Policy & Reform

When it comes to the U.S. education system, sometimes I feel like I don’t celebrate its successes enough. Its like I am Chicken Little, always writing about how the sky is falling as it pertains to our education preeminence. Because of this, I decided to write a piece detailing 6 reasons to celebrate the U.S. K-12 education system.

Our schools are better funded than other countries. Although we like to think of our schools as being perpetually underfunded, our per-pupil spending is still more than every other nation on the planet. Many of our peers in other countries work under inhuman conditions and with virtually no educational supplies. Although I am not saying that fully funding schools shouldn’t be a priority, but imagine, what a teacher in Uganda could accomplish with 1/10 of our resources.

Our schools are inclusive. Children with and without disabilities are educated in the same schools, usually in the same classroom, to the fullest extent possible. We call this least restrictive environment. Although we have a troubled past when it comes to the education of students with disabilities, for the past half a century, we have been slowing perfecting our inclusive schools. Sadly, this does not occur in many countries.

Our educators continually improve. In the U.S. teachers and education administrators alike are required to participate in professional development activities. These activities are meant to help educators sharpen their skills and become the best professional that they can be. Most teachers that I know attend graduate school at some point in their career, earning Masters and Doctoral degrees in the field of education. Because of this, we have the most educated teacher and education administrator corp in the world.

Schools provide transportation for their students. In the U.S. our school’s provide transportation for all students who do not live within an acceptable walking distance of their assigned school. This is no easy feat, as school transportation departments require a lot of resources to remain operational. This is a blessing, as students in some countries walk 5 miles or more to get to school.

Access to technology. We live in a hyperconnected age, where tech literacy is not an option, it’s a necessity. Our schools do an excellent job of providing our students with the tech literacy skills that they will need to compete in the global economy. To facilitate this, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars of tech devices and products.

Literacy rate. When it comes to literacy, we have one of the highest rates (99% literacy rate) in the world. This is impressive because as a nation of immigrants, a small but substantial percentage of our students first language is not English. Because of this, teaching them to read becomes more of a challenge. Teachers in countries like Cuba (99.8% literacy rate), where virtually everyone is of Latino or Afro-Latino descent and speak Spanish, have an easier time teaching students to read.

Can you think of any additional reasons?

Teaching is one of the most misunderstood professions on earth. From a distance, it looks like educators are glorified babysitters that may teach a few skills here and there. However, these people are dead wrong. Teaching is one of the most complex careers on earth, especially if you are doing it right. Educators have to wear several hats, serving as an instructor, disciplinarian, peacemaker, nurse, counselor, team member, teacher leader, etc. Also, they work long hours, many of which are invisible, meaning they occur outside of the traditional school day.

Don’t get it confused, we are the reason that all other professions exist. Your favorite writer learned grammar and composition from a K-12 English teacher. Your doctor learned anatomy and physiology from a K-12 Biology teacher. You state’s Governor learned about the three branches of government from a K-12 Social Studies teacher. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. In this short piece, I want to discuss 4 things that educators wished society understood about the education field.

Teacher certification is a rigorous process. To become a certified teacher in most states, you have to go through a teacher education program and tackle a challenging curriculum that ends with a culminating practicum, known as student teaching. During student teaching, pre-service teachers must demonstrate that they can handle the rigors of being a full-time teacher, which include instruction, classroom management, assessment, etc. You must also pass several teacher certification exams, which start as early as your freshman year. If you don’t pass these exams and graduate from an accredited teacher education program, you will never become a certified teacher.

Parent-Teacher partnerships are essential. For a student to reach their potential academically, teachers and parents have to be equally involved in their education. This is not an added bonus, it is a vital piece of the teaching and learning process. We understand that some parents may work several jobs to put food on the table and a roof over their families head, but without parental involvement, we can not do our job effectively. At the end of the day, when students don’t perform academically, we are held accountable by society, parents, and even our principals. Its like we are expected to complete a puzzle with 50% or less of the puzzle pieces.

Our salaries should be doubled, for starters. When you take into account our level of preparation, education, and job responsibilities, to pay us what we are worth teacher salaries should be doubled (for starters). It sickens me to read stories of educators who work 1-2 part-time jobs just make ends meet. In some cases, teachers are on welfare, and turn to food pantries, just to ensure that their families have enough to eat. It further infuriates when I hear private citizens and politicians suggest or flat out state that teachers are overpaid. In what world? I am so happy to see the growing trend of teachers running for public office and unseating the very incumbents that disrespect our profession.

