Eli Arkansas

Public Education Problems

There are many good things about Public Education, but there are things that need to be tweaked.

Dear future president,

I believe that there are things wrong with public education. There is an endless supply of great teachers, but there are issues making students not want to be at school. The way students are measured on how smart they are has got to change, school lunches have to be more up to standard, and give teachers higher salaries.

To start, standardized tests are just not working for everyone. From literally the day you start high school every teacher talks to you about the ACT. There are eight intelligence groups, and only one of them is for people good at tests. So 12.5% of students are actually good at tests. The other 87.5% are struggling and working hard to get a decent grade on a test that literally decides a major part of your life. The ACT is the easy way out. Students are not given their best chance to succeed. I personally am not that great at tests. We take practice ACT tests, and I freak out. We should not be graded on how intelligent we are when a small percentage of students are actually going to do well on tests.

Second, school lunches are not up to par. Now I am not writing this saying there should be a food market in a school cafeteria. I do believe however the food should be better. We always talk about child hunger which is a big issue. So the students who get one meal a day which is at school is small, and they only want to eat the pizza not the fake, cold, and nasty carrots. Making a meal smaller does not equal being healthier. In my school the only thing I have noticed that making lunches smaller has done is around fifth and sixth period nobody is paying attention, and they are hungry. We can't eat in class, we can't have a decent lunch, and lunch is expensive. Lunch is around $2.50. I can go to a fast food restaurant and get full on that. Again I am not suggesting a food market in a cafeteria that would be unnecessary, but there should be a change.

To end, teachers should be paid more. Teachers day in and day out are working all the time. They are teaching us, planning on what to teach, and grading. They spend a lot of free time grading students' work. They deserve more. Without them I literally could not be writing this because I would not know English or how to type. Teachers work hard for an entire year and then go to workshops in the summer. They are a key role in our life, and that kind of role deserves a higher pay.

Sincerely,

Eli