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What’s Wrong With Today’s Teachers?

What’s wrong with today’s teachers? It’s a well known fact that academic performance is suffering in American society. National standardized testing reveals increasingly poor performance in reading comprehension, mathematics, science and every other area of academics for grades K through 12. So what exactly is it about teachers today that has resulted in the dumbing down of American children?

How could these collective individuals allow the educational system to get so far out of hand? After all, teachers have a union. Surely that means they must wield substantial power over the local, state and federal bureaucratic management of our children’s education, right? All we ever hear about is how teachers are paid less and less every year and forced to do more with a dwindling budget. What about poor parents who are expected to show an active interest in their children’s future? Isn’t it enough that they sired the children and drop them off at the mall or provide a television set for entertainment? I mean, really…given the choice between expecting and demanding more of our kids academically and encouraging them to participate in athletics, who wouldn’t choose football and cheerleading?

Thankfully, not everyone is complacent with the current state of affairs. A quick look at educationally related news from around the country shows several stories featuring parents suing schools because their children misbehave, are reprimanded for wearing inappropriate clothing that goes against school policy or refuse to follow rules designed to keep kids collectively focused on the task at hand. It sure is comforting to know that parents like these are teaching their kids what’s really important in life. After all, wouldn’t it go against the “rugged individualism” this country strives toward if kids were told they don’t always need to be the center of attention? Besides, if it weren’t for managing the increasingly combative, disruptive and apathetic behavior we’ve worked so hard to teach our children by example, what we be paying teachers for in the first place?

And just because budget cutbacks decried by the same taxpayers who refuse to pay more for their own children’s education result in overwhelming class sizes, that’s still no excuse for our education system’s poor performance. If anything, learning environments where kids get less individual attention serve to prepare them for the modern state of parenthood, right?

Yes, it’s obvious…the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of teachers. Why blame our society’s overwhelming attitude of pride toward being uninterested in math and science? Why blame unruly children who aren’t getting any attention, guidance or discipline at home? Why blame salaries that are barely enough to live on and education budgets that pale in comparison to the amount of money spent on waging pointless, fruitless wars that devastate the lives of countless innocent civilians abroad? Everyone knows that people living outside of American shores don’t matter anyway, right?

Yes, we could examine the aforementioned, but that might force us to examine ourselves, how we live, how we vote and why we’ve lost all sense of personal accountability and responsibility. Why do that when we can do things the American way…let’s just continue to blame teachers.

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American College Students Fall Far Behind in Mathematics and Science

It’s no secret that our elementary schools are far less adept than many of their overseas counterparts at extolling the virtues of mathematics and science to students, which makes a recent report on National Academics from former Lockheed Martin chief Norman Augustine on the state of collegiate math and science programs no great surprise.

According to the report, increased research funding increases, math and science education measures and tax-credit changes are needed to keep the nation competitive in math and sciences. In truth, financial considerations are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to diagnosing the full extent of the problem.

Today, children born in the U.S. are simply far less interested in math and sciences than children born in other countries, which has little to do with geography and everything to do with culture. While there are exceptions, the general population of the nation has afforded decreasing value to mathematics and science, instead opting to focus on more liberal arts related fields of academia. While enrollment in arts and humanities, information technology and business degree programs grows exponentially, math and sciences are little more than an afterthought to most students entering college.

At the heart of the problems is a culture who takes pride in not only avoiding mathematics and science, but being relatively smug about doing so. Children are following their parents lead and the results are evident. A recent Raytheon Corporation survey of 1,000 11-to-13-year-olds found that 84% said they would “rather clean their room, eat their vegetables, go to the dentist or take out the garbage than learn math or science.” Last year, 12th-graders tested well below the international average for 21 countries in mathematics and science in nationally administered exams. Worse yet, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, roughly one-third of the fourth-graders and one-fifth of the eighth-graders cannot perform basic mathematical computations.

Perhaps what’s needed is not a policy change but a cultural change: one in which our society takes greater responsibility for the future of our children. Much like environmental issues, what may seem far away today can be a source of problems for future generations. Only by changing our collective attitude toward these problems can we expect to solve them.