The Downfalls of America’s Education

The Space Race’s Influence on American Education with Error

Education in America seems like it is losing interest in student success. An astonishing low seventy-four percent of public high school students in the United States of America actually graduate from high school. When did our school system’s actions become distal to their beliefs? According to Los Angeles Times, The Expected School-Wide Learning Results of every school are all similar in certain aspects. Every school wants to teach critical thinking and analyzing skills that the students can all take with them into their post schooling lives. Unfortunately for the students, they don’t know that they’re being pushed through a realm of uncharacteristic teaching efforts of these ESLRs. Students taking college preparatory classes are severely at a disadvantage because they have gotten away with performing apathetically in class yet still receiving high grades. Millions of freshmen college students across the United States fail many classes because they don’t know how to write a research paper or take a test within a given amount of time. As for the “basic level”/“remedial” classroom, which is where severe apathetic students are moved to, definitely won’t be prepared for the community college they plan to attend. In our school systems, students have been getting passing grades without putting their best effort into their schoolwork. Teachers don’t realize this and it becomes a trend all the way into college. This does not prepare freshmen in college for the real rigor that awaits them as they peruse a degree. As well as giving students struggling to make passing grades, it lowers the outcome of the future leaders of our country in economics, healthcare, and politics. Once tested in math and english proficiency, many students are put into remedial courses. These college students were not up to par with the standards of education required for their freshman semester of college. Little does the general public know, our educational standards are designed with very specific and projected outcomes. These outcomes were the anticipations and fears of a nuclear war over fifty years ago. The Space Race was a direct cause of Congressional passed acts to reform education. Unfortunately forgetting about the lower spectrum of students, reform is again what we need for the sake of those lower spectrum students. The Space Race was a competition between the United States and The Soviet Union to see who could explore the outer space the most thoroughly and soonest. Because of the news of Soviet ICBM, Inter Continental Ballistic Missile, and their space program, the entire United States was on edge. The United States didn’t know if they could trust the Soviet Union, therefore the United States wanted more sophisticated technology. The Soviet Union launched “Sputnik 1” on October 4th, 1957. Because our nation’s leaders wanted to become the leading superpower in technology to keep our county safe from any possible threat, they decided to push a higher study of mathematics and science into the public school systems. This was one of the main goals of the National Defense Education Act. The National Defense Education Act aimed rewriting the K-12 standards for chemistry, biology, physics, and mathematics. Being on top of the technological and educational world was the United States’ goal. This was the very first time the government invested in its youth education. The National Science Foundation poured five-hundred million dollars into the new curriculum and teacher training. The National Defense Education Act was a great step toward actually and effectively improving the competency of our future leaders. The competency improved mathematics, science, allowed all of the Unites States’ high school graduates to live and work in a highly educated manner and environment. Introducing students to these