The debate over the problem of education has been around for years – but we can’t stop talking now. As a whole, the United States is underperforming when it comes to making sure kids have a solid, high-quality education. This might seem hard to believe, especially for most students enrolled in prestigious universities like Notre Dame, who attended high schools that adequately prepared them for higher education. But the reality of the situation is that the majority of secondary schools are not graduating college-bound students, let alone students who are proficient in core subjects like math and English. A recent Harvard study found that of the graduating high school class of 2011, only about 30% were actually considered proficient in reading and math, with the numbers for minority students falling even lower.
Popular documentaries like Waiting for Superman, The Lottery, and CNN’s “Don’t Fail Me: Education in America” have outlined problems and solutions. Usually, the blame is handed to the public school system with the solution of implementing charter schools – high profile schools that promise excellence as an alternative to sub-par traditional public schools. Charter schools are subject to most of the same regulations as public schools and are open to everyone, but select their students through a lottery since they attract large numbers of people but only have a finite number of spots. This is the dramatic selling point for documentaries such as Waiting for Superman and The Lottery – the possibility of a better education tied with exclusivity that is based entirely on chance. However, there is little conclusive evidence as to whether charter school students really do perform better than public school students in the same area. A study done by Stanford University in 2009 determined that charter schools perform comparably, if not worse than their public school counterparts, with only 17% of charter schools performing better.
So why generate so much hype over schools that might not ultimately be beneficial? One of the most attractive reasons to attend a charter school is that for students in low-income areas, a better quality educational environment would lead to better opportunities in higher education as well as employment. Programs like Teach for America and City Year recognize this and strive to provide schools in low-income areas of the United States with dedicated instructors that strive to make high-quality secondary education available to everyone.
Another way of looking at charter schools is that they are only one proposed solution to a deeply rooted problem. Others look to the government for reform, but programs like Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act and Obama’s “Race to the Top” are heavily based on standardized exams and funding – if students don’t achieve the necessary scores, their schools don’t receive federal funding. This is supposed to encourage schools to better prepare their students, but when states are allowed to set their own standards like in NCLB, they also have the power to lower them for subsequent years – or already struggling schools are made worse by lack of funding. No real progress is being made.
This is where the question of the eponymous “Superman” comes in from the documentary Waiting for Superman. If every effort for reform is falling short, what happens then? Who or what is going to “save” our failing schools?
This is the first of a series of three articles about education reform and equal opportunity.
Read more about the mission of Teach for America and City Year at: https://www.teachforamerica.org/ and http://www.cityyear.org