Education in the US

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Education plays an enormous role in shaping our lives. It can determine our social status, what we will do for work, where we will work and also the type of people we will be friends with. Going through the education system here in America can have good and bad influences on your life. You are furthering your education in order to move farther up the ladder latter when you start your career. You are also introduced to others your age, and in a lot of ways, it’s like being thrown into a mini-society where we gather experience on how to deal with people in certain situations. Problems with schooling at middle school and high school levels and even at the collegiate level are bullying and drugs. While education benefits our society as a whole, it is not without problems. Bullying is often a result of people just not knowing how to behave in society yet. While it can still be a problem even into adulthood, it’s not as prominent as it is in the schooling system. Bullying can really hurt some individuals and especially at this point in their lives, where they are going through changes and trying to figure everything out. Drugs are also a big problem in schooling. It its most likely the first place most individuals are introduced to drugs in someway, either offered drugs or see someone else using them. When you’re in school as a teenager trying to find out who you are, its can be very tempting to the start using drugs, which as we all know, can lead to some very negative consequences latter on.

  

      This link below goes to a page on drugabuse.gov. this page has many facts about drug abuse in the school system as long with some numbers as to what is found and what grades are using most.

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/high-school-youth-trends

      Availability to education has changed dramatically over the past century. Its can be easily assumed that most of use would not be here at NIU 70, 50 or even 30 years ago. Social movements and rights activists are responsible for women and minorities gaining access to education. And the growing need to further our education into 4-year degrees and postgraduate degrees has opened up access to more and more people here in the United States. While 40 years ago a high school degree was enough to make a decent living, now a 2 or 4-year degree is the standard for making a living. Although accessibility to education has improved greatly over the years, there is still a gap in between who’s getting degrees in terms of race.

http://nationsreportcard.gov/science_2011/summary.asp?tab_id=tab2&subtab_id=Tab_1 - chart

     This link goes to an interactive map on nationreportcard.gov. When you scroll over a state it breaks down 8^th grade science scores and also percentages of each race that attend public school in that state.