Education: A Student Persepctive

Education in our State and our Nation has failed. On the grading scale it would be below or at best the middle of the bell curve. The 2009 ACT test scores became available in November, Results show only 25% of Utah students who took the ACT test are ready for college English, Algebra, Social Science, and Biology. This is unacceptable for the children of this state. This Legislative session Senator Buttars has spoken out with an idea in order to save money we should do away with the 12th grade. In my opinion we need to do exactly the opposite, we need to make sure that our kids are receiving a quality education at each and every grade level. Instead we need to take the Karen Morgan approach with SB 150 "Reading Requirements for Student Advancement." http://le.utah.gov/~2010/htmdoc/sbillhtm/sb0150.htm This bill would require for students to be reading at their grade level in order to advance to the next. Opponents of this bill say that this is unfair to our school children and cannot be done. I say that our current system of testing without corrected the weak areas is unfair to Utah's school children. What we have in our system today is like an unfunded mandate for our students. We are giving them these tests without giving to proper education in order for them to pass. Liken SB 150 to a scrimmage game in football, or a practice speech in debate, or trial run in a race it is to test our student before they go out for the big game: college and life. It lets us see the weaknesses in our children and allows us time to correct them, and give them a fighting chance to succeed in life. Now this is not to say that our schools will have a battle in their hands in order to achieve this goal, but that is where our children s parents need to take charge. Instead of having your child sit in front of a TV with you at nights end the answer lies in doing the exact opposite. To quote a program that was on when i was younger "take a look, it's in a book."