Our Children are Failing!!
What are we to do?
This latest report on the state of our nations education system is disappointing to say the least. Why are so many of our children still failing? What needs to be done to change this? How can we change this?
A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform is the title of the 1983 report of American President Ronald Reagan‘s National Commission on Excellence in Education. Its publication is considered a landmark event in modern American educational history. Among other things, the report contributed to the ever-growing (and still present) sense that American schools are failing miserably, and it touched off a wave of local, state, and federal reform efforts
By Wikipedia
Spellings Commission
2006
Secretary Spellings and former North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt at the announcement of the Secretary’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education
A significant motivation behind the Spellings Commission’s formation was the fear that the American higher education system is deteriorating and failing to prepare the American workforce for the rigors and competitiveness of the globalized marketplace. The Spellings Commission opens its report by stating that “higher education in the United States has become one of our greatest success stories.” but recently, as the commission bluntly states in its preamble, “[foreign higher education systems] are passing us by at a time when education is more important to our collective prosperity than ever.” The commission emphasizes the relationship between industry, education, and the government.
According to the commission, access to higher education “is unduly limited by the complex interplay of inadequate preparation, lack of information about college opportunities, and persistent financial barriers” (Commission Report 5). The commission blames the lack of communication between colleges and high schools as one source of the problem. The report states that “forty-four percent of university faculty members say students aren’t well prepared for college-level writing, in contrast to the 90 percent of high school teachers who think they are prepared” and “only 17 percent of seniors are considered proficient in mathematics, and just 36 percent are proficient in reading.”.
By Wikipedia
National Assessment of Education
2009
The results of the National Assessment of Education 2009, the National Report Card, was reported on October 14, 2009. After testing some 300,000 students nationwide the results are far less than encouraging. They reported that 61% of 4th graders are less than proficient (failing) and 66% of 8th graders are less than proficient (failing) in math. In reading the results are just as bad. Out of 500 points white 4th graders only averaged 258 correct and Hispanic 4th graders only averaged 222 correct.
By: MSNBC
In the past there have been many popular fad quick fix programs introduced into our school systems. They were all well meaning and great hopes were placed on them as they were embraced across this country. The fact is that almost every one of these innovations did work for one teacher in one classroom and then were blanketly applied to all classrooms. There was little or no real research done to validate these systems. The National Assessment of Education 2009 report has once again failed to validate these techniques, showing that they are not working.
As was pointed out in the Spellings Commission Report the answer is in communications, but that communication, in the classroom needs to be in a form that has a track record of over 50 years and has been proven to work in the scientific and business communities over and over. Doesn’t it make sense that with such a track record it’s about time that these communication techniques and skills entered the schools as well?
To hear and see the MSNBC report on the National Assessment of Education 2009 report go to www.mindmattersinst.com
This report is provided by:
The Mind Matters Institute www.mindmattersinst.com
The report is approved by:
The International Accreditation Association of Nuro-Linguistic Programming & Hypnotherapy
www.iaanlp.org
