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Chapter 3 But our education systems are distended The purpose of education is not to weed some students out, not to select only the best students, as some people appear to believe, but to discover the strengths of all students and to educate them using their talents and resources. We make a point of this objective because schools cannot “weed out” or separate out their young people without lowering the future possibilities of all society. Students and schools are the responsibility of all members of society, and accepting the challenge of educating the young means that a civilized society has to provide for all of our students, including disengaged students and the ones who appear determined not to cooperate. If we fail with the latter, society ends up paying for the miseducation of every student not taught how to take care of himself or herself, not to mention how to honestly provide for a family. For this reason, we need to enjoin all citizens to help tackle the task of properly educating our youth. Everyone who attends school in the United States ought to have a real chance at the American Dream, at becoming a successful citizen. At this juncture, that dream is not a feasible goal for too great a number of our nation’s students. Despite considerable talk of accountability, testing, measurement, and other validation efforts, educators cannot be expected to educate students properly because they arenotempoweredorequippedtoaccomplishthatobligation.Byeducators we mean not only teachers, who are already pressured enough by all sorts of noneducational constraints and duties, but also administrators, who unfortunately are sometimes not sufficiently aware of the pressures under which teachers labor. The task, then, is how to ease everyone’s burden while also providing the type of leadership that ensures a quality education for each student. American educators and citizens need to rethink the individual roles and duties assigned to administrators, teachers, and community leaders responsible for shaping our education systems. Boredom should no but our education systems are distended 41 longer be accepted as a student’s response to education. An educator who works in a classroom where students are bored should seek and receive help to rekindle the interest of students. Administrators should be selected in part because they specifically know how to help such teachers . Delegating more responsibilities and activities to teachers who are already frustrated by inattentive students will not help. Many piecemeal approaches to education will only worsen relationships that teachers should be allowed to develop and nurture with their students. The view of many people is that education is the province of educators . But educators are supervised and evaluated by school administrators , who, in turn, are accountable to school boards and state education agencies. The federal government, which controls taxpayer funds used in addition to the resources controlled by state legislatures, also shapes education systems and the kind of education delivered to students. We make a point of listing these players in the education world because in a school district any stakeholder can become a dominant force capable of throwing a school system out of balance, if allowed. What teachers learn about teaching at colleges and universities is usually a separate endeavor from the educational realities that teachers encounter when they are hired by school districts. Invariably schoolteachers find out that what they learned at their higher education institutions requires adjustment to the needs, philosophies, and views of supervisors and other education personnel who hire, evaluate, and to varying degrees shape the schools and the careers of teachers. Enmeshed in regulatory requirements and accountability requisites, many initially wellintentioned instructors become disillusioned, and most eventually opt to do what they can to teach youngsters who spend a semester or two in their classrooms. Despite the enormously rich educational resources of the United States at the local, state, and federal levels, proper assessment of what students have actually learned depends on correctly interpreting their academic records. Many teachers simply assume that if a student is enrolled by a counselor in a particular class, then the student must be ready to perform certain tasks. But most counselors are overworked because they have too many students whose progress they are required to monitor . Also, when the fit between a student and a class is not right, students and teachers in most cases adjust, though lately issues like school safety and drug prevention programs and discipline have necessarily turned teaching in most parts of the country almost into a secondary activity. Educators for...

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