this country as in others. Our young celebrities (at least the ones in the daily news stories) do not have the characteristics of good role models. If families have lost their importance as instilling the importance of educational success in the young, and celebrities are often sending the wrong message, who is left who will help to focus our young people?
I just read in this morning's Syracuse Post Standard (10/22/07-"1.1 Billion People Speak Mandarin Chinese; Do You?" by Rebecca James) that most of the world's population speaks Madarin Chinese. The next most widely spoken language is English, at only 514 million. The article states that the languages we typically teach in our public schools (most likely Spanish and French in this area) may not put American students in the best situation to find success. Pressure is coming from both businesses and government to learn Chinese and other "critical languages". It appears that our public schools need to expand their language programs to include Chinese, Russian, Arabic and the like. Rebecca James states, however, that the major obstacle right now is finding people who are qualified to teach these languages. Challenges lie ahead in our public schools!!
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