The Failure of the American Educational System

I believe that America's educational system is falling behind other countries due to the factors of low expectations of students, culture changes, high prices of higher education, and residency. Nowadays, it seems that students aren't expected of much as they once were. In one of the articles I read, it discussed how school is there to get the basics completed and that students aren't expected to meet high standards; teachers fail at stimulating students' critical thinking power. In the 1950s, SAT scores and student performance was extremely high-today this is merely the opposite. Culture in 2011 is very different from that in 1950 and plays an important role on the subject of education. Another factor of the declining educational system is the price of college. Most students aren't able to afford education after high school, which poses as a disadvantage. It seems that education has turned into more of a money-making business instead of excelling in its main purpose-to give students proper education for a better future. Teachers are being cut left and right, which results in a decline of a good teaching staff. I think that money should be first put into the educational system, and we should decrease money spent on other things in our society. The last factor that I believe has an effect on our educational system is residency. Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood usually means attending a poor school. This is unfair for these unfortunate children and automatically gives them a negative effect and disadvantage towards education. Statistics from an article that I read show that students from the suburbs have higher college attendance rates as well as higher achievement, and lower dropout rates. Education is crucial and our system must improve before it is too late.

Listed below are sites I used as references:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6325

http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/10/05/forget-school-vouchers-the-route-to-improving-education-may-well-be-housing-vouchers-and-better-neighborhoods/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog