Civic Issues

Civic issues; this world and our nation in particular are full of them. However, there is one that I have continually felt a heavy conviction about: the education system in the United States. I have a varied educational background. I have gone to both private and public schools; I was enrolled in a public school in South Carolina (one of the worst states for quality of public education; http://www.alec.org/publications/report-card-on-american-education/); I attend a public state university, but am from out-of-state. My mother is also a teacher. She has taught in Mississippi, South Carolina, and Ohio, and has been a special education teacher and a teacher of the visually impaired. She is also very vocal about her views on education reform. I have spent my life surrounded by conversations revolving around education, whether it was about my own (whether a private or public elementary school better, which high school to attend when I moved to Ohio, what college was the best for me both academically and financially), my sister’s, my mother’s employment, or just national discussion regarding the education system playing on NPR or showing on the news. My view on the national education system has been developing for as long as I can remember.

However, I never really thought I had a view on the subject until I began applying to college. But everything I had been hearing my entire life culminated into a personal view on education that was being revealed as I explored colleges, leading me to controversial questions I had to answer myself. Why was college tuition so much, and why wasn’t anyone doing anything about it? Why were colleges so focused on diversity, and why was a seemingly good thing appearing to hurt my friends and I as we tried to get accepted to our dream schools? Was a public or a private college more beneficial for my education, and was the ridiculous tuition of private institutions really worth it? These questions spun in my head, and I began realizing that after some research, I was answering my questions with my own opinions on the greatly discussed civic issue of the United States’ education system.

5 thoughts on “Civic Issues

  1. Great motivation. I feel so confident that you’ll pursue the tough questions that must be asked and answered. I’m happy to brainstorm with you. The Chronicle of Higher Ed could be a tremendous resource as it often features stories that grapple with these questions.

  2. It sounds like you have a really diverse educational background, which I think is really cool- I’ve only ever attended public schools in Pennsylvania, so my experience with our national education is limited to one specific area. I’m really looking forward to hearing what you have to say about public and private schooling in other states and discussing many of the pertinent issues that you have mentioned here- the price of college tuition, diversity, etc.

  3. As you know last semester I did some research of college tuition with my group for our video project. After the research I must admit there are a lot of unsolved problems’ existense in the America college system. Due to the high tuition fee, a large portion of the population can not pay for their college fee, which slow down the expansion of college education. America used to the world leading power of college graduates numbers, but now Japan, Korea and other countries in the world already took her place.
    So what is the cause of all this? I guess that’s what we are going to find out through our study during this semester.

  4. I like your perspectives on the college education. Now that we are college students, this has become very relevant, and I’m sure we can all relate. I like the background you have with this topic (my mom is a teacher too!), and I can relate as most of my family has been or still are educators/administrators.

  5. I completely agree with it seems that the education system in the US, specifically at the university level, is broken. During a time where studies show the amount of jobs that require a college degree is about to take off, we still have a large percent of the population who ask the quite reasonably question: with how much it costs, is it worth it?

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