A perennial issue has been whether the educational institutions in America are failing students in the pursuit of scholarship. What efforts should be made to resurrect the reputation of a country to qualify it as a leader in providing quality academic standards and transmit proper knowledge to its population?
This is a thorny issue with divided opinions as to what solutions may be provided to make the educational climate far more successful. However, there is no doubt there is an admission on the part of educationalists and intellectuals that there has been a steady demise and erosion of high standards, with the very experience and administration of learning and teaching on a steady downward slide.
Alan Bloom’s indictment of the system ruffled a lot of feathers and his views and analysis of the causes of a downward spiral in our education standards in his controversial book The Closing of the American Mind, published in 1987, that was a harsh critique of our modern university education, presented our educational system as a miserable experiment. It, nevertheless, with more vigor, ignited the ongoing debate about what constitutes an education geared toward academic excellence. Admittedly though, there were other voices concomitant to Alan Bloom’s analysis with different shades of assessments and solutions to help an ailing educational system, which the majority viewed as having betrayed true scholarship and had ill-served the community. And the recognition was that this was not only the case at the level of university education but had its roots down to kindergarten itself and there was a need to address the problem in view of the failing standard of knowledge—even basic knowledge—which citizens should have.
The recognition that educational standards were steadily eroding, brought about the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 by Congress and it certainly was a thoughtful program to be legislated. But it is not possible for a certain program to have great impact without constant reviews and ongoing revisions. After all, education is tied inextricably to society itself, and like it, it is a changing entity requiring dynamic changes. It is encouraging to note that the government has addressed this problem after the President promised he would make this a priority. And while it would be naïve to think that any single program will serve as a panacea in moving everything in the desired direction, it at least is indicative of how the government has recognized how declining standards in education need to be viewed seriously.
Very recently, Barack Obama in December 2015 introduced a more progressive legislation in signing the Every Student Succeeds Act replacing the NCLB Act. This is all good news, but far more needs to be done to revamp a failing educational and literacy standard in America.
Just observing some staggering collection of facts, which I am outlining below from Ray William’s blog “Post Anti-Intellectualism and the Dumbing Down of America,” underscores the great need for emphasis in educating America.
- After leading the world for decades in 25-34 year olds with university degrees, the U.S. is now in 12th place. The World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. at 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its university math and science instruction in 2010. Nearly 50% of all graduate students in the sciences in the U.S. are foreigners, most of whom are returning to their home countries;
- The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs commissioned a civic education poll among public school students. A surprising 77% didn’t know that George Washington was the first President; couldn’t name Thomas Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence; and only 2.8% of the students actually passed the citizenship test. Along similar lines, the Goldwater Institute of Phoenix did the same survey and only 3.5% of students passed the civics test;
- According to the National Research Council report, only 28% of high school science teachers consistently follow the National Research Council guidelines on teaching evolution, and 13% of those teachers explicitly advocate creationism or “intelligent design;”
- 18% of Americans still believe that the sun revolves around the earth, according to a Gallup poll;
- The American Association of State Colleges and Universities report on education shows that the U.S. ranks second among all nations in the proportion of the population aged 35-64 with a college degree, but 19th in the percentage of those aged 25-34 with an associate or high school diploma, which means that for the first time, the educational attainment of young people will be lower than their parents;
- 74% of Republicans in the U.S. Senate and 53% in the House of Representatives deny the validity of climate change despite the findings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and every other significant scientific organization in the world;
- According to the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 68% of public school children in the U.S. do not read proficiently by the time they finish third grade. And the U.S. News & World reported that barely 50% of students are ready for college level reading when they graduate;
- According to a 2006 survey by National Geographic-Roper, nearly half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 do not think it necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news is being made. More than a third consider it “not at all important” to know a foreign language, and only 14 percent consider it “very important;”
- According to the National Endowment for the Arts report in 1982, 82% of college graduates read novels or poems for pleasure; two decades later only 67% did. And more than 40% of Americans under 44 did not read a single book–fiction or nonfiction–over the course of a year. The proportion of 17 year olds who read nothing (unless required by school ) has doubled between 1984-2004;
- Gallup released a poll (link is external) indicating 42 percent of Americans still believe God created human beings in their present form less than 10,000 years ago;
- A 2008 University of Texas study found that 25 percent of public school biology teachers believe that humans and dinosaurs inhabited the earth simultaneously.