FREE ESSAY ON REFORMATIONS OF SCHOOL

REFORMATIONS OF SCHOOL

Education plays a fundamental role in the development of any nation. History is witness
that those nations who did not recognized the importance of education were doomed, and
education played a key role in the success of the developed nations. A successful country
like America faces many challenges regarding education. Some of these challenges are: how
to better achieve educational opportunity, and to find ways to deal with such problems
and educational dilemmas for American children. To find the answers and solutions to
these problems we can not ignore the dialogue of reforming of schools, instead, new ways
of education, restructuring of American schools, and recommendations to improve might be
the only answer to these problems. In the following paragraphs, problems like weak
curriculum and poor standards in the schools have been identified, and recommendations
have been made to eliminate these problems. Also the problems and errors regarding the
distribution of funds by the government for the schools have been addressed, and
recommendations have been made that these funding should be distributed equally and
accordingly to the states. The federal government should take this issue more seriously
and assist the states on a greater level.
It is a very sad fact that even now when we have entered the 21st century, a first world
country like America which is supposed to be a role model for the rest of the world is
facing the problem of poor standards in their schools such as goals, expectations, and
requirements. There is a great contradiction on people's standards vs. the school's
standards. People set high standards that are very hard and sometimes impossible to
achieve by students and teachers, whereas some schools do not match these standards and
even pass kids who cannot read or have poor educational skills. In order to have high
academic standards there has to be high performance in public education systems. The
system needs to be changed fundamentally. Teachers can play an important role and should
come together on a common platform to achieve a common goal and that is the improved
quality of education. Good communication between school, school boards, and school
administration is very important, so teachers can be heard and listened to. School should
only hire highly qualified and proficient teachers. Students are usually introduced to a
weak curriculum, most of the times they end up taking nonacademic courses than academic.
School days are very short and because of poor standard in teaching students lack the
opportunity to learn material in efficient ways. Some of the recommendations to make the
system more efficient are to increase the number of days in school year, students should
be allowed to take special courses and they should not be restricted to stay in general
educational programs only. To make the curriculum strong it should include the maximum
number of required academic courses. The requirements have to be very content. There has
to be tougher disciple and smaller classes in order to eliminate the problem. Policies
and programs should be controlled, and counselors should have to have control over
curriculum, and how the teaching occurs. 
Other recommendations to improve education include strong leadership by principals of
school. Along with the teacher's proficiency in the area of teaching, there has to be
staff harmony. To motivate teachers toward these changes, their school life style has to
be upgraded too. Teachers should have their own office their own phones and better
working conditions and attractive salaries. State should get greatly involved in the
public education as well. Graduation requirements for students should be set by the
state, and local districts should also have the ability to control schools. Local
counselors should be given more authority and they should be authorized to hire or fire
principals. Parents with low incomes who are unable to give their children basic school
education should be assisted financially, and children should have more freedom to
communicate and interact with teachers. Groups in the school should be more flexible
depending on the student's abilities. The same teachers should stay with a group of
students for two or three years so they have a better chance to learn the weaknesses and
strengths of the students, and it is easy for them to help the students along the way.
Middle schools should be in the separate buildings. Efficient high schools should be
encouraged and assisted in their efforts whereas the ones who are doing poor as far as
standards are concerned should be shutdown. 
All the mentioned recommendations of high standards, comes the high prices. Financial
issues cannot be ignored in the real world. All these reforms and the implementations of
new ways of educations are possible if the financial obstacles are taken care of.
Currently funding for schools comes from three different sources: it comes from
districts, state, and federal government. 40% to 60% comes from district or property
taxes, 60% to 40 % comes from state taxes, and 5% to 15% comes from federal taxes. "In
some states there is five times as much spending on students in some school districts as
in others ($15,744 versus $2,932 during 1994-95 in Illinois, for example)" (by Patricia
Albjerg Graham, article#1). If we observe the above data, it is very noticeable that
federal government is playing a less active role in financing the education. One way to
provide high quality of education is that federal government should get more involve with
the current schooling system. Parents in general public can play their part and instead
of criticizing the present system, they should elect the candidates in the government who
give higher priority for the education and reserve more funds for the improvement and
reforming of the school systems. 
Bibliography
References:
? Textual Resources:
a) Article #1 (Educational dilemma for Americans).
b) Article #2 (Restoring the impulse to Dream).
c) Article #3 (How to teach a children).
d) Class notes.
? Non-textual Resources:
a) American School Board Journal (March 2000 issue).
b) Http://education-world.com.
c) Reforming American Education from the Bottom to the Top by Evans Clinchy.
d) One on one conversation with parents.