The magnitude of the problem with education

[greybeta]

Okay, one of the questions on the Truman application is to describe the problem or needs of society you want to address when you enter public service. The problem is that I need to find reliable statistical data to define the magnitude of the problem.

So I want to address the problems we have in our education system. I'm really not sure if I want to do K-12 or college, but I do need to know where I can find the statistics. I'll be googling stuff, but I still won't be sure who I can rely on.

Could anyone point me in the direction of finding some sound statistcs to define the problem of our education system?

Comments

[force-of-will.livejournal.com]

The problem seems rather vague as stated...but I'd have no where particular to send you in any case. I'd just be googleing up stuff...

Will

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, from the satisfactory and unsatisfactory responses, it seems like I could just write what I think and back it up with random googling. But I'm not sure how valid that would be...

[force-of-will.livejournal.com]

I love it when they give you a template...

Yeah, I'd think write, tailor, and search. There should be plenty of alarming education stats behind the search button...

Will

[iceofpluto.livejournal.com]

Well, do you mean, nation wide, or just State, cause if it's just state, then you can usally find lots of good information out there with either government websites or websites run by advocates. If it's nation just don't go to the national web site it'll be really confusing and half the data will be to old to use. I once had to do a project were i needed to look up stat.s on something (to long ago to rsemimber details) but gov. run websites usally don't do a good job of just giving facts, so I'd look for advocates of Education reform for the info... Just a thought.

[stealthcomic.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on which problem you'd like to tackle. There's a host of opportunities to improve public education, but the causes are varied. Do you want to tackle the impact of poverty? Head Start issues? No Child Left Behind? Standards in general? The recruitment and retention of teachers? Coping with an ailing school infrastructure? The funding equation? The impacts of learning disabilitiesand mainstreaming special education? Second Language learners and bilingual ed?

Those are just the few potential education-related topics I can think of off of the topic of my head and they could all be considered potential problem areas within education.

If you narrow it a little, the essay will be easier to tackle.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the input. I decided just to focus on my home state to make it easy on me :).