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Our Declining Education System
| Term Paper Title |
Our Declining Education System |
| # of Words |
2209 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) |
8.84 |
Our Declining Education System
Our Declining Education System
According to "A Nation at Risk", the American education system has declined due
to a " rising tide of mediocrity" in our schools. States such as New York have
responded to the findings and recommendations of the report by implementing such
strategies as the "Regents Action Plan" and the "New Compact for Learning".
In the early 1980's, President Regan ordered a national commission to study
our education system. The findings of this commission were that, compared with
other industrialized nations, our education system is grossly inadequate in
meeting the standards of education that many other countries have developed. At
one time, America was the world leader in technology, service, and industry, but
overconfidence based on a historical belief in our superiority has caused our
nation to fall behind the rapidly growing competitive market in the world with
regard to education. The report in some respects is an unfair comparison of our
education system, which does not have a national standard for goals, curriculum,
or regulations, with other countries that do, but the findings nevertheless
reflect the need for change. Our education system at this time is regulated by
states which implement their own curriculum, set their own goals and have their
own requirements for teacher preparation. Combined with this is the fact that
we have lowered our expectations in these areas, thus we are not providing an
equal or quality education to all students across the country. The commission
findings generated recommendations to improve the content of education and raise
the standards of student achievement, particularly in testing, increase the time
spent on education and provide incentives to encourage more individuals to enter
the field of education as well as improving teacher preparation.
N.Y. State responded to these recommendations by first implementing the
Regents Action Plan; an eight year plan designed to raise the standards of
education. This plan changed the requirements for graduation by raising the
number of credits needed for graduation, raising the number of required core
curriculum classes such as social studies, and introduced technology and
computer science. The plan also introduced the Regents Minimum Competency Tests,
which requires a student to pass tests in five major categories; math, science,
reading, writing, and two areas of social studies. Although the plan achieved
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