One Million Baby Steps by Peter Attia |
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One Million Baby Steps
by Peter Attia
The state of American education is in a rapidly deteriorating condition. Thousands of crucial occupations requiring higher education that were previously dominated by Americans are being filled by graduates from overseas. Although Delaware’s multiple chemical, pharmaceutical, and financial companies provide Delaware students with a plethora of job opportunities, outsiders are rapidly filling these positions. However, this should not be the case. Delaware has the capacity to compete with others around the globe in providing a world-class education; we must simply raise the expectations of each component in the academic process – students, parents, and teachers. Although many are pushing large-scale, nationwide reforms, no grand overhaul of the current teaching system, in actuality, is required. Stressing the urgency of the situation, Delaware must call upon all of its citizens to take small measures that, when combined, will create a synergistic effect that will formulate an equation for scholastic success.
The first ingredient of this process is to encourage and push students to raise their standards. In an era in which Cingular is the sole voice instructing teens to “raise the bar,” the adults in their lives must inspire youth to be successful in all of their pursuits. The most effective means to meet these ends is the implementation of a universal phasing system, designed to measure and reward a student’s progress over the course of his primary education, from kindergarten to 12th grade. This plan must incorporate and address all aspects of a healthy, bright student. Mental aptitude and advancement will be individually gauged. All students will be placed into a particular phase for each subject by the completion of first or second grade. Because the arrangement will stress individual improvement over peer competition, phase promotion will be valued higher than phase placement. Phase advancement could potentially be rewarded with financial incentives; incentive-based programs have been proven to increase desire to learn (Elmasry). In addition, while all students will be receiving a more creative-, analytical-based curriculum, guidance counselors must be on-hand to help students with special requirements – both those slow to learn and those mentally gifted. The most important part of this arrangement is that every student is adequately challenged to fit their unique ability level. Still, even more can be done to improve the development of these children. An often neglected element of a capable student, physical well-being strengthens both the body and the mind of the growing. Schools should make two simple variations to attend to this matter. School lunches, which have made headlines for being filthy and unhealthy (Frustaci), should be swapped for more healthful alternatives. Breakfast, which greatly improves mental skill (Prashanth), could be served for a reduced price in school. Another change to be made is stricter physical education requirements. Students should have gym class once a day for the entire year, especially for elementary students. These are just some of the many ways to improve the lives of our country’s most valuable assets.
Parents, and even childless community members involved in some way with children, also must act for the betterment of their successors. Parents are an integral facet of the educational process, and the focus cannot be solely on schools. Schools must actively encourage their students’ parents to read to their children at home, for it immensely boosts reading ability upon entering elementary school (“Getting Involved”). Parents should also be asked to volunteer at their child’s school. While a mandatory service requirement might anger some parents who already have numerous other obligations, service is a great way to spend time with one’s child, meet other parents, and benefit the school system simultaneously. If this idea proves to be unreasonable, schools could offer a cash alternative for busy parents; if neither option is feasible for some low-income parents, they could receive a waiver under certain conditions. In addition, due to the pressure to compete with global contenders for the best education, all taxpayers must bear the burden of a tax increase to fund education expenses. Obviously, this suggestion will receive its share of critics, but education is possibly the single most worthy recipient of tax dollars. However, the government could offer tax breaks for the parents of either gifted or advancing students. This is just a small step in dramatically improving Delaware education.
The majority of these taxpayer dollars would go to teacher salaries and teacher education. Teachers, who have a relatively low socioeconomic status for arguably the most important job in the entire economy, deserve to be compensated greater for their tireless hard work and self-sacrifice. Many initiatives, such as merit pay, aim to provide bonuses to teachers who, based on standardized testing, most successfully educate their students (Wallis 30-31). Because these schemes are expensive and time consuming, they should not be executed. The funds used to finance this should instead be equally apportioned among teachers to increase their starting salaries and standard-of-living raises. Instead if focusing solely on standardized tests scores, teacher performance should be based on a variety of other factors as well, such as student grade fluctuation the preceding and following years. While these assessments do provide a somewhat reliable measure of student success and should not be eliminated entirely, many teachers feel the imposed time crunch and the temptation to “teach the test.” The greatest way to increase teacher quality is to actively recruit them and help finance their education. Other countries have already begun to do this; Singapore, for example, gives its aspiring teachers free four-year college tuition and a high starting salary (Wallis 34). In a system where only 70% of post-elementary education classes are taught by teachers who majored in the subject they are teaching (Wallis 31), Delaware should implement a similar system to that of Singapore to attract the best teachers to educate Delaware’s children. Delaware must employ these proposals to restore the prestige of one of America’s greatest callings.
Some of these ideas, on the surface, appear to require too much for the average citizen. Many will complain about the excessive demands of their son or daughter’s 3rd grade class to a college graduate. But these problems cannot be left on the wayside. America is losing its academic edge to nations once not even considered a contender. In addition, new challenges, from the environment to the economy, require creative and unique solutions from the future leaders of tomorrow. These men and women have the potential to come from anywhere; will they come from Delaware? This small investment will yield an exponentially larger return. Delaware is a rather small state, but if its citizens can pull together, it has the potential to solve, within the next generation, the political, economic, and social issues of our day – one baby step at a time.
Works Cited
Elmasry, Faiza. "Will Students Work Harder for Cash?." VOA News 20 Mar 2008 13 Apr 2008
<http://www.fortcollinsnow.com/article/20080412/NEWS/643016672>.
<http://www.nea.org/parents/index.html>.
<http://www.fitnessmantra.info/2006/10/13/eating-breakfast-fact-or-hype/>.
