The American School System in the 21st Century- What is Wrong With It. Tamesha Brown Strayer University Research and Writing ENG 215 Professor Gierczyk

The American School System in the 21st Century- What is Wrong With It. The American School System of this day and age put the children’s education secondary to politics. Although, one would get very little argument about how important it is for a child to receive an excellent education. Unfortunately it seems as if politics, greed, and the school system as a whole, puts the child education on the back burner. An article in the New Yorker put it best when it described the American school system of today as “Being like a democracy itself. It is loose, shaggy, and inefficient, full of redundancies and conflicting goals.”(Lemann,2010). Especially when a little over 40 years ago it was understood that the school system was intended “to enable kids to learn how to learn.” That is no longer the fact. Actually immediately after President George W. Bush, took office he proposed a bill that was passed by Congress on May 23, 2001 called the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). (Johnson,1998).This bill is based upon the belief that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education, which does just the opposite of what the system’s original goal was. With these present rules and regulations of the NCLB in place the only way that schools get federal funding, (which is most of its budget) is to pass the National Standardized Test. In Florida the test is called FCAT which mean Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. This has driven the focus off of teaching and more to making sure that the students pass the FCAT. Educators are now forced to teach their students how to memorize certain concepts and themes that will show up on