America 's Education System Has Been A Concern For Many People

America used to thrive on its education system and that is why it became one of the greatest nations in the world. Education is the backbone of our country, and we must give high priority to improve its current condition. Unfortunately, in the past couple of decades, the education system has been regressing. It has been on the decline and not as effective. The quality of education in a country has an influence on GDP growth, social cohesion and social well being in general. In order to improve the quality of education in the U.S., the following must be taken into consideration: the structure of our education system must be reanalyzed, we must compare and contrast our education system to systems of other countries with higher rankings, and finally, there must be a solution.

Nowadays the United States is not known for their educational system. Countries like South Korea, Japan, and Singapore have surpassed the United States buy large margins, in terms of educational success. While other countries are constantly revolutionising their education system, the United States’ education system has not changed in decades, leaving the U.S. unsuccessful. The U.S. continues to fall behind these same countries that are thriving. Due to the fact that the U.S. education system not developing as time went on, leaving them now with a multitude of flaws. The gap between the educated and non-educated, along with the length of how long students are in elementary and high school, are two consequential problems in the United States’ educational system that need to be addressed.

Many people know that the U.S. does not rank very high in education. You hear about how they are always trying to improve education, but they still fall short of where they strive to be. In Anu Partanen’s “Finland’s School Success, What Americans Keep Ignoring” she addresses this issue. She points out what Americans are doing wrong, what Finland is doing right, and how the U.S. can improve the education system in many ways.

The Finnish Model will work well on reforming the U. S. because it provides equal education and opportunity for everybody. In the country of Finland, “there were no high-tech, interactive whiteboards in her [Kim’s] classroom…no police officer in the hallway” (p. 83). This suggests that these students do not need fancy equipment or armed protection to be the smartest kids in the world. In addition, the Finnish want everyone to be successful despite their circumstances at home, and one way they do so is possessing academic and vocational schooling. This gives students a choice between two equitable options of education instead of forcing them down a one-way path to graduation. The U.S., in my opinion, would greatly benefit from allowing this option in their schooling system because it allows students freedom over their future.

America is a country that currently spends more money on public education per student than any other nation in the world; nevertheless, these good intensions have achieved only slight positive outcomes. For instance, in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), an authoritative test used to measure the education levels of students from 53 countries, American students ranked 12th in reading, 17th in science, and 26th in math. No doubt, a question like this one has been argued for decades “ what exactly is happening in foreign countries that allows them to out-pass America in terms of academics?” The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way is an illuminating book by Amanda

The United States is often referred to as the best country in the world in many areas. It may be, but far from it in education. Out of a total of thirty-four countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, it ranks just fourteenth in reading, seventeenth in science and twenty-fifth in math (Walker). Despite America's status as a country, America's education is failing because of the large emphasis on standardized education, and the flaws of the students, parents, and teachers. How to fix the education system remains to be a problem.

In the United States, literacy rate for both female and male sits at 99 per cent. This percentage translates into Americans having the ability to read and write and to use basic numeracy. However, over the past years the United States,in comparison to other developed nations has been constantly ranked in the bottom tier for low educational attainment. According to Pearson- the world’s leading learning company-, United States ranks fourteenth out of forty countries in the category of “cognitive skills and educational attainment”. This decline is sadly portrayed through the “32 million adults in the U.S. [that] can not read, [which is] 14 percent of the population...[as well as the] 19 percent of high school graduates who can not read”. Moreover, the rising inability of American students to compete in the global job market is yet another indicator of the growing failure of US education system. There is little emphasis on learning foreign languages or in understanding the relations and operations of other countries. This void in the international job market is now being filled with students from South Korea, Poland, United Kingdom, and Finland. In order for the United States to start effectively competing in the international job market, the spotlight should shift away from the ‘liberal arts versus technical universities’ debate or from the concerns over the debt students accrue whilst attending universities. Indeed, these are problems that need to be fixed but these problems

In an intelligence-based economy, education is important to national prosperity and individual success. Huge achievement gaps and opportunities must shrink to non-existence, and every student must receive a well education that prepares them for college and careers in the world as it is today. Comparing the United States education system to other countries shows that the United States scored lower than nineteen other counties and education systems in reading in the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment. Germany and Poland in particular are two countries that have now surpassed the United States. During the same study, scores showed that twenty-nine nations outperformed the United States by a large amount in mathematics, and in science, there have been twenty-two education systems that scored higher than the United States (Heitin).

