Thursday June 24

The education of American students is being hurt by the tough economic times of our country. The trimming of school budgets by state legislatures has led to school districts receiving less state funding. What this means is that, since school districts have less money, they have to cut back on some novelty education materials, such as computers and other technological items (Rieman 2008). I believe that this is very dreadful because the majority of the students in high school use computers and technology. I mean if you don’t agree with me, then go as a kid if they have a Myspace, Facebook, or Twitter. I am sure that you will find out that the majority of the kids do have one of these three social networks. Therefore, the generation of students of the present has the access to these technologies outside of school, but when they are in school, they are stuck reading out of a tedious textbook.
Bad grades can both be the fault of the student, or the teacher. There are two parts to this story. Some teachers are friendly, kind, and passionate about teaching and building relationships with their students. To me, these are considered to be good teachers. I believe that because personally, when a teacher likes what he/she does and takes the effort to construct a relationship with his/her pupils for the year to follow, it just makes a student feel more wanted and urges the student to learn. The persona of a bad teacher is one of those teachers’s that just puts you to work right away, without explaining anything. These teachers just make me angry. They aren’t teaching you anything by making you read a book. They are just passing time so they can get a pay check. Just because you have been teaching for thirty years, it does not mean that you are a good teacher. It just means that it was nearly impossible for someone to fire you, so they were left with no choice, but to let you remain as a member of the faculty. Teachers are somewhat accountable for the way that their students perform. If the teacher is a good teacher and has taught the class properly, then the student should have no excuse to perform poorly. That is unless the student doesn’t care about their future or their present. Those students are just a waste of time and a desk. They shouldn’t even bother waking up early in the morning and coming to a place of education to just take up oxygen that can be used by someone else who is motivated to do something in their life.
The “Race to the Top” is a program created by the Obama Administration that focuses on giving states grants upon the progress they make in their schools. It is a 4.3 billion dollar race that will help the economy and the schools get better. The most important thing that this program is set out to do, is to motivate students, teachers, and schools to competitively perform at an elite level of education and to raise their standards (Hamilton 2009). I believe that this is a very good program. It sounds like it can help out many schools. Maybe the schools will finally realize that the tenure teachers that are teaching their classes with obsolete methods are hurting the students rather than helping them. Hopefully this reform causes change in many schools throughout the country, and the respect for an American education is rejuvenated.

Hamilton, Justin. "President Obama, U.S. Secretary of Education Duncan Announce National Competition to Advance School Reform." U.S. Department of Education. 24 July 2009. Web. 25 June 2010.
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Rieman, Heather. "The Economy and Education- Will the Budget Crunch Facing States Affect Education Spending | New America Blogs." NewAmerica.net. 31 July 2008. Web. 25 June 2010. .

- Ali Raza