A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education

On Tuesday I attended the January Series entitled “A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.” Although all of the January Series have been interesting, this one in particular was especially interesting to me because I am an education major. Pedro Noguera studies how schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment and spoke about school reform and the increasing achievement gap. Pedro stated that America is falling behind other countries in academic and graduation rates, which was a depressing statement for me to hear, although not surprising. This is where the idea of human purpose comes in. Organizations such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have been created to combat this decrease in American educational progress. We cannot just sit around and hope that it is going to get better on its own, because it won’t. But the problem with NCLB is that is focuses on the symptoms of the problem, rather than the causes. For example, a large portion of our society is living in poverty; therefore many students’ basic needs are not being met, but nothing is being done to help this situation.
Pedro also commented that one school that he visited had a “sick and dysfunctional culture,” including fear, blame and no collaboration among staff members. This type of culture is a direct result of sin and life of the “empire.” Many schools are broken in America and are not willing to make sacrifices to improve the situation. But, on a brighter note, one school that Pedro visited was a shining example of God’s Kingdom. The principal of the school is a wonderful woman who sacrifices her time and energy to help the school flourish, by restructuring the school, educating the parents of the students, making an after school program which goes all the way to six o’clock (which is when the shelters open) and instilling good values in the students, such as discipline, responsibility and citizenship. She also brought in many outside organizations to help her school, and when Pedro asked her who helped her do that, she replied that she did it on her own, “You think I could wait for the district to help me?” This principal’s will is encouraging to me and many others, demonstrating that where there is a will, there is a way: improving schools and increasing success really is possible, but radical changes must be made, and time and effort must be put into it.
1. How can we, as college students, do something to help improve the current education system?
2. Are bad teachers the cause of the failure of many schools in America, or is there something
else?