The American public educational system is not only in a lot of respects, an embarrassment, but it also reflects that despite the massive amount of funds so allocated to educating its own citizenry, that the results thereof, are woefully poor. The United States does not lead in any of the traditional categories that measure student knowledge such as reading comprehension, mathematical skill, or science. Rather, despite the fact that the United States is the richest nation that the world has ever known, and also prides itself as being the “last best hope of earth;” it sits disgustingly in the middle of the pack when compared to a comprehensive list of other nations, and on its test scores it is distinctly behind countries such as Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Obviously, whatever America is currently doing in regards to its public educational policies it is not working out, and therefore to keep doing what it has been doing, is not going to change the results, thereof. Rather, it is time for America to recognize that fundamental changes to its educational facilities, teaching, and its mindset must be made and the sooner that this is looked at, implemented, and thereby accomplished, the sooner those test scores will improve.
The very first problem to address is that public schools in the United States are not equal, have never been equal, and per their current trajectory, will never be equal. The best way to improve upon this, is to concentrate first and foremost upon the poorest and most disadvantaged neighborhoods, in a manner in which the public schools situated in those areas, would thereby be upgraded to become an oasis, for those that are the study body of those areas. In other words, poor and neglected neighborhoods, typically lack the infrastructure that is part and parcel of what makes for a good community, of which, to expect that to change anytime soon, is pretty much, hopeless. Instead, the government should make a concentrated effort to see that the best public schools in the sense of teacher/student ratio, the quality of the teachers, the quality of the infrastructure within that school, and the accouterments so necessary to aid and abet students in their studying, are prioritized and thereby provided specifically to those neighborhoods.
Those that have nothing, have literally nothing to hold on to, and aren’t in a good place to make progress, but rather are in the type of place in which their chances of ever generating the escape velocity to become something of import, are minimal. This thus signifies that the most progress in regards to helping students that are not living up to their good potential is always going to come forth from those that are the furthest behind, which are primarily those students in neighborhoods which currently have inadequate public schooling facilities.
No parent of any substance desires that their children go to a bad school, but many impoverished parents do not have any real choice as to the school, that their children will go to, for they have not the resources to move to an area that has better public schools. Therefore, what this government needs to do, is to bring the good schools to the most neglected areas of this nation; and therefore, those students will surely reap the benefits of being in an environment which encourages them, motivates them, and invigorates them, so as to be that which they were always capable of being, but have been unfairly denied in obtaining.