America: The Land of the Uneducated

I am a victim of a poor education. It came to me during my first semester of college that I am struggling much harder than my school mates. Why is this? Because I went through a school system where education was not valued. Teachers were unqualified for their positions and the academics were pitiful. The curriculum was taught just to get by. As a result of that, I come to college grossly unprepared for the academic challenges put before me. But I do know one thing, I am not to blame. Writers, such as Randal C. Archibold, Benjamin R. Barber, Ted Gest, Michael Moore, and the authors of “Tough Choices or Tough Times” and Michael Winerip expound on how the education system is not preparing students for the “real world” . The authors propose that some of the major problems in American education are substandard curriculum and insufficient school funds.
The majority of the authors concur that the major underlying problems of school curriculums would include the standardization of education, the education level itself, and the fact that we have uneducated teachers. Several of the authors maintain that education should be on a continuous upward motion, constantly learning new information and broadening the mind. However, many schools have implemented standardized state tests that control the way curriculum is taught and stifle further growth. The writers of “Tough” put it “Many states have tests that students must pass to graduate from high school. But few require more than an 8th-grade-level of literacy in international terms” (51). As Winerip, columnist of the New York Times quotes Priscilla Rorie, a teacher at Agassiz Public School, in “Going for Depth Instead of Prep”, ''Everything at the Agassiz is teaching to the state tests [...] it's deadening for teachers and kids. They follow the state testing curriculum block by block.”