Students Sound Off on Fixing U.S. Education

With several school districts facing crisis conditions, and election-year politics charging up the debate on all major domestic issues, discussions about education reform have grown more heated in recent months. Many people have ideas about how to fix America's schools, but does anyone ever ask the students themselves?

The Gallup Youth Survey* did. Last August, about 500 teens (aged 13 to 17) were asked: Thinking now about your high school/middle school, do you have any ideas for changes your school could make to help students learn better? What are they?

The most commonly emerging theme in teens' responses was teaching quality (see "Teens: Better Teaching Key to Better Learning"in Related Items) -- but more generally, students said that there is too much reliance on lecturing in American classrooms, and not enough effort to make students active participants in the learning process. The phrase "hands-on" was peppered throughout the responses:

• "Don't just lecture to the kids, do more with activities to get the kids involved and moving during class." -- 16-year-old girl

• "I think schools should have more hands-on activities and more fun stuff because that will help you pay attention. After a while of just sitting makes you bored and you pay less attention." -- 15-year-old boy

Teens also recognize that overstuffed classrooms can limit creative teaching methods. Many students expressed concerns about large class sizes and the lack of opportunity for individualized attention:

• "I think the same thing as many other people and that is to get smaller class sizes for more one-on-one attention and guidance." -- 14-year-old girl

• "Less kids in class, and more time in each period. Teachers don't have time to answer questions." -- 16-year-old boy

• "They should think of [students] as people -- they are not the same and don't learn all the same way." -- 16-year-old girl

• "I would like the schools to stop identifying kids who don't learn like everyone else as 'a disorder.'" -- 17-year-old boy

Class availability was another common concern. A number of students said that although they recognize the funding problems, they think their education could benefit from more specialized and vocational classes, as well as extracurricular activities:

• "My school is facing a levy this week that, if it fails, will cut ALL extracurriculars. We don't have extra money so I believe that [the] school is doing the best it can. I just think that they should make certain vocational programs, like business and marketing, able to fit in an AP student's schedule." -- 16-year-old girl

• "We need more classes and clubs. We need classes that will help us get jobs after high school or we are lost. We need metal shop classes, automotive, woodshop, etc. We have nothing now. We need these jobs to make a living or to help us go to college." -- 15-year-old boy

Political issues such as vouchers and national education standards were far less commonly raised by students than the day-to-day issues listed above, but a few did express frustration with outside attempts to direct the workings of their schools:

• "In my opinion, [our area's] schools are very far behind where they should be. I think that they desperately need to reform their curriculum. However, it is instead being lowered to 'meet the needs of slower students.'" -- 16-year-old boy

• "In Virginia where I go to school, SOLs [Standards of Learning] are extremely limiting in what students can learn in class. Instead of being able to have large class discussions on a topic or being able to slow down class to help the slower students, the SOLs mandate what teachers have to teach and what amount of time they must do so." -- 15-year-old boy

• "My school has banned prayer. The only thing you can say God-related is a curse. We can't even say the pledge? … My history teacher almost got fired [be]cause he wanted to teach us about America and accidentally mentioned God. What's America without a pledge, a Statue of Liberty -- we aren't America if we tremble before and defy what made America." -- 16-year-old boy

Bottom Line

Going directly to education "consumers" themselves is a helpful exercise for anyone seeking insight about improving education. The themes most commonly addressed by teens suggest that before national standards can be realistically imposed, reform efforts should focus on improving strategies for identifying and keeping good teachers, reducing class sizes, and providing all teens with an educational experience that not only fills their heads, but also engages their enthusiasm.

*The Gallup Youth Survey is conducted via an Internet methodology provided by Knowledge Networks, using an online research panel that is designed to be representative of the entire U.S. population. The current questionnaire was completed by 517 respondents, aged 13 to 17, between Aug. 1 and Aug. 29, 2003. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points.