Education Сrisis in USA
The education crisis in USA can be seen in schools, colleges and universities and is affecting not only the policymakers, but is reflected in every sphere of social and economic development of the nation. American students, when compared to kids in nations such as Finland, South Korea or China, stand out as underachievers which seem to threaten the nation’s global position. According to the scores of tests administered to high school students such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the USA falls behind sixteen nations in terms of literacy and drops even further in mathematical skills.
The blame game for the current education scenario in the USA may include the teachers, the lawmakers, the students themselves, essay writing services and more importantly the parents who can be empowered to make a difference to the learning outcomes of their school children.
State of Public Education System
Statistics reveal that education offered by public schools in America is increasingly failing to meet the expectations of students as well as teachers and parents. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP 2012), “three out of four eighth-and 12th-grade students cannot write proficiently”. Statistics also show that nearly 1.1 million students in USA drop out of the education system every year. After 1945, USA had the enviable status of topping over the other industrialized nations in having the highest rate of high school graduates. However, today it is ranked 22 in the list of 27 industrialized nations as per the results of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2012).
Nearly 30 percent of students in the USA do not reach college and those who do are not adequately prepared as opined by college professors who feel that high school education does not prepare the students to fit into the demands of college education.
Higher Education Crisis
For many people, college education seems unaffordable owing to the expenses involved in pursuing a four-year degree course, with private universities being more expensive than public universities. Student debts have increased with the average student debt being more than $27,000. Apart from the serious problem of cost issue, the fiscal health of many colleges and educational institutes is unstable owing to factors such as budget allocations, student debts and regulatory risks.
Only about a little more than half of the students enrolled in colleges successfully pass out within six years. Besides, there is a serious mismatch of skills as reported by the employers. Microsoft predicts that the American economy will have more than 120,000 computing jobs annually that will require a bachelor’s degree. Currently, the higher education institutes in the USA are churning out only 40,000 graduates in Computer Science annually.
With that being said, the education crisis in USA can be put on the path of recovery with improvements in the major areas. The first thing that should be done is control over the increasing cost of higher education. Secondly, skills and education provided in colleges need to match the requirements of the businesses. It’s time for government to take steps to remedy the situation, keeping in mind that the young are the future workers and contribute to the well-being of the community and nation as a whole.