The USA is among the first world Nations with an excellent educational system. Over the years, USA ranks among the best in the provision of quality education. The ranking is explained by the diversification of different races all over the world going to the USA in search of this quality schooling. However, the recent statistics have seen the USA drop in its rankings as compared to other first world nations.
A report by the The National Center on Education and Economy (NCEE) a firm mandated to research on educational systems around the world held a conference that hostedSchool leaders, politicians and education secretaries. The aim was to release the recent rankings of educational systems per country.
How did the USA perform?
The United States ranks the best in all sectors making it the superpower. The recently released results in educational ranking saw the USA become 17th in the total rankings. There were poor performances in various subjects as compared to others. The USA performed well in the sciences and mathematics, although it didn’t emerge number one in the rankings in issue. Some factors were laid down as to why the USA was outperformed by countries in Asia and Finland. These findings, based on
social, economic and political contribution in educational matters.
Selected factors behind the USA drop in educational ranking
The factors considered were arrived at after comparison of the educational
systems of the top countries with the USA. It was observed that the USA had a big gap between the students who performed highly and the ones who scored low marks, unlike other countries that showed consistent performance. Secondly, the state was not that supportive on the schooling sytem. Much effort was left to the school administrations to work on how the schools could run. Poor educational facilities also contributed to the little performance while in the other countries, standard
facilities existed. Use of old libraries with old books blocked students from accessing new information. Highly paid teachers at the expense of content generation was also a factor. It was observed that teachers were paid, highly but delivered low content. Other competing countries had a stable education system with teachers allowed to teach if they had a masters degree.
Other factors were based on the poorly designed examination strategies, especially the ‘gateway test’ that allowed a student to proceed to the next level. A compressed pre-school program that did not include self-examination and self-reliance tutorials also was a factor to note. Segregation, where classes for gifted students were available, caused performance drop as this created rifts in educational support. In countries like Finland, educational opportunities are equal, and there is no division of bright and low performing students.
In conclusion, it was observed that American schools are great and the high schools and Middle colleges performed very well as compared to the lower classes. With the observations above, the American system will be great again if amicable resolutions are put in place to salvage the educational system.
