What needs to be fixed in the American Education system?

Getting rid of our obsession with standardized testing. It's on;y to make the testing companies a quick buck. We haven't figured out that not testing all alike is not a sign of deficiency in either the student--or a failure of the public school system. It clashes with the concept of special education's Individualized Education Program for elgible students with disabilities for a reason.

Transition planning. Based on the questions here...etc we need to tell people leaving high school/aging out of services about the laws and procedures which cover them after special education and how they do differ. Schools aren't always doing that or making this completely clear. It's a different set of laws.

Genuinely standardized testing possibly could improve America's current education system. The testing would have to be fair, regardless of any fix.

Our policy of using the punishment model for student behavior problems does not work. How often are the same kids sitting in the office, getting suspended and failing their classes? Why doesn't this work? Because the reason they are acting up is to get out of class and teachers and principals give them the gift of doing just that. When kids aren't in class, they aren't learning and so these students just fall farther behind.

A better way of doing student discipline is to use the reinforcement model. For instance, say you have a kid that makes smart remarks to get out of class.

Take the student aside and tell them for every 10 minutes they can go without a smart remark, then they can get one question off the math assignment. Also, teach and reward this student for coming up to you privately to tell you he is having trouble and needs and appointment to go over the problems.

In 25 years of teaching, I only sent a handful of kids out of class using these kinds of techniques.

Schools need to teach students how to become 'lifelong learners' (not just learning what's mandated) more effectively. Lifelong learners develop more autonomy. They earn more money than the students who just learn because it's gonna be on the test. They're less likely to just 'learn' any BS they're told before they pass it on to others. They're truth-seekers.

everything