Standardized Testing

    While in high school I remember hearing a conversation between my humanities teacher and the principal. It was about one of my friends who was a senior at the time, and it was a discussion of whether or not my humanities teacher should pass him or not. My friend had failed several classes and ended up taking most of those classes online and all he needed was the humanities class to get his diploma. The discussion was basically our principal telling our teacher to pass my friend so that they can get rid of him instead of having him come back next year since they said they didn't want to deal with him anymore. The teacher I talked about earlier quit the following year because several students were passed through the same way and he was given little respect from the students and his peers. My friend was failing the class and did none of his work, so in no way did he deserve to pass this class, but if he graduates the school gets more funding for the following year.
   High schools will do anything to ensure that they get the same funds then next year, which is what I had been noticing in my years in high school. They introduce several classes and programs to get more funding and will make sure that no one fails by issuing standardized testing to everyone. Firstly the reason why this happened is because of no child left behind, which mandated that everyone must take the same standardized tests and that you must teach the exact material provided without straying from a set of guidelines. Which makes teaching into a cookie cutting process and doesn't accommodate for the needs of that particular class. The material taught must be memorized and little critical thinking skills are required to pass any standardized test.I believe that this leads to a society that is uneducated in the skills that are needed to succeed in life and is shown in most of the United States.
   One problem that must be fixed is having more diverse topics to study through high school and having more choices. Not just having everyone read the same book and write the same papers. Also topics that you learn in class should be tested, but not just with standardized testing. There needs to be more group discussions and activities that reflect on what you learned and gets students to come to some conclusions on their own. Our education system kills creativity by telling you that you are constantly wrong and that there are wrong opinions, at least in my schooling. Hopefully we can get to a place where students can find out what they are good at and be pushed out of their comfort zone.

High Cost of Textbooks

    It all goes back to the beginning of college. I had to be careful with my money or I wouldn't have enough money for textbooks. Some times I would have to decide between getting a full meal versus just getting an apple or no food at all. On top of tuition costs, my books could be as much as one of my classes. I find it difficult for someone to pay for rent, food, and bills without debt when tuition and textbooks cost so much. Which is a large reason why some people don't go to school in the first place.
   I have paid for school by working part time at minimum wage jobs and being unable to work more hours, which is why it is hard to pay for school and textbooks. Every term I was required to get the newest textbooks, which was hardly used since everything is on the internet. When I went to book buybacks, they wouldn't accept the books since there was already a new edition.
    Often times I find myself using the internet over textbooks since there is more information and examples on whatever I am interested in learning about. In my opinion books are slightly outdated, but they still can be useful. I believe that textbooks are outdated because they have few effective examples to interact with the reader and I find most to be dull to read. Videos are more useful than textbooks because you see someone go through the process to either solve a problem or explain a difficult concept. Another thing I find frustrating is the price of textbooks.
    Textbook cost have increased over the years and there is little reason for this in my opinion, other than to make more money. The same textbooks are are just re-printed over and over again and they just label them as a new edition. There is little information that changes in the textbooks, typically the only changes that are made are the questions or the order of the questions. Another question I have is why aren't there any e-textbook alternatives that we can use that cost less money and don't have to be carried around everywhere.
   It seems weird to me that the prices that books are listed at are regulated by the book companies. Shouldn't there be a committee of some sorts that looks to see if the information in the book has actually changed to constitute charging so much for books. One solution might be to have professors use older versions of the textbook or a PDF of the newest textbook. Perhaps teachers can't give out a copy of the book because they will get in trouble by their superiors, which makes me question how the hierarchy of our schooling system works.