The Future of Education

Ever since I started my college career in math education, I have probably been told literally a hundred times that I will have lots of job security and it will be easy finding a job. Now I am in danger of getting laid off after my first year of teaching. Several years ago I knew this was coming when I watched the news and saw a black cloud that was going to sweep the value of education under the rug: the economy. Like everything else, education is being effected by budget cuts, layoffs, and reduced funding for increasingly important programs. I have seen it in my own school. We have a roof in desperate need of repair, classrooms are too loud due to outdated heating units and inadequate, temporary walls, and technology is hard to find in the average classroom, except in the hand of individual students with cell phones and iPod touches (which the school tries so hard to get out of the classroom). Indeed, the biggest piece of technology I have regular access to is an overhead projector, which is used for little more than projecting daily problems and grids to practice graphing. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has voiced his opinions about education, and while I am not a huge fan of him (he has as much education as I do and has never been a teacher), he does make some good points. He talks about where we should take education, and a few ways we could achieve this. At this time he is sparse on the details, which leads me to think he is just another idealist wanting a major reform in education that will never happen. Indeed, he has talked about getting more math and science teachers in the classroom. Leaders in education have been saying that for years, and yet I am probably going to be laid off from a school being a math teacher. He talks about longer school years, improving technology in the classroom, and providing incentives for effective teachers. Where are we going to get the funding for this? Furthermore, how do we tell whether a teacher is "effective." I completely agree that good teachers should be rewarded, and bad teachers should find another line of work, but if this decision of effectiveness is based on test scores like the flawed NCLB, then we will be unfairly setting good teachers up for failure. If all a "good" teacher has to do is teach classes where students are already willing, capable, and motivated, who will teach the students who desperately need the good teachers? I fear this will lead to the fall of taking on difficult classes the same way a doctor will not take a risky case for fear of lowering his or her rating. If we are to reform education, we must take a look at other countries where education is working, fin out why it is working, and find out how we can make it work here. I know I am biased, but it really does start with the state of education. If we don't improve our schools, and bring them into the 21st century, how can we expect tomorrow's leaders to fix today's and tomorrow problems. I guarantee that this will not fix itself, and that we must have a better place for education in this country if we expect any of this to get better.