Quantcast
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 41

Goals of Primary and Secondary Education

“ED’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.” Let’s unpack this statement because it is rather ambiguous. What exactly does “promote student achievement” mean? Does it mean raise student scores on state standardized tests, particularly in math and reading? How is student achievement measured? Is it measured solely through standardized test scores? This first part of the mission statement raises many questions, which makes it difficult to understand the exact message.

“Preparation for global competitiveness” This segment is a bit less ambiguous. American students need to be able to compete with students around the world to get into the best institutions of higher education and be prepared to compete on the global job market when the time comes. Again though, how do we measure “global competitiveness”? The only indicator I have been able to find are the scores on the PISA tests, where American students constantly rank lower than students from many other developed nations around the world.

This mission statement, although rather ambiguous, seems to me to be a bit narrowly focused. I understand the emphasis on global competitiveness as we live in an increasingly globalized society where jobs are very portable and communication is not as large of a barrier as it may have once been. However, should job preparation be the soul focus of elementary and secondary education?

There is nothing mentioned in the mission statement about creating responsible citizens and teaching kids about how our country functions. It seems that this would be a fairly important part of primary and secondary education. Our country depends on responsible, engaged citizens for it to function properly. Jason L.S. Raia writes in his essay Citizens for the 21st Century: Civics Education Today that “Formerly, one goal of education, particularly at the primary and secondary levels, was to develop citizens. But in recent years, No Child Left Behind and other federal and state requirements have made careers and jobs the primary, sometimes exclusive, focus of education.”

Through my research and discussions I have found that many people feel that standardized tests cause schools to narrow their focus when it comes to making curriculum. Raia uses Allentown, P.A. as an example noting that there is a proposal in the district to take time away from social studies and language arts classes in order to spend more time on math education. He also mentions that there was a proposal to merge language arts and social studies, essentially eliminating one or the other.

Is math the only thing students need to know in order to be globally competitive or competent citizens? I have heard time and time again in the past two years how important it is to have good written and verbal communication skills. These skills allow students to properly function in society because it allows them to effectively communicate their ideas with others, which in turn is how we advance society. Should these skills not be emphasized just as much as math? Does being really advanced in math teach students how to participate in democracy? Not really. This is not to say that math is not important. It of course has many essential functions in our lives like when we need to do taxes but so does writing and speaking.

Has the goal of primary and secondary education in the US become producing little math machines? And if so, what is the benefit? If schools spend less time on language arts and social studies than on math so that they can get better scores on standardized tests, does that really produce well-educated members of society?


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 41

Trending Articles