A View of Education

I am currently a student teacher in the Los Angeles area, but have been involved in public schools for the past 7 years.

Something needs to be done about the crises in education. This past semester I worked with 6 middle school students that were borderline dropouts. Out of the 6, 4 raised their grades to B's and 2 did drop out. There will always be drop outs, but to alleviate this I believe that we need to adopt more of a European Educational model. By this I mean more vocational schools and classes. My reasoning is as follows:

Because of NCLB and a Nation at Risk (1983) standardized testing has been taken from it's original purpose to monitor Title I funding, to actually allocating the funding itself. Worrying about these schools, especially in low-income high immigrant areas have no choice but to teach for the test. Many of the students not only become bored, but also drop out from the rigorous schedule (I think the latter is more of the case). In fact, one middle school that I worked at has been taken over by the district for failing to raise its API. At this school 99.5% have their meals subsidized by the state.

I believe that it is time America drops this attitude that every student is a star scholar. It just is not the case. The Baby Boomer generation had metal shop, auto shop, wood shop, and varies other vocational classes that taught a life long skill. This allowed students who would not go to college a reason to keep attending. Because of funding being allocated towards the standard curriculum these resources have been cut, if not completely removed, from our school systems. What then do the students have to fall back on? There is nothing and so they drop out. Europe has a great model that is strong in vocation instruction for those not interested in algebra, science, reading, or college

An area that I fully disagree with is technology being the key. Yes it is important, studies have shown that technology is a good classroom aide. But I have seen teachers overuse technology to the point where it just waists class time in preparation, money, and resources. Studies have shown students who come from single parent homes, but are provided pencils, papers, and books are just as successful than students that come from a two parent middle class homes. Think of how many more pencils, papers, and books we can buy instead of just 10 computers. Technology is not the problem, the funding allocation is. We need to focus on necessities (things we take for granted) and not on furls.