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Public Schools in the United State Need Help
Looking at the schools of the past compared to the schools' kids go to today it is easy to
notice not much has changed over the years which has become a growing problem. Well
schools today are failing to keep up with the times overall which is doing a disservice to
the future generation. Public schools in the United States need an overhaul as they still
teach the same old ways as they have been for many years. This poses a growing issue that
children in today’s world are not being taught in the way that will allow them to reach their
maxim potential. Also, they are faced with different challenges then in recent years that
require a different way of teaching and learning. Public schools in the United State need a
reboot. As there are many ways and different thing that could and should be done to give
the public school system the reboot it so desperately needs. The main areas that are need of
changes are funding for education, and school security. Fixing these areas would allow
kids attending school now to get the most out of their learning experience which will help
make them effective members of society.
Still to this day public school systems across the country are fighting to not only stay open
but also to keep up with evolving society to ensure the children get the best education
possible due to poor funding management for education across the country. This is
also due to the education of kids is not as made the big of a property as it should be in most
levels of government. There is no doubt that school today suffers from being poorly
funded. One example of this would be large class sizes. This causes harm to
students' ability to learn for several reasons. Larger class sizes restrict the teacher's
ability to work with students that are struggling. At a time where children need more
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attention than ever to succeed, overcrowded classrooms are making it even tougher to
learn and tougher still for teachers to be effective (Lynch, 2017). Another problem that
over larger classrooms cause is the more students per class will cause more distractions for
other students that work better alone and in a quite setting. To go along with the oversized
classrooms that cause schools to suffer is when it comes to allocating the budget schools
also get the bottom or the last thought. Which is unexcitable society should be putting all
the money and resources possible into the education of the next generation. 2018 school
year, at least 12 states had slashed “general” or “formula” funding— the primary form of
state support for elementary and secondary schools—by 7 percent or more per student over
the last decade, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Alvarez, Walker,
Long, Litvinov, 2018). School funding has been and will continue to be a high property
issue until steps are taken are taken to address this. The only way that anything will be
done about this is if those you manage the budget for education speak up and demand more
funding or parents start going to the polls a voting in people who will speak u and get the
funding that the education system needs to help the children and teachers today. Schools
are in trouble without funding they cannot ensure students get the best possible education.
They need resources and updated books and facilities but with money none of
this will happen.
Another area that would help the public school system of the United States
would be school security. This subject has been increasing in property over the years
due to the mass shooting this country has endure. This has caused children today to feel
uneasy and uncomfortable at school. The effects of this causes them not to be focused on
the lessons being taught and doing everything they can to learn. Instead, they have the
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thought that mass shooting could happen at any time that their own school. While there are
many ways to help increase school security. One of the most effective ways to accomplish
this is by having armed staff as well as the school resource police officer that is at every
school. But having armed staff would create a deterrent for those who try to or think about
committing to those harsh acts of violence. It is no secret that mass shooting happens at
locations where people are not allowed to have firearms and the reason for this is those
who are committed to these acts know that no will be able to stop them until police arrive.
But if they know that any member of the school staff could be armed it would have them
think twice about going to a school to start a mass shooting. An example of this would the
city of Los Angles in California where the chief of police has warned people from visiting
the city that the police department could not protect people at the current rate of crime
happening. The reason this is the case is because the state of California has some of the
strictest weapon's laws which do not allow people to be armed and criminal know this that
is why they know they can go around and conduct their criminal actives without someone
trying to stop them until the police get there. Another thing that would help kids feel safer
instead of turning schools into what looks like prisons with metal detectors, more armed
police, and security gates. There is no doubt that these would help, but this would also
cause the kids to get distracted by all the stuff going on and make them feel like they are
not in a school which would not allow them to focus on their learning. What should be
done instead of all those security measures there should be specialized training for students
to know how to properly detect when someone or something looks suspicious and how to
properly report it. By giving students this kind of training would keep schools from
looking more like prisons which in return would allow them to feel more like they are in a
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school. Perhaps the best investment we can make to safeguard our students and educators
is in personal vigilance. Perhaps less reliance on so called safety measures would lead to
higher alertness (Lynch, 2017). School security should be a top priority as there should be
no compromise when it comes to the safety of the students. There are many ways to ensure
the safety of students' weather that is arming the teachers and staff of the schools or
providing the students with specialized training. But both these ideas would do the job of
increasing the security at the schools without disrupting the student's ability to learn. It
would also allow students to feel comfortable about going to school and less worried about
if their school will be the victim of the next mass shooting. The safety of the students is
one of the biggest priorities. But it needs to be done in a way that does not ending doing
more harm than good. Some ways that would do this very task would be putting in policies
that allow staff member to carry firearms concealed and to go along with that is have the
students attend training focused on how to identify when something does not look right
and who to report it without making the situation worse.
Some people do not believe in having staff members carry firearms as they do not think
that it would be effective at ensuring the safety of the students. They believe that having
staff member carrying is completely wrong way and would only make things worse. When
it comes to arming school staff people that do not agree with this say that Educators across
the U.S. stood up to reject the idea that more weapons would help save student lives. As of
May 2017, only one state had passed a law that mandated arming teachers and staff
(Alvarez, Walker, Long, Litvinov, 2018). But this would in fact help save lives and be big
deterrent. The reason that is would be helpful is that if staff members were armed it would
allow them to act quicker than waiting for the police to show up. Another thing is that even
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knowing that staff is armed would have those looking to commit these crimes double
thinking about doing it because they know that any staff member could be armed and stop
them. When looking at arming school staff the biggest advantage is time when mass
shooter know they have a few minutes to commit their crime before police show up it
allows them ease of doing it. But if schools had armed staff members it would help stop
the person sooner therefore helping save life. At Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School, for instance, a school resource officer reached the school building under
attack within 99 seconds of the first shot being fired, but 21 people had already been shot
by then, nine fatally. The commission investigating this shooting concluded, “This makes
clear that seconds matter and that [school resource officers] cannot be relied upon as the
only protection for schools (RAND, 2020). The big take away is that the school across this
country need help. They need funding to update material for students and be able to keep
up with the current times to allow the students the best possible education. That also means
ensuring they're safety during those hours they are sitting in class learning what they need
to in order to become a productive member of society. Over the years as schools teach the
students year after year generation after generation. Not much has changed schools still
struggle to stay open or keep programs running. They also have a hard time keeping up
with current times and getting updated materials for students. Another thing that they are
having trouble with now and has become more increasing over the years is the safety and
security of the staff and students which is something that should never be a problem the
students to go to school to learn and grow. They should not have to worry about feeling
safe there or not.
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Resources:
18 REASONS THE U.S. EDUCATION SYSTEM IS FAILING
https://www.theedadvocate.org/10-reasons-the-u-s-education-system-is-failing/
10 Challenges Facing Public Education Today
https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/10-challenges-facing-public-
education-today
The Effects of Laws Allowing Armed Staff in K–12 Schools
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/laws-allowing-armed-staff-in-K12-
schools.html
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