State of the Educational System

In the article "What Our Education System Needs Is More F's," Carl Singleton makes use of the startling statement in the title to attract attention and then develops his thesis by examining the title's implications. Singleton wants to emphasize the terrible state of the educational system and his view that the system began to decay when it started passing students who were failing. Restoring standards would be a good first step in bringing the system back under control, says Singleton, even if that would not solve all the problems in education today. Singleton does a thorough job of considering what would happen if his policy were followed and what that would mean to students, parents, instructors, and schools. Singleton asserts the importance of his plan by stating, "The immediate need for our educational system from pre-kindergarten through post-Ph.D. is not more money or better teaching but simply a widespread giving of F's."

Singleton knows that many will dismiss his plan as banal and simplistic, but he says it is not and sets out to prove his point by considering the implications if the plan were followed. Singleton is not recommending giving F's indiscriminately but only to students who have not learned the required material. The basic problem with the educational system now, says Singleton, is that there is a common practice of giving out grades that have not been earned. In this way, school systems--and teachers--have contributed to the growing ignorance of th

Related Essays

Components of the Educational System .... functions, is concerned with the human institution of the public educational system and the .... The school will always be an apparatus of the state, dependant upon .... (1338 5 )

Phonics in the Current American Educational System .... of phonics in the current American educational system, one must .... understanding of the way that educational policy and .... little to do with the state of educational .... (1734 7 )

American Educational System .... system" (Brolin 11). The main instigator of the current wave of educational reform is society as a whole. Numerous education laws have been passed by the state .... (3443 14 )

Education System in Iran .... system of public secondary schools, state exams and certification procedures, specialized military and technical schools, and other western educational .... (1852 7 )

Class Size and Educational Failure .... One cannot state that the public educational system in the United States or in California has either failed or become dysfunctional, because the system has .... (1757 7 )

. Yardley cites statistics to show how an absurdly high percentage of graduates of Harvard Law School are awarded honors, suggesting that when 75 percent of the class is awarded honors, these honors have been tarnished until they are meaningless. When asked, educators give reasons for the high marks given to students, reasons which Yardley calls rationalizations, such as lighter course loads which give students more time to study, the desire on the part of professors to please students, the fact that students do not attend schools known for tough grading, and the pressure on universities to place their students in good and remunerative jobs. Yardley says all these reasons are valid, but he sees two more troubling trends in American education and culture as being the true culprits. The first is greater emphasis on test-taking rather than real learning, and the second is "the pervasive notion that accomplishments are less important than rewards," an assumption that is apparent in the new buzzword, "self-esteem." Yardley examines each of these issues in turn and notes how they affect education in schools and how they have indeed reshaped the way educators think about the subject at all. Yardley blames the 1960s for much of thi

Category: Psychology - S