The Crumbling of American Education

For twenty years, I have dedicated my life to a system where each year a piece of it snaps off. What began as cracks, evolved into falling chucks. What caused it? Many people believe the overuse of computers in school is the cause, but I believe the cracks began in 2002 when a group of lawmakers with no experience in the public school system crafted and put into law a bill which became the first slash to our education system titled: “No Child Left Behind.”

“No Child Left Behind” act, signed into law by the Bush Administration, felt like a monumental step in the right direction for public education, however the truth is it left MANY children behind. It added unnecessary pressure to the education system by putting high-stakes tests on the center stage of education. These standardized tests focus on only three content areas: math, reading, and writing. The state took over schools who failed to meet annual growth and forced them to teach a scripted curriculum not applicable to the student clientele of the community. The scripted written verbatim on the teacher’s speech in the classroom. The script predicted common student response and pre-wrote those responses. Administrators and academic coaches entered classrooms to ensure teachers were following the script, but these scripts never plan for unexpected circumstances. Moreover, it made professional educators with a four-year college degree look dumb and strip their schools of autonomy. It forced every school to teach the same curriculum and speak the same language.

Thanks to No Child Left Behind, school cut non-essential programs. Music, Art, Physical Education, etc. became an afterthought for many elementary schools. For reading, students and teachers focused on comprehending short passages instead of digesting and analyzing chapter books. The focus of school developing the whole child erased and students transformed into a data statistic for the schools’ standardized success. Using computers slowly grew in each classroom. These digital tools brought with them a new form of learning.

During the Obama years, the “No Child Left Behind” law eroded, but the pressures of standardize state testing remained. More schools found funding for computers and offered one-to-one devices for their students. Simultaneously, the use of computers in the classroom slowly added to an unforeseeable destructive blow to the education system. As more students gained an unhealthy addiction to screen time, their motivation to produce and use critical thinking skills dissipated. Videos replaced live teaching. Online learning programs developed by massive curriculum companies became the center of many students’ education plan. Schools adopted student growth through a computer program and not teachers’ anecdotal observations. The wide world of web became a textbook into the copy and paste culture of learning. As schools figured out how to navigate teaching with digital tools, one of the worst events in modern history occurred. The global pandemic of 2020. The entire world shut down, forcing students to stay at home and made computers the sole means of education.

The 2019-21 school years challenged many educators in a way they never prepared for, teaching to an online audience. Most students logged on for their daily lessons, but eventually logged off during the allotted school hours for various reasons. Students ended up short changed of their educations during these years and catching up to their academic level proved harder than before. Curriculum companies adapted to online learning and created programs for students to work on. This resulted in students losing interest in reading physical books. First graders entering school online missed the joy of holding and reading a book in their hands (unless their parents had the financial resources to develop and sustain a love for reading). Kindergarteners lost the opportunity to hear books read to them in class and socialize with their peers (a key step in child development). When schools finally reopened, there were two cohorts of students who missed the critical, foundational years for socializing because of the pandemic. Worse, cell phone use among elementary students erupted and became a wrecking ball to topple the system.

As parents relied on digital devices to entertain their children, many students (especially upper elementary students, grades 4 and 5) no longer have the attention span to focus on offline work in the classroom. They have become addicted to short thirty to sixty-second bursts of entertainment, something not applicable in the classroom. Literacy levels of students have dropped drastically because students no long yearn to read chapter books. Schools continue to rely on digital programs to track students’ academic progress. These programs mirror the state tests by offering students only short passages to read and answer questions to. Students no longer develop the stamina to read a chapter book and very few public schools focus on developing the love for reading. If the students’ family does not value reading, the child will also find no value in it as well.

Speaking of parents, there was a time when parents and teachers were a team for a child’s education. If a child had a behavior problem in the classroom, the teacher could call the parent and work together to support the child in the classroom. However, more teachers report the difficulty of communicating with parents because parents side with their child and not the teacher. Some parents would rather contact the administration when there’s a problem instead of communicating directly with the child’s teacher. Or, parents would rather attack the teacher and deny their child’s actions in the classroom. Schools target teachers when students misbehave in the classroom, asking the dreadful question: “What did you do to set off the child’s behavior?” Many teachers face challenges to their profession now because support from both parents and administrators is lacking. When a child’s disruptive and disrespectful behavior in the classroom goes without consequences from the school’s administration or the child’s parents, every student in the classroom suffers. Yet, our current society puts the blame on the teacher.

Finally, if lack of parent and administrative support and digital addiction are the fuel to burning the system down, then budget cuts to educational programs become the match that sets the blaze in motion. Recently, the Trump Regime decided to axe the federal department of education and is working on displacing all agencies under the DoE to other departments in the government cabinets, with most of the DoE moving to the Department of Labor. Worse, Trump signed the Big Beautiful (ugly) bill into law, narrowing which professions can apply for a federal financial aid for college and ensured aid for college students wishing to pursue a career in education no longer exists.

After 20 years in the profession, it breaks my heart to come to this realization that our country has a broken education system. When I first enter the field, excitement pumped my blood. I felt like I was going to make a difference in all of my students’ lives. However, through a forced focus on reading, writing, and math, my love eroded. As students built resistance to reading, my heart cracked. With each passing year, witnessing the education budget become slimmer and slimmer like it’s on a diet for a toxic marriage, so does my will to stay in the classroom. Trump’s first term brought out the idea of school vouchers, to use federal taxpayers’ money to fund private schools instead of public school. However, my final push to leave the profession came with Trump’s efforts to whitewashing American History with the upcoming America 250 Civics Education, put together with a coalition of companies who support white supremacy. If we cannot create a system that supports all students in a diverse, equitable, and inclusive setting, then we will continue to fail. In order for America to be the best in education, we must fund our system and hold all stakeholders (including students and parents) accountable for the learning of every child. This needs to be the first step to fixing our broken educational system.