Recent studies show that America’ s public education is at a standstill.

The nation is behind most developed countries in terms of quality education and has been for many decades.

According to the Broad Foun­dation, America’s top math stu­dents rank 25 out of 30 coun­tries when compared with top students from around the world.

The Broad Foundation is a philantraphy group that is fo­cused on helping students in ur­ban public education gather the skills they will need to succeed in college.

Technology has tremendously progressed within the past two decades. However, not all us­ers of this new technology have progressed with it.

Ava Pugh, Curriculum and Instruction Professor at ULM, is worried that things are not changing fast enough.

“Education has to change with the times,” Pugh said.

Current projections suggest that within the next decade, education past the high school level will be required for nearly half of all new jobs.

However, according to the Broad Foundation, more than 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year.

Brian Bramstedt, a psychol­ogy professor at ULM, expresses his views on the source of our education crisis.

“Parents want better schools but are against longer school days and more homework,” he said.

It is suggested by many that parents are disengaged and are not encouraging their children to achieve excellence.

“Parents and the commu­nity need to care and be more involved in their child’s educa­tion,“ said Bramstedt.

Elisabeth Pepper, an educa­tion major from West Monroe, shared Bramstedt’s sentiments. “Not all students have parents who show a steady interest in their child’s schooling. It is up the the child’s teacher to meet the needs of these students that are not being met at home.”

The nation’s leaders recognize this as a problem and have tried for years to reform our educa­tional system with programs such as No Child Left Behind.

The goal of this program was to improve the academic achievement of the disadvan­taged.

“When a child walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations and high performance,” said President Barack Obama.

Currently the Obama ad­ministration has implemented a new reform, called Race to the Top, to replace No Child Left Behind.

Race to the Top is a competi­tion between states to win fed­eral funding by improving their educational system.

There is set criteria for each state to be graded on.

For each criterion that is met, a certain amount of points is awarded. Funding is awarded to the states that earn the highest amount of points.

In Obama’s 2011 State of the Union Address, he said, “Main­taining our leadership in re­search and technology is crucial to America’s success.”

“But if we want to win the future — if we want innovation to produce jobs in America and not overseas — then we also have to win the race to educate our kids.”

Despite all qualms about America’s public education sys­tem, some find reason to be op­timistic.