Classical Argument

Pammella Jones
Richard Tomlins
English 101
10/18/2014
Thesis:
Education is a competitive business in today's world. However, lack of knowledge, lack of motivation and lack of understanding between teachers, students and government are producing overwhelmingly low SAT scores. This fact is dimming America's future as a Top Leader in education and diminishing hopes of a brighter tomorrow for future Students. The world as a whole appears to be more worried about communities than an individual's ability to achieve.
What is happening in Education Today?
The problem's facing education today is reaching around the globe. For instance, according to Margaret Kirk, (Business Week) In Baton Rouge, La a young mother Carla Miller decided it was time to drop out of her school system. The reason, escalating violence, poor attendance and low test scores on achievement tests conducted in her area. A resident in a suburb, whom in recent times past, has believed in helping fund the underprivileged. Carla and the residents in their suburb have decided to form their own city. They are tired of funding the schools with their tax dollars and gaining inadequate results. In the past 20 years there have been no improvements in academic progress. Concerning the 2011-2012 school year the results yielded that 6 out of 10 students In the East Baton Rouge district were reported as failing. They had a reported dropout rate of 20 percent. If there had been improvements Carla Miller and the other residents believe this change would not be taking place. Tanyia Nyman, also a resident whose children are attending magnet schools believes this will be a move for the worse. Their concerns that taking the money from the district will devastate the community are very well founded. This move will decrease per- pupil spending according to Louisiana State University Economists. The money being taken away could help all those in the district rather than one small suburb. They worry if word gets out everyone will be wanting to form their own little city.
"Young families today are requiring change, said Phillip Dold, a pipeline operator with two toddlers who supports the new district. Between the two of them, Phillip and his wife earn $80,000-100,000 a year."
They enjoy living where they live but a private school would render no compensation to his budget.
Grades: Misunderstandings
Testing, Mean Scores, grades and averages, these terms probably don't mean much to a student or parent. They do not understand the meaning of these terms in the correct context. Take a look at grades, according to author Timothy Quinn there is more to a grade than meets the eye. The complex issues that pertain to getting a grade consists of many concepts. A student is typically concerned about their grades and in truth they dislike them. The dislike is a direct result of the tension and panic along with negative feedback that grades can produce for the student. For teachers giving a grade is so unappealing it has driven many away from this occupation. For government and parents grades are upsetting because when a child goes from failing at the beginning of school and improves to a much higher score at the end of the year ordinarily the grade still reflects that student as average. This does not reflect the actual high quality achievement the student has undergone during the school year. In reflecting upon these facts this constitutes a grade as the monster of the system. Grades, however, do have a valuable bearing on a students learning. Three things are to be considered when grading. Grades provide information on which conclusions for progress, achievement and skill are made. Grades provide a great incentive for motivating a student. Finally, grades inform the student of where they are at in terms of achievement, skill and progress.
Data based decision making, increased student motivation and more relevant, specific, and useful feedback can all lead to greater learning, and it is upon this standard that efficacy of any grading system and policy should be judged.
Quinn mentioned many other components that should be considered when looking at grades informatively and non-informatively. Instructors, colleges, and employers should be given access to a student's grades but for the above purpose only. Different communities may necessitate grouping and position, but within constitutional rights, in this democratic educational system instructors should not put emphasis on these practices.
High Ranking: Self concept
Our self-confidence uniquely puts us in the ranking for being a survivor. In truth our self-confidence is getting in our way. Many programs and dollars have been provided and promised concerning education, but until someone actually gets out there and improves the systems it is all just talk. Author G. Shawn Hunter warns in his book Outthink,
"The people who have been involved in the development processes of education up to now are failing, they need to stay away from the ings and focus on the Ed's. The Ings say things like we are discussing it or we are thinking about it while the Ed's say things like we tried that, we tested that, we modeled that."
Statistics in the chart above describe the outcome of some top ranking professions or positions and their take on their own self-confidence. These statistics show a predictable outcome according to our ranking in self-confidence and are self-validating. Twenty eight percent of High School seniors ranked themselves in the top 1 percent. Thirty seven percent of professional engineers placed themselves among the top five percent. Ninety three percent American drivers ranked themselves as better than the median. Ninety percent were less than fifty percent right. Ninety nine percent of them rated their own accuracy only eighty seven percent correct. Should we pay attention to the statistics in this figure we might be compelled to re-examine our policies and strategies toward education which even now are debunking America. We have fastidiously slid behind in our children's academic programs. As a result, they are producing the lowest testing scores among nations. This means that our students are not being properly educated well enough in the correct areas of major academics, parents are not understanding the components of the overall grading system and government is not listening when we say we don't want to group and categorize. The Understanding of the problems facing Americas Academics are invaluable to productive revenue, income, jobs and most importantly a future toward a brighter tomorrow for our youth.

Academics
Below is a simple flow chart. The statistics reflected represent the amount of students who are not engaged in more than two years of math including algebra and geometry and the amount of students who are not engaged in science. Self- confidence is reported being the highest in the
U. S. The statistics also reflect the amount of parents who believe their children are being taught the right amounts of both subjects and sadly enough, the last group of statistics reflect the amount of principles who are not concerned about the low test scores their students are receiving. (Two Million Minutes)


This is all about our students in the United States of America and how they are being perceived to rank in academic subjects. The unbelievable observations that clearly indicate school officials, government and parents are neither knowing enough or concerned enough about how their children are ranking. Next to the top leading nations India and China who are competing for the minds of the world we are now below standard and the U.S. has been progressing at a stagnating rate for the last 35 years. If the majority were ask what it is they feel is the most contributing factor to the low scores in testing, as you can see from the information above their answer would most likely be unknowingly different for many reasons.
LOW SCORES: LOW REQUIREMENTS JONES 1