snowy

Hey, thanks man.

I don't think that's it at all. There are a number of brilliant people out there who put other opportunities aside to spend their lives in a classroom. I consider myself fortunate to have had some of them as teachers. You are right in that the low pay of the profession is discouraging to some. Another major issue in regard to staffing is high teacher turnover. Young teachers are burning out across the United States at an astounding rate, largely because many teaching colleges fail to adequately prepare new teachers for the reality of a classroom in an American public school, and many schools fail to pair young teachers up with a master teacher mentor.

There are a number of problems with the education system in the United States today. One of the major ones is accountability. No Child Left Behind attempts to make schools accountable to a national standard, but the way it goes about it is abysmal; taking funding away from a school that's failing is ridiculous. It attempts to address the issue presented in the OP of social promotion, but it doesn't work out well in practice.

Part of it is that we've failed to teach students how to be accountable. We can address this in the early years by making sure that students are able to deal with routines, both at home and at school, and are successful in creating their own personal routines. We can educate parents so that they encourage positive scholastic habits in their children. We can work with children so that they are better able to focus and develop an inner locus of control, as well as a sense of self-efficacy in the classroom and motivation by intrinsic benefits. However, this takes more staffing that we currently provide, especially in the early years. 32 states fail to meet NAEYC guidelines for staffing ratios in early childhood education.

Almost all of the problems that crop up later on in school could be prevent with better early childhood education and better parental education. Parents need to be empowered to hold their children accountable for schoolwork, to reinforce positive scholastic behaviors, and to know how to effectively use positive discipline to address problems.

All of these things are barely the tip of the iceberg. There are more problems than that, but the school system is like an onion--one layer after another: the federal government, the state, the local area/municipality, the school district, the school itself, the classroom. All of these things affect each situation, and they all do so in a unique context and combination of factors.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau