Schooling in America

by Ricardo de Lugo
(Puerto Rico)

The schooling statistics in America are published. (2008) Quote from NCES "Our most significant finding is that U.S. 12th grade students do not do well. When our graduating seniors are compared to the students graduating secondary school in other countries, our students rank near the bottom. This holds true in both science and math, and for both our typical and our top-level students." Unquote. This data from IES NCES (Institute for Education Sciences) and National Center for Education Statistics.

This information does not auger well for our childrens' future when we rank near the bottom! Where are we failing? We seem to be blindly going where we have gone these past fifty years or more with no change in this stagnant mire called education. It's a laugh if it wasn't so serious. Remember, your kid's future is at stake.

We lack basic answers to common questions so essential to every child. We are caught in a stimulus-response culture and react with indifference to those illiterate kids leaving school (60%) with a bleak future. "Who cares?" you might think, he/she will probably join the military and get an education there - so they'll be okay. Yeah, right!

It is about time our education system woke up to NCLB (no child left behind) which requires a makeover or be scrapped before closing the so-called "underperforming" schools. Most are under-performing. "Our students rank near the bottom!" So we need to get off our backsides and DO something about it.

We can't leave it to the Feds to do something. We know how useless that will be. But WE can do something about it collectively.

We'll need more tax dollars for innovation and a departure from the norm for new ideas, we need real accountablility with proven results, diversity of curricula and to encourage passion, drive and enthusiasm.

Please write your comments here please, what do you think the answers are and more importantly, what can we do about it.