Schools experience various problems every day that in turn, affect student learning negatively. Although school administrators and teachers strive to resist these challenges, it is usually hard. Irrespective of the techniques employed by schools, some factors may never be removed. This notwithstanding, schools must work towards reducing the effect of these problems while improving students’ learning. Teaching students is a difficult responsibility because there are lots of natural barriers that impede learning.

These challenges talked about are not common to all schools, although most schools in the country are faced with one or more of these issues. The general composition of the immediate community around a school has a notable influence on the school.

Schools largely affected by these issues will not notice any notable internal changes until the external issues are dealt with and fixed within that community. However, most of these problems can be considered as societal issues, which the school would never be able to fix.

Bad Teachers

Most of the teachers are great at what they do, but mixed up with the good are bad teachers. Although these bad teachers make up a small fraction of the body of educators, they draw attention the most. For most teachers, this is discouraging because they work hard to guarantee that they offer high-quality education to their students with little publicity.

A bad teacher can cause a student or class of students to experience significant setbacks. They can make the job more difficult for the next teacher by creating notable learning gaps. A bad teacher can cultivate an atmosphere with so much indiscipline and chaos, thus developing a pattern that cannot be broken easily. Lastly and unfortunately, they can destroy the morale and self-confidence of a student. This can cause tragic and irreversible effects.

For this reason, administrators must strive to make smart decisions while hiring. These decisions must be taken seriously. An equally important process is that of teacher evaluation. Every year, when keeping teachers, administrators must consider the evaluation system to make informed decisions. They can’t feel scared to put in the effort necessary to discharge a bad teacher that can harm students in the district.

Discipline Issues

Issues associated with discipline lead to distractions, which in turn accumulate to reduce learning time. Every disciplinary action leads to a loss of useful time. Also, a student loses useful instructional time when he or she is referred to the office for disciplinary reasons. Ultimately, any issue of discipline causes a loss of useful learning time, which in turn restricts the learning potential of the student.

Administrators and teachers must try to reduce these disturbances. The teachers can achieve this by creating a structured environment for learning and captivating students’ attention through compelling and dynamic lessons that will not let them get bored. The administrators must establish properly documented policies that hold students responsible. They should teach both the students and their parents about these policies. Lastly, administrators must be stable, equitable and consistent in handling any student issue.

Lack of Funding

The performance of a student is highly influenced by funding. Lack of funding results in having more students in a class and fewer technology as well as curriculum materials. When the number of students in a class is high, the teacher will be unable to give individual attention to each child. This becomes very notable when the class is made of 30 to 40 students.

Teachers must have all the tools needed to cover the principles they are expected to teach. Technology is an amazing academic tool, but it is expensive to purchase, maintain and improve. In general, the curriculum constantly changes, and it needs to be revised, but many states’ curriculum adoption operates in five-years progressions. At the end of every progression, the curriculum becomes obsolete and physically drained.

Inadequate Student Motivation

Most students are not excited about going to school neither are they interested in studying hard to maintain their grades. It is really saddening to see so many students going to school not because they want to but just because they have to be there. A student that is not motivated to study may be on grade level at first, but as time goes on, they will find themselves far behind the class and it might be too late to meet up.

School administrators and teachers can only try their best to motivate a child but the main work lies in the child’s decision to change. Sadly, there are many students in schools nationwide with great potential who decide not to live up to the expectation.

Over Mandating

State and federal requirements are causing damages in school districts across the country. Each year, so many new requirements are brought into the picture that schools do not have enough resources and time to successfully enforce and maintain all of them. Most of these requirements are usually for the best, but the interval of the requirements puts schools in a tight spot. There are  usually insufficient or no funds to meet these demands, and they require additional time that could be used in other important areas. Schools do not have sufficient resources and time to meet all of these new requirements.

Poor Attendance

If students do not attend classes, they won’t learn. Being absent from school for 10 days of every school year from kindergarten to 12th grade means missing a whole school year by the time the child graduates. While some students can overcome poor attendance, many with severe attendance issues fall behind and remain behind.

Students and parents must be held responsible for incessant and unnecessary absences by schools. Also, they should put in place a strong attendance policy that specially deals with issues of excessive absences. If students are not expected to come to school daily, then teachers cannot work.

Poor Parental Assistance

Normally, parents have the greatest influence in every area of a child’s life. This is particularly true when it has to do with education. Generally, if education is of great value to the parents, then their children will be successful in that area. Parental involvement is very crucial to educational success. Parents who take out time to prepare their children before school starts and remain involved all through the school year will definitely enjoy the benefits as their children will succeed.

On the other hand, parents who are rarely involved in their children’s education have a notable negative impact. This can be really disappointing for teachers, and it leads to a continuous complication. Most times, these children are often lagging behind when school starts because of a lack of orientation, and it becomes really hard for them to meet up in class. These parents are usually of the opinion that it’s the school’s responsibility to teach and not theirs when ,in reality, both parties have a role to play in a child’s success.

Poverty

Poverty has a significant effect on student learning. A lot of research has been done to back up this theory. One such study shows that students living in wealthy, well-educated homes and communities are more likely to be successful in school, while students living in poverty are usually behind.

Poverty is a hard obstacle to resist. It flows from generation to generation and becomes the acceptable norm, making it really difficult to break. Though education is an important aspect of breaking free from poverty, most of these students are so far behind in school that they may never have the opportunity to succeed.

A Shift in Instructional Focus

Administrators and teachers are usually to blame when schools fail. This is somewhat acceptable, but the duty of educating should not be left to the school alone. This retarded shift in educational obligation is one of the biggest reasons for a perceived deterioration in public schools across the country.

Teachers are doing a better job of educating children than they did in the past years. But the time spent teaching the fundamentals of writing, reading and arithmetic has been greatly reduced because of increased demands and obligation to teach numerous things that were once introduced at home.

Every time a new instructional requirement is added, the time spent on other areas is reduced. The time spent in school has barely increased, yet schools are obliged to add courses like personal financial knowledge and sex education into their day to day schedule without additional time to do this. This has led to schools forfeiting significant time in major subjects to make sure that students are exposed to other life skills.

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