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Opinion

Public education reforms needed

Zach Lee
Opinion Columnist

Improving education begins and ends with higher standards -- both for students and for teachers.

With students, implementing higher standards is pretty simple: raising the bar academically. Requiring more math and science courses for high school graduation will help with that, but foreign language requirements should be more stringent in American high schools as well.

As a global economic power, the United States is often too paranoid about the status of English as a national language, and an attitude of lingual superiority prevents American children from keeping an open mind when it comes to learning other languages. 

As a result, they are put at a disadvantage on the world stage, especially against European competitors who may learn three or four languages because of their geographic situation.

If the public school system were restructured to require fluency in English and one other language for high school graduation, our dominance of the global economy would only increase.

Implementing higher standards for teachers is more difficult because there is not a consistent way to judge instructors-- effectiveness.

Standardized testing has failed as a gauge for the value of teachers because of the ease of teaching to the test. But an effective alternative has yet to be presented.

As a general rule, teacher salaries are far too low, but until teachers can be evaluated fairly and efficiently, it will take far too much time and effort to make sure the good teachers receive raises and the bad teachers get dismissed.

Of course, it--s difficult to attract skilled teachers with low salaries, so if the ineffective teachers are dismissed, no one will be in the classroom to teach our nation--s children.

Government officials on the state and local levels need to make education a real priority instead of an election buzzword, and substantial funding needs to be set aside either to research new methods of teacher evaluation or to create full-time teacher evaluation positions. That way, principals and assistant principals can focus on administration and the good teachers can be rewarded as the vital pieces of our nation that they are.

Lee, an English and Spanish senior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu