There's been a lot of talk about education lately, both in the Alligator and on campus.
I've been pretty overwhelmingly inundated by questions about the value of higher education and concerns about what's going on in our public school system.
If you're reading this, you're likely either pursuing an enriching education at UF or intimately involved with providing that education to thousands of students. Education is a hugely important part of our lives. It's only natural that it would also present a popular topic for discussion.
We all know there are problems.
Those of us working to pay our way through school have to struggle with a tuition that doesn't come anywhere close to being covered by the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program. Others with younger brothers or sisters attending public schools in dilapidated Florida school districts are all too familiar with the insufficient education our youth is subjected to.
So the question, for once, isn't why we're talking about it or even whether it's worth talking about. Those have easy answers.
What's not so easy is figuring out how we fix this mess.
The issue doesn't appear to be poor funding, considering the number of dollars we spend per child in this nation. At the same time, a quick look at the budget of your average classroom (whose teacher can't afford things that will actually supplement the learning process) suggests more money is desperately needed.
Maybe Bright Futures is too open, and maybe student loans are too accessible. Most of us believe education is a right that should be afforded to all, but we disagree about how much work you should have to put in to get it. What's important is that those differing opinions still don't explain why the brightest students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are just not going to have access to our best schools.
While it's not explicitly clear what is preventing our education system from living up to the standards of those abroad, there's a common consensus that the U.S. is falling behind in a very critical area.
Meanwhile, nobody seems to have a decent idea for how to hold teachers accountable. Sure, we know the teacher's union causes problems, and we know standardized testing does more harm than good. I'd personally suggest a system in which teachers answer to each other, perhaps one that involves yearly evaluations of the previous year's progress. But I also recognize the problems with that notion, and I don't think we're that much closer to figuring out a solution.
So what are we left with? How do we repair an educational system that's so important to so many of us?
We have to change the American culture. The problem isn't money or teachers or even bureaucracy. The single biggest source of our problem is that we're clearly not currently motivated enough to fix our education system.
The importance of school must be emphasized. Education needs to be seen as a right, one so absolutely essential that it's worth fighting for day in and day out. Nostalgia for the way things "used to be" needs to be cast aside so we can seriously consider proposals like shorter summer breaks. The effort to provide the best possible education to as many children as possible needs to be more of a focus than any other domestic issue.
In short, we need editorials, protests outside Turlington, those impassioned pleas and those great ideas. And I commend each and every one of you working to provide that.
Alex Guilmartin is a psychology and pre-law senior at UF. His column appears on Thursdays.