The American education system has been transforming since the founding of the country in 1776. For most of the beginning of the country’s life, education was reserved for those who could afford to send their children to England to get a proper education. When education systems started to form in America, it was still a majority of white males from wealth that were the only students.

There they are looked at as the same level as doctors and lawyers, whereas in America, teachers are almost to the same level as a blue collar working job. The process to become a teacher is extremely challenging, in an article written by Stephen Tung on Stanford News, he says, “Teachers in Finland are required to obtain a three-year master's degree, state-funded, before teaching. These education positions are highly coveted, Sahlberg said. For example, only one in 10 primary-school teacher applicants is accepted.” Besides all the schooling their teachers receive, the teachers get to create their own tests and assessments not having to rely on the government to do so.

Finland is a country with a well known reputation for excellent education. Finland is ranked twelfth in the world for education, whereas the United States of America is ranked fifteenth (Iceland is number one). (Human Development indices) Finland also has the highest PISA scores in the world. (Human Development Indices) The U.S. used to be the top, but now we are slowly falling behind. Perhaps the U.S. should examine the Finnish education system and use some of its ideas to revamp our system.

Why is teaching valued so much in Findland? Because people believe childhood is the foundation and most important years for the development of kids in the future. Also because of that reason, teachers here are not underpaid while teachers in many other developed countries can be. Also, teachers in Finland are highly trained and the road to become a teacher is very professional. Teachers and staff working at daycare centers often have Bachelor’s degrees. Pre-primary teachers at schools often have Master’s degree. For general education, they are also required a Master’s degree. “Student teachers often teach at affiliate elementary schools that adjoin a university. University teachers are generally required to hold a Doctoral or other postgraduate degree”, according to Finnish National Agency for Education. At most levels of education, teachers need to participate in in-service training in areas important for implementing education policy and reforms every year.

In the march of 2009, President Obama lauds Korea for education. “Our children –listen to this—our children spend over a month less in school than children in Korea every year,” Obama said. “That’s no way to prepare them for a 21st-century economy.” (Web) In the 2001, my parents decided to abroad me and my brother to USA, not because they think US education is better, but they do not see future in the Korea education. Korean education is cramming method of teaching, and US education is discovery method of teaching. I had been experience both education system, and both has cons and pros. Korean education system based a relative evaluation, though US education system based on absolute evaluation. I think US education system is better, because US system emphasis on level overall educational standard, nevertheless Korean education system emphasis on drafting the best student.

For this course, I examined the history and current model of the successful Korean educational system looking for lesson that could be applied to the American system. Data was presented showing that the Korean system excels in international achievement tests, (Pearson, 2014), secondary and tertiary graduation rates (OECD, 2013a, 2013b), and that while both countries struggle with socio-economic achievement gaps, that Korea was able to effectively educate students from low socio-economic status (SES) families to a national standard (Akiba et al., 2007; Byun & Kim, 2010; Ladd, 2012). The data showed that while Korea is not the best in the world at educating the richest 10%, that award goes to Australia and New Zealand (Ladd, 2012), they

Martti Hellström stated, “Like the leader of an orchestra. I try to get the best out of each and every person in our school.”(Salberg, 2013, p.36). Martti Hellström is the headmaster of the Aurora Primary School located in Finland. Pearson is a leading company in education that provides most of students’ educational materials such as textbooks. Pearson also holds a standing of countries on an index that measures cognitive skills and education. The cognitive skills are measured by looking at global exams (such as the PISA) while the education attainment is measured by literacy and graduation rates. On the Index of cognitive skills and education, according to Pearson’s’ Global Index, Finland ranks 5th and the United States ranks 14th overall in the world. Since 2012, Finland has maintained its ranking on the index of cognitive skills and education while the United States fell from 11th to 14th position. The top four countries on the index of cognitive skills and education (South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong-Kong China) maintain fierce competition and have ranked above Finland since 2012 (Pearson). Why is the United States not in the top five rankings? The Eastern countries maintain the mentality to succeed in life while western countries, such as Finland, provides an exceptional education for those that aim to become professors and teachers.