As the needs of people in the country of the United States continue to develop and expand, so do the policies. The laws and regulations need to keep up with the wants and needs of society to keep the country pleased and functioning in a relevant way. One need of the people in the country would be education and its policies. As time has gone on, many factors within the education system changed, such as who was allowed to gain an education, what schools would teach the students, what were the most important subjects to be presented in schools, etc.
Drastic changes have been happening in the education system in recent years to keep up with the needs of all the people in the system. Not only in terms of the actual material have there been changed, but even in 1946 when a “US education policy that immediately affected students nationwide” was President Harry Truman signing the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act in 1946, which funded the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to provide nutritionally balanced free or reduced-cost lunches to school children daily” was presented which was aimed to help the students themselves and not what the students were learning. Even in more recent news such as when Michelle Obama was pushing for healthier school lunches for students, even those with lower income as “research also shows that when students have access to healthy lunches, they perform better in school”.
Other policies such as allowing each individual state to create their own curriculum is another advancement in education policies that have allowed for a better flow of the school systems in the modern-day. For example, Connecticut used to have students take a state standardized test called the CMT for elementary school students, “Pennsylvania has paid $425 million for the Keystone test for high school students and the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exam for elementary school students”, and many other states have their own set of tests that are best fit for their curriculum and standards. Many of these tests are created and removed as time goes on, policies are created, and the needs of students change. There are also certain tests in Connecticut schools that are beneficial such as placement tests from k-12 public schools that allow English teachers to see your reading level so they can best understand how to help you succeed and grow throughout the year. Every state has its own version of this placement test whether it be a different computer system that they use, if it’s on paper, etc.
One major policy change is the addition of technology in the school setting. It started with “educational software and interactive white boards, which have already made their way into classrooms, shifting how many educators teach and how many students learn. With new advancing technologies, more educational tools will become available and will further affect the teaching and learning in future classrooms”. The United States continued to urbanize and along with that came the new modernization of technology. Google applications such as Google docs or Google spreadsheet became popular amongst most teachers and schools. These new tools and advancements have become more practical for students and teachers and this is beneficial for the education system because if the system is outdated then students will fall behind and not be prepared for the real world. These new movements have created shifts from traditional teaching methods as well. Students can now learn at their own pace with there being “educational software-that makes- it possible to personalize learning content to the skill levels of individual students’ ‘. Kids are learning at their own levels and ability, eliminating the feeling of being lesser than another student due to not being able to keep up with the material in class. It has been notably agreed by many professionals that everyone learns at their own pace, so creating policies that allow for these education software in the classroom is crucial for all students, not just those who may be struggling compared to their peers. “This easy access to information has pushed many to reconsider what types of knowledge and skills students will need to succeed in their lives”, opening new ideas and inspirations for students and creating a new passion for learning.
Education is one of the most important things to all people of all ages across the country, and making sure it is keeping up with all of these people’s needs is so important. Policies in education updating and staying current are crucial for creating educated people to be put out into the workforce to create a working environment that is best adapted to society and its wants and needs.
I definetly agree with revising the school system because the way that we learn is constantly changed based on the new technology that we have and advancements that are made to help us learn more. I think the way that schools test a childs undertsanding of the material should also change depending on the class because many students learn in different ways or even have a hard time taking a test thats on a scantron. There should be alternative methods for everyone to be able to share their understanding of the topic.
There is way more than one type of intelligence and allowing students to demonstrate their type I think would allow for more overall confidence in school work and allow for the students to be given a chance when it comes to academic achievement.
Education is a central value for all Americans. I think part of the reason we need to keep up and update our policies is to adapt to our changing environment. Additionally, there is continuous research into education. So, as we discover how to best teach students, we need to change our curriculum. This issue expands outside the classroom, as some policies will pertain to student safety and larger socio-economic factors that are in play.
This is a big factor that I think needs to be recognized when boards of education are trying to update the curriculum and the system. there have been so many studies on intelligence done not too recently so the information is not anything new, that proves there is more than one type of intelligence and standardized testing only supports one of those types.
In addition to the different forms of intelligence, studies have proven that tracking is harmful for the lower tracking groups. It is not helpful to group students based on their performance. This especially hurts minority and low income students.
I think the concept of a standardized curriculum needs to be approached in a different manner. It is hard to believe the lack of life skills taught in high school, especially to those higher achieving students who primarily focus on maintaining a gpa and so on. I personally was very focused on academic achievement in high school, yet I haven’t maintained much of the information I studied then, and find myself learning it over and over again. I still don’t know how to balance a checkbook or be a functional adult in general.
That is another thing, schools required us to memorize “useless” things like math equations but never taught us real-life stuff, and most of the stuff we learned in high school did not stick. I too was a high achiever when it came to academics, was an honor student, and always tried my best but never scored well on tests like that because it was not the way my brain knew how to demonstrate my knowledge.
I agree that our school systems need reworking. Trying to find the right answer for how they are run and the curriculum they use is a very different task. I always struggled with standardized tests because I would lose focus, so I agree there can be a different way to measure what a student has learned.
I also struggled with those tests as well so I always felt dumb but I knew that I was a good student, I just shoed my knowledge in other ways and this is something that is more common in today’s world and needs to be implemented in today’s educational system.