The most optimal way to motivate students. When it comes to motivating students, many people resort to extrinsic motivation first, because it is the easiest to facilitate. Extrinsic motivation requires that you give a student some type of reward to get them to work hard and perform at an optimal level. This sets students up for failure because the world doesn’t always work like that. If they get used to receiving a reward for high performance, they may develop a syndrome where they only work hard when there is something in it for them.

A classic example is a child who works hard to receive praise from their teacher. In the absence of this praise, the child’s motivation to learn may drop. This is not to say that recognition as a form of motivation should not be used. It can be a powerful motivator, but it should not be used in a balanced way. To do this, you have cultivate intrinsic motivation in students, as a counterweight to extrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated students try their best all times, because they have developed a love for learning, and genuinely enjoy it. Marrying extrinsic and intrinsic motivation together is the best way to motivate students.

What did I miss?

Let’s play a little game. Class A has 30 students, and Class B has 15 students. The students are of equal ability and behavior, and the teachers are carbon copies of one another. Which one do you think will perform better, Class A or Class B. As you probably guessed, Class B will probably perform better because it contains a smaller number of students. But why does small class size led to better student performance? In this article, we will discuss 4 reasons why small class sizes lead to better student performance.

It reduces teacher workload. Being a teacher is arduous work. For most people, it will be one of the most challenging things that they will ever do in their lives. But what exactly makes it so difficult? Imagine having to manage 30 employees simultaneously, while also continuously training them, keeping an eye on their interactions, and keeping them safe. This is what teaching is like. As a teacher, you have to instruct, assess, remediate, correct bad behavior, referee disputes, etc. If you reduce the class size by 50%, you make a teachers job a lot easier, and in turn, they can do a better job.

It makes the classroom less chaotic. Imagine the average class. 30 students with varying degrees of temperament and intelligence, occupying the same space. Whenever you have a high density of people, you are bound to have more noise, more disagreements, and less comfortability. By no way am I saying that noise in a classroom is a bad thing, in many ways, it signals that learning is taking place, especially during group activities. But with noise comes less privacy and for some people, an inability to focus or think. With a smaller class size, there would be more privacy during group work, which could lead to higher levels of student focus, which should lead to higher levels of student performance. Also, it makes students more comfortable, as they have more room to maneuver and more personal space. Also, fewer students could mean a decrease in the number of arguments and disagreements.

More student engagement. When students have a strong relationship with their teachers, they are more likely to have high levels of academic engagement, which leads to increased student performance. This happens for two reasons. One, small class sizes have elevated levels of student performance, which becomes a part of the classroom culture. Students are expected to be high achievers, and in some ways, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, causing them to be highly engaged in their studies. Two, In classrooms with small class sizes, teachers have more time to develop deep relationships with their students, which motivates to become more engaged.

More one on one time. I was a special education teacher for many years, and I could always spot the classrooms where I would receive the largest amount of referrals for special education services. It was the classrooms where the number of students was way above 15. I am talking 20, 25, 30 students. Why? Because in these classrooms, teachers had the least amount of time to work with struggling learners, causing them to fall further behind. Unable to reflect and come to the conclusion that the child had not received the type of attention that needed, they always assumed that there was some sort of deficiency with the child. They could not accept the fact that due to no fault of their own, they were agents of a system that had failed to meet the child’s needs.

They would end up entering the child into the RTI (response to intervention) process, which is meant to help struggling students to catch back up academically. Of course, since the large class size was the real culprit, nothing changed. Frustrated, teachers and parents would have the child assessed for disabilities, and many ended up being eligible for special education services. I always protested because, in my professional opinion, the child didn’t have a learning disability, they had just fallen behind academically.

Academic underperformance that happens as a result of years of inadequate instruction is not a learning disability, it is a symptom of an education system that herds 25+ students in one classroom with one teacher, and could care less if they succeed. Assessments for special education are by nature unsophisticated, and in many instances, can’t differentiate between academic underperformance that is the manifestation of a disability or the result of years of poor instruction. There, I have said my peace about it.

What do you think? Does class size really matter?