United States education system hit by dire crisis: Report

The US education system has reached a dire crisis with hard line reform programs failing to do enough to improve public schools, a federal commission finds.

The Equity and Excellence Commission released a report on Tuesday that said the US education system had “thoroughly stacked the odds” against poor and minority students, calling on federal authorities to take a more active role in public education – traditionally administered by local governments.

Impoverished students “are having their lives unjustly and irredeemably blighted by a system” that saddles them with ill-prepared teachers, crumbling schools and low academic expectations, the report stated.

It goes on to recommend that Washington push to desegregate schools, equalize funding and demand better training for beginning teachers.

Experts criticized Washington for failing to make durable improvements out of previously issued commissions including those from a Nixon-era panel on school financing in 1972 and the Reagan administration’s indictment of public schools labeled ‘A Nation at Risk’.

“In 1983, ‘A Nation at Risk’ famously spoke of the ‘rising tide of mediocrity’ that threatened our schools,” the report said, adding that “Nearly 30 years later, the tide has come in – and we’re drowning.”

The report also compared US policy on education with other nations, saying that “No other developed nation has inequities nearly as deep or systemic; no other developed nation has…so thoroughly stacked the odds against so many of its children.”

“Our education system, legally desegregated more than a half century ago, is ever more segregated by wealth and income, and often again by race. Ten million students in America’s poorest communities … are having their lives unjustly and irredeemably blighted by a system that consigns them to the lowest-performing teachers, the most run-down facilities, and academic expectations and opportunities considerably lower than what we expect of other students,” the report concluded.