These days it is so common to hear teachers, parents and researchers criticising the current K-12 education system in the United States. Just yesterday, an American teachers’ resignation went viral that slammed the common core reforms and standardised testing. There are numerous empirical evidences on poor academic outcomes, drop out to back that teachers’ claims.
What is bothering me is the fact that the when US produces the highest quality of educational researches and publishes the world’s best journals in educational practices, then how come those results and expertise aren’t able to contribute in building an education system that can be an example for the world? I know some of the possible explanations will have to do with the politics and policies at the national level, however, as a common man, do we understand that there is still a huge gap between the results published in impact journal and the real world practices?
Amrita:
I can speak from my own experience as an international student, which could probably apply to your K-12 system. Your student population is becoming more diverse, and I don't think that your faculty is becoming more diverse. I hope these articles that I have published on this issue can shed some light on the how international students fear with having to pay very high tuition costs and be treated to a U.S. -Centric curriculum.
Data Generation I: International and invisible in a workforce edu...
Article One Style Does Not Fit All: Facilitating Cultural Difference...
I think quality of impact journals is only marginally related to local reality of education. In fact, they tend to denounce problems analylico-critically and are often written by non-locals on non-local contexts.
American basic education has been in problem for long time. Coleman report is already several decades old.
Not all is lost however. Check this out: Berger, R. (2003). An ethic of excellence : building a culture of craftsmanship with students. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann.
I find this discussion very interesting. As a former K-12 mathematics teacher for 20 + years I put the blame on the demands of a testing system where teachers have to put aside best teaching practices to teach to a test. What does this mean - worksheets worksheets and more worksheets. But all is not so dire. There is a turn around in the last year or two withe the common core standards that raise standards and unify teacher efforts. Testing is some places like Texas is taking a step back to see how destructive testing can be if it is all consuming. Last year they withdrew tests for some grade levels. Even as teachers have been taught to use tests as diagnosis instruments - they can see how misleading they can be too - we must look at the whole child. Yes, I do agree that cultural differences with immigrant populations is an issue too, but how can you teach mathematics deeply when the language acquisition level of students is so diversity. Its challenging, but I see excellent teacher and may I add, tired but excellent teachers. They have no time to plan, receive additional training they can integrate into their curriculum. Expectations for teachers are not realistic especially when students with with special need being main streamed into their classes. I could go on and on, but I think the teachers in the US are amazing despite the lack of respect and pay they receive.
Well, I agree with what Jae and George think. Those high impact researches and publications do not necessarily address the local issues effectively.
Practitioners like Beth and Debra can help in highlighting the genuine challenges that the systems faces at present.
I am sure there are people who are looking into these issues, but as the discussion goes… the high impact studies conducted in the United States that become the foundation for several researches around the work, are impactless as their results and implications are simply limited to journals only and hardly ever brought down to the classrooms.
I agree with Prof. George Stoica - " too much talk on the surface of things".
Superficial knowledge, especially in American high schools, too loose atmosphere. Consequently, most American students do not know basic things about f.ex. European countries.
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