Paper 2

Lack of Education
Twelve years of education coming to five minutes on stage shaking the principal’s hand. Some kids never experience this feeling of relief and happiness because they don’t graduation high school. Compulsory education disempowers the American population due to the lack of support, heavy standardized testing, the elongated required amount of time to graduate, and the demographic influence on education.
One flaw with the education system is the required amount of time needed to graduate from high school. A student can feel discouraged by having to complete twelve years of school before graduating. The repetition in school can be frustrating, and students can lose motivation. This flaw of students not graduating creates homeless people that hurt the economy. A prime example is Michael Moore’s Idiot Nation. “There are forty-four million Americans who cannot read and write above a fourth-grade level” (Moore 133). With less education comes ignorance of the American people.
The frustration with the length of time is accompanied with the lack of support from parents and school administration. Without the support of these people, success is limited. This is evident in the film Stand and Deliver (1988). The parents strongly discourage their children from trying new academic experiments. An example in the movie is when the “pretty girl” wants her mom to sign the calculus form. Her mom discourages her and makes a comment: “Boys only care about the outside not the brains”. This doesn’t help the girl’s self-esteem, and it is evident in the movie when they are studying late at night and she becomes irritated quickly by calculus. A similar situation is in Still Separate, Still Unequal by Jonathan Kozol. A girl named Mireya had taken hairdressing twice when she actually wanted to take an AP class (Kozol 253). Mireya was talking to another student that critized her, saying that since her mother sews that she should sew too (Kozol 253). He also mentions that she is “ghetto” and that is another reason for her to sew (Kozol 253).
The administration is vital to the student’s success, and without their support, a school most likely suffers. The administrators are supposed to be the leadership of the school and support the faculty and student body. With lack of support in their school, the student feels unimportant to the education system. In Stand and Deliver (1988), Mr. Escalante was a teacher that wanted to teach AP Calculus. Unfortunately, he did not have the support of his administrators. They laughed and teased him because the students he would be teaching were “bad” but he became successful by himself. He believed that every student could pass the test if they worked hard, no matter what background they had. The vicious cycle of not supporting our students can continue to disempower the American population by the domino effect. If people discourage their children, then their children are most likely going to discourage their own children too.
Demographics of a school or school district disempower the American population with education. In many school districts, the schools tend to compete for funding; it doesn’t matter whether it be endorsed by funding or government. In most school populations, the less funded ones have the highest dropout rate, while the wealthier schools have fewer dropouts. This severely disempowers the American population through academics and extra-curricular activities. Many kids don’t want to attend school because they are not involved. For instance, my best friend was not involved in anything throughout her high school carrier. She always wanted to hang out, but I would be busy with all of my activities. By the end of her senior year, she wished that she could’ve graduated early. Most importantly, it is hard to be involved when there is no funding for the programs. Just like in Stand and Deliver (1988), Mr. Escalante wanted to teach computer science, but he couldn’t because there were no computers.
Diversity is also an important role in compulsory education. If kids are constantly hanging around with the same people, they are never going to experience other things. In Stand and Deliver (1988), the students always were around the same people who can eventually; hinder their ability to have an open mind. Angel always hung around “gangsters” that eventually became a problem because he got in trouble with cops. If a bad district continuously stays the same, the American population is not going to benefit from it. In Still Separate, Still Unequal, a teacher says that she has only had one white student in all her years of teaching (Kozol 240). It is unfortunate to think that our schools are not diverse. How students are supposed to know of the “outside” world when they are secluded to majority students?
Standardizing testing also disempowers the students and puts pressure on them to be the best, or they will fail. At my old high school, a girl took the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) at least 6 times before passing. Her consequence for not passing was that she wasn’t able to walk at graduation. This disempowers the American population because many students now entering high school become nervous because they know the stakes of the TAKS. Another friend of mine also couldn’t pass the TAKS. She eventually dropped out of high school and received her GED. Standardized testing disempowers the education system because there is no creativity in teaching the material. Each teacher is told to teach material a certain way so that their students can pass the test. This imposes the problem of having no individuality. Kids aren’t able to express their own creative writing styles. This mandatory testing discourages and lowers student’s self-confidence.
In the recent years the compulsory education has become disempowering for the American population. It disempowers through the amount of time students attend school, the school support system, and demographics and standardized testing. It is unfortunate to conclude that education discourages when it is suppose to empower the American population.