The American Classroom

One of the many problems of the American school system is that it only holds the "top" students up. At the school that I go to, if you are not a straight 'A' student with a ground breaking science fair project or a top athlete, then you get lost in the shuffle. People only pay attention to who is first. That is where the equally extraordinary, but misunderstood kids get left behind. Since all students are tested the same way, the results wanted are not achieved. Everyone learns differently, and appealing to everyone is a great challenge. At the same time, if there is no effort made, the this school system can only go down. I am no expert in schooling, but that does not mean my ideas should be shut out. Another problem is that CEO's and officials cut out all of the opinions of students because we are assumed to be clueless. The fact that we go to these schools, means we have more experience about what works, what does not, and what the schools need. American school systems also need people who want to teach kids and love what they do. That goes for administrators too. There are many adults in schools who do not teach. They do other jobs around school and they disregard the students. In order to make a school system work, everyone needs to want it. As seen with the teacher strike in Chicago, there were countless groups and individuals against the Chicago Teachers Union. What these same people did not see was that these teachers really cared about their students. If these people understood that, they would work with the CTU rather than yell at them from their cars. One last thing that I believe we could fix, is the process of improving. If we are working toward improving the schools, taking resources away and closing schools is not the way. Although people claim that education reform does not need more money since it will not fix the problems, it is a great place to start.