The Biggest Challenge Facing K-12 Students

The biggest challenge facing K-12 students seems to be trying to fit into an archaic educational system that has been tailored to educate the masses as oppose to catering to individual needs. Every year throughout the United States class sizes grow larger and larger. Each teacher is burdened with a heavier workload, and pressure to pass all of their students on to the next grade. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of the students, ones who excels are held back by low expectations, others fail to grasp the concept of their curriculum and due to an overloaded teacher neither receive the individual attention needed to succeed. The teacher is forced to find a middle ground to which all students have a better chance of succeeding, but as class sizes swell and test scores drop, expectations and standards fall as well. In the midst of this there are those students who academically should be exceeding, but as boredom creeps in the back door they become delinquent and lose sight of success. The public education system continues to become more and more impersonal, and is beginning to resemble an industrial warehouse for cookie cutter students. If a child does not fit the mold they are reprocessed for redistribution or if too marred the are tossed to the side, if the great tasting cookies cost too much to make, take the sugar out and add a cheaper sweetener it tastes similar. Keep lowering standards to increase distribution and profit. This system does not produce excellence but breeds mediocrity and lowered expectations. K-12 students already face the challenges of growing up, and coming into their individual self, an educational system that does not develop the individual is only limiting their potential.