Is Our Government or our Community “Leaving Children Behind” in Education?

Yesterday afternoon, WBLK Promotions Director, myself, and one of our interns joined the Sweet Home High School “Soul” club to discuss not only what the radio business is like, but any questions about life, school, graduation etc. In a declining economy, and competitive job market, many people fail to recognize that the long term success of our country lies in these upcoming generations. This thought becomes increasingly alarming as one puts into consideration that our nation’s students are on a decline in graduation and literacy rates, along with national test scores. While our government is working to enforce laws that would counteract these problems, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, these sort of programs have been consistently ridiculed as ineffective. Many people suggest that these programs are too reliant on Washington and that the changes would best be made on a state level in local schools.

In my opinion, the responsibility of proper education lies mostly in the teachers, and the guidance a child receives out side the classroom. Regardless of how much money our country invests in schools, new technology is not going to motivate a child to want to learn, mentors and outside influences are. There is nothing like the advice of someone who has been through it before, and as a 21 year old, I graduated college only a month ago, and I can clearly remember what it was like sitting in those high school desks unsure about a lot of what would happen as I moved on to college and a career.

In my opinion the education of our youth is something that needs far more attention than it is receiving now, not only from a government stand point that needs to be more attentive to requirements and teaching standards, but from a community stand point as well. There is no better way to learn that through experience and as an older generation we have that experience and we need to share more of it with our youth.

Every one has heard people preach that we rely on the youth for the success of tomorrow, but the success of our youth can be influenced by what we learned yesterday. So with the current situation of only 70% of high school students graduating in our nation, with the majority of non-graduates in the African American and Latino populations, as a community do you feel the problem lies in lack of government regulation, and the absence of strong programs such as No Child Left Behind, or could we influence children’s view on education more through guiding them with our past experiences?