Nation at Risk

Nation at Risk states that America is falling behind educationally to the rest of the world. It points out that people in our country at this time do not have the necessary skills to compete in the global economy. These are due to the shortfalls in our educational system. Some indicators of this are that students are not doing as well on standardized tests as they did 26 years ago. In short the educational system was not compensating for the rapid advances happening in technology and the sciences. Schools are focus too much on rudimentary skills instead of deeper thinking. 25 years later Nation at Risk is still being analyzed. Regan wanted to stop cutting the education budget and educational spending has risen dramatically. It also helped the educational system by improving teachers and schools. However, changes still need to be made.

I think that there are a lot of things that are said in Nation at Risk that still needed to be worked on. For example, some school still focus on just rudimentary skills, students are almost like robots and just repeat answers back to the teacher. There needs to be more focus on literacy and deeper thinking in all subject areas. Literacy itself is also still on the decline. The more use of the internet, students are actually reading less and have a hard time pulling out deeper issues of the text. Technology is still ever increasing. To be an effective teacher we need to understand technology and know how to use it. We also need to have a deep understanding of how our students use technology in their everyday lives. Teachers themselves are being held more accountable but it is a slow process. Many older teachers hold to old values and thus become ineffective.