problems in education

I realized today when I was talking to a few folks that I have a better understanding of why public education has had significant problems. I will list a few below.
1. Top down legislation. Education is legislated by lawyers, big businessmen, and politicians. These vocations often do not seek the best for all, they seek the best from their perspective for their constituency. They are often far separated from education, children, and especially teachers. If teachers and principals were able to create legislation and vote on it, education may look much different.
2. Student home life. If students have a bad home life, it is tough to get them to engage in school. Also, studies repeatedly show that the more attention a child gets early in life, the better off they are in school, with language learning, retention, and reading. The more books in a home, the better the students’ chances at school success. This has led to multiple studies on the benefits of pre-k education. The scary part about this is that pre-k does give students more education earlier, but it also puts them in the care of a nurturing educated person instead of a potentially uneducated person and an unstable environment.
3. In my classes – 8th grade level math – students are affected strongly by their peers. In 5th grade, the TAGed kids get pulled out for extra work in classes. When moved to Middle School, they get higher level classes, with all their peers. There still exist a group of students who do not pass the tests, and they get put into grade level classes. By the time 8th grade rolls around, the TAG students are in their own classes and succeeding in every way possible. Many of the lower level kids have passed their math classes, but not passed their SOLs. This means that lower level classes consist of behavior problems (who miss so much school they can’t pass), kids with tough home lives (who also miss school, but who simply started out with less social and intellectual capital), and Special Education kids (who have learning disabilities or learned behaviors that give them accommodations). These grade level students don’t have many academic leaders to look to, and they often have discipline problems to show them how to misbehave. This causes more problems than many people can imagine.
4. Killing new teachers. New teachers that come into school systems are often given kids who don’t want to learn, don’t know how to learn, and get so frustrated with school that they want to give up. This is especially true in math. With the system I described above, new teaches generally get grade level students – the hardest to motivate and educate. In the name of ease of preparation, teachers are given the same class, which means that they may have three blocks of grade level students. This is simply exhausting. People who are career switchers have to have a strong vision and passion for change through education to be willing to often make less money, but put up with much apathy. This causes new teachers, like me, to give up and find private sector jobs. If the nation wants the best and the brightest to be teachers, we have to treat them like they really are the best and brightest.