As I mentioned in my last blog student loans are becoming more common and are in high demand due to higher rates of unemployment and debt within families, a result of the recent financial crisis. Not only are low-income families affected by the economy failure, middle class families are also finding it harder and harder to put their children through college.The federal government is doing its best to supply loans to families in need but with both tuition costs and the federal deficit at an all-time high, this is more easily said than done. Although the government has been able to provide some loans to most families in need, they rarely cover the entire cost of tuition and many students must find other means of paying their tuition in full. Both Obama and McCain seem to agree that student loans are an important aspect in allowing students to receive a higher education as well as that reform is needed on the no child left behind act in K-12 schools.
Before I discuss lower level education more thoroughly I want to recall one of my older blog posts dealing with loans versus merit-based scholarships. The federal government right now offers a majority of its aid in the form of loans because it fairer for low-income and minority students who normally don't have the grades to earn scholarships. The capability of minority and low-income students to earn good grades is a result of both the schools they attend and their family background. One way the government is trying to improve education and school quality is through the controversial no child left behind act. While this act, originally designed to bring all students at every American school to proficiency in reading and math by 2014, has helped students show improvement, many people, particularly teachers believe it places way to much emphasis on standardized tests and sets near impossible standards. For example in California students are required to increase 11% in proficiency each year until 100% is reached and many states have more rigorous testing than others . In order to improve this act, Congress should lower the requirements it sets but continue to place emphasis on highly-qualified educators and improvement in schools. If there was another way to determine the effectiveness of the act besides testing I believe the act would help improve schools much more efficiently because teachers would not have to base their curriculum according to tests.
2 comments:
Caitlin,
I completely agree that the emphasis on standardized testing is not achieving what the government believes it would. Teachers are evaluated on how well their students perform on these tests, and, therefore, teach for the test and not for the sake of learning. I once had a teacher refer to this act as the "no teacher left employed act," and if the requirements are not changed, this may not be unrealistic.
Daniel,
You are completely right, because of the No Child Left Behind Act, many teachers can not teach some of the things they would like to teach that might help students out because they are so busy trying to make sure that students know the information covered in the tests. Standardized tests are a real problem because they restrict teachers to a certain area of teaching and make it harder to think outside of the box. The problem is that how would officials measure how well schools are operating and what students have learned without standardized tests? It would make it very difficult for states to judge how well their schools are doing without standardized tests. A better method of measurement needs to be developed but until that happens, I doubt standardized tests will be done away with.
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