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Mediocre Schools

In an editorial entitled "Let's Get Education Up Off Its Knees" (USA Today, April 19, 1983), the editor declares that "this country has been waging a covert war of neglect against our most treasured institution, the schools." His charges, based on the sensa­tional report of the National Commission on Excellence in Educa­tion, cite the increase in functional illiteracy, the drop in college board scores, the decline in ability to write a simple essay, and the inability of high school seniors to draw intelligent inferences from written material. "Our children are in trouble," he states. "And so are we."

I would tend to agree that the facts about the decline in the qual­ity of U.S. education don’t lie; it has obviously become more me­diocre than in the past. However, from the perspective of a foreign student who has experienced education in another nation, the U.S. still is a standard-bearer for educating all of its citizens—rich and poor, handicapped and healthy, black and white, mentally dis­abled or exceptionally intelligent. I believe there is no other coun­try in the world which can make that claim.

The editor maintains that today’s teachers aren’t as skilled as they should be, with very few graduating near the top of their col­lege classes. Graduating at the top is not nearly as important, I feel, as possessing skill as a teacher, a skill which U.S. teachers are specially trained to use. In my country, Syria, teachers are not trained to teach, to relate to their students, to counsel, to present subject matter interestingly. They may know their material but many of them cannot get it across to their classrooms packed with 40-50 students.

It is true that in my country, students emerge from the most select high schools with an excellent grasp of what you call "the basics," but we must consider that only 59 percent of the children between the ages of 5-19 in Syria are in school. The others are receiving no education at all. The select few of Syrian high school graduates may receive excellent math scores on college entrance exams, but, on the other hand, the total literacy rate of the Syrian population is only 50 percent.

It is difficult to compare two nations which are worlds apart, but there is some validity to Americans looking outside their nation to observe the extreme difficulties that other educational systems—those for only the elite population—are undergoing. It would be ideal, of course, if a country could both educate all of its citizens, regardless of wealth, ability or race, and, in addition, could main­tain high standards. This may be the goal of the U.S. as it seeks to get education off its knees in the next 20 years.

Anonymous

Syria