The Pros And Cons Of The American Education System

Is there a problem with the American education system today? Many people would say without a doubt “Yes”, but with so many sections of the system, how can anyone pinpoint where to start. The “No child left behind” program failed to meet its target, schools are cheating due to high pressure to get good grades, bad neighborhoods creating bad schools and vice versa, and the common core system is too vague and broad for the teachers. One of the more troubling issues today is the teachers union and tenure causing teachers to become complacent and lazy. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association are the two main figures for education politics. These unions are designed to protect all teachers from getting fired …show more content…
A bad teacher is one who goes to their school every day, sign in, go to the classroom, wait for the day to goes by and sign out when the bell rings. They have wasted valuable resources and valuable time but the unions will not get rid of the bad teachers since they still get dues from them. Teachers unions are causing an adversarial relationship between the administration and the good teachers so much that the union does not want teachers to have simple meetings with administrators without a union representative present. Unions were made for the purpose of protecting the rights of its members but many teachers are using this fact like a security blanket to hide …show more content…
In 1910, the state of New Jersey was the first to pass tenure which granted fair dismissal rights to college professors. For most teachers tenure can take decades to receive but for some elementary school teachers it can take a little as two years and with the testing requirements created by the No Child Left Behind Act the freedom that comes with tenure has been greatly abused. As of right now tenure laws have become a permanent lifetime employment that is granted without an evaluation and given to teachers who simply do not care