America's Education Deficiency on the Rise

The following is an essay I composed regarding the general perception of education deficiency within our nation, as a whole: 

America's Education Deficiency on the Rise

By Lorenzo Santavicca

While walking through a school full of two-thousand well-dressed students carrying impressive backpacks - full of expensive books and lengthy research papers - one may think that the school’s success rate highly exceeds the average acceptance “grade” looked upon by college advisors in the country.  Truthfully, though, the school is found among many others in the country – where students achieve and succeed mostly (and usually only) by the force of those leading them: teachers, counselors, and administrators of the school district.  A curable epidemic (a “cultural deficiency”) is on the rise in many students of America, profoundly in those of high school age. The common problem: students cheating themselves of an in-depth education by the lack of initiative to continue their success outside of the school day without an adult at their side. With end result, the American initiative is going backwards, and the nation as a whole is feeling it, notable by Zakaria: “As American education has collapsed, the median wages of the American worker have stagnated, and social mobility--the beating heart of the American dream--has slowed to a standstill. Education is and always has been the fastest way up the socioeconomic ladder,” (Zakaria).  Teenagers are led on by the continuing “symptoms” of this epidemic by classmates via social media, lack of initiative by parents, and refusal to look past the “handout-mania” given in the school desk each day.

Social media – it’s become a way of life for some.  For students, it’s been ingrained into the minute-by-minute processes that have created a detour of human interaction in regard to talking to others, even if they’re close enough to personally talk to.  But what has become an even bigger issue is how students around them (whether it’s by “following” or “liking them) influence each other by what’s posted on social networks that deal with their education.  147-character messages (known as “tweets”) on the globally known online social media source – Twitter – provide the insight for users about anything on one’s mind.  Students resort to posting their personal lives and problems on these networks. In result, it provides stimulation to another person’s own feelings among their age, whether it is positive or negative, leaving a lasting effect on schoolwork.  In the education setting, students find themselves distracted by these sources of media.  This is a proven source for the noticeable decline on student performance; “two thirds say the quality of children's homework is poor as they rush to finish it so they can communicate with others online,” (Bloxham). 

With the overwhelming addiction, social media proves the thought of a decrease in education outside of the school building a source of problems. However, Bloxham continues to note, “Teachers believe pupils don't spend nearly enough time on their homework as they should - and 73 percent believe parents should take responsibility and limit the amount of time their child is spending online,” (Bloxham).  Not only does it become a matter of fault of the student, but that of the parents’ responsibility as well.  With the notion of parents being the ones to start a child’s education at the beginning of their lives, it should be heavily made clear that a parent’s duty of getting their child “in the educational workforce” does not end there.  As a matter of fact, parents should be more engaged than ever behind their child’s progress in the teen years toward achieving their high school diploma.  According to an experiment performed by The After-School Corporation (TASC), schools were evaluated on how students performed academically beyond the school day, based on driven motivation by parents, as well as without the motivation by parents: 

The evaluation found students' math scores, attendance, and general attitudes improved in comparison to their peers at local nonexpanded learning schools. But not all ExpandED schools fared equally. According to the report, some schools did a much better job of communicating and engaging with parents and organizing staffing models than others. The report also recommends all the ExpandED schools could do a better job of sharing student academic data with education partners, (Fleming).

Clearly, by evidence of research, parents need to be more involved on the education process of their child throughout the years beyond the days of diapers or the training wheels.  Student success is not alone shown through the entirety of the student him or herself, but with the guide along by the peers they have: parents and friends.

The environment: another human-controlled area of our lives that we tend to lose hope over, whether it be harmful damage to the waste of resources or damaging the atmosphere.  The school building is a source of damage to our environment, but also home to the student mindset of moving toward the goals he or she may set for himself or herself in the beginning of the year.  Handouts by teachers, given at a constant daily rate, heavily affect the view of a student mind about the school day.  Sometimes known as “busywork,” students lose interest quickly in the focus on their education and its importance beyond the black toner on the white sheet.  Another study, performed by a school reviewed by Annie Murphy Paul, shows that students are not necessarily grasping what they essentially need from these worksheets, but find themselves with decreasing test scores:

In a 2008 survey, one-third of parents polled rated the quality of their children’s   homework assignments as fair or poor, and 4 in 10 said they believed that some or a great deal of homework was busywork. A new study, coming in the Economics of Education Review, reports that homework in science, English and history has “little to no impact” on student test scores. (The authors did note a positive effect for math homework.) Enriching children’s classroom learning requires making homework not shorter or longer, but smarter, (Ojalvo).

Students need to find themselves more inclined to view these worksheets, dubbed “busywork”, as helpful tools, and in the future, raising test scores.  As noted in Plato’s Republic, students can often be compared to the creatures of the cave in the darkness.  (Darkness symbolizing the unknowledgeable in life, and sunlight viewed as the source of all education.)  Students often find themselves being blinded by the “light” of knowledge, not often grasping it for themselves (nor for the desire to, anyway).  While students may be “shackled” by the weight of the inability to find their experience of educating themselves beyond the desk at his or her institution, they must be able to find the luminescence of knowledge at reach in effort to continue their ability of working beyond their teachers’ guide.  “Busy work” may still be a thing of archaic education, but it provides students with a way to view their abilities of independent study, if students look at in a positive way.

The deficiency of education is an epidemic that can be proved as curable, whether the aspect be reducing the amount of time given to spend on social media, an approach by parents to give more attention their child’s conceited effort of wanting the education for themselves, or even spending more positive time on the “handout mania,” in turn giving the indication that students desire the education that extends beyond the classroom.  Many sources have proved through logical and modern experiments that students have evolved from the time that Horace Mann once developed the educational model that was once shaping the method of teaching today; however, one thing hasn’t changed, and will continue to be the same…education will still be education, and one must be on the edge to work for it – not always of the mindset that they “deserve” this source of luminescence in the hollows of simplemindedness. After all, Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”… let’s get back into that motive America.

Works Cited

Bernard, Sara. "6 Ways Social Media Is Changing Education." Web blog post. MindShift RSS. KQED, 26 Nov. 2010. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.                 <http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2010/11/6-ways-social-media-is-changing-....

Bloxham, Andy. "Social Networking: Teachers Blame Facebook and Twitter for Pupils' Poor Grades." Telegraph Media Group Ltd. The Telegraph, 18 Nov. 2010. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.           <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8142721/Social-networ....

Fleming, Nora. "Beyond School - Education Week." Beyond School - Education Week.       Education Week, 14 Mar. 2013. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.             <http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/beyond_schools/>.

Ojalvo, Holly E. "Does Your Homework Help You Learn?" The Learning Network Does Your     Homework Help You Learn. New York Times, 14 Sept. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2013. <http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/does-your-homework-help-you....

Zakaria, Fareed. "When Will We Learn?" Time Magazine [New York] 14 Nov. 2011: n. pag. Print.