Free Custom «Developing the Big Picture» Essay Paper

There is always an average of more than 70 million children enrolled in the PK-12 public schools in the U.S.A. According to the government education statistics of 2008, 74.4 million children were reported to have been enrolled in the public schools, which is an average of about 24.5% of the total population. In the year 2009, 74.5 million children attended public schools. This amounted to 24.3% of the total population in the United States. The total population in the United States is averagely 307 million people and an average of 75 million people is reported to be enrolled in the public schools every year. (NationalCenter for Education Statistics, 2011).

The PK-12 public school teachers constitute a unique group of professional teaching staff in the United States of America. The traditions of the states’ systems have been known to approve qualified teachers from colleges and universities especially those holding at least a bachelor’s degree in education. However, this trend has been outdated and more changes have been introduced. More individuals are approved to be eligible in the field through the non-traditional preparation programs. For example, 33% of teachers hired since 2005 were from the alternative program other than the usual college or the campus-based teacher- preparation program (NationalCenter for Education Statistics, 2010).

 

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In order to be eligible for the position of a school teacher in the United States,, one has to have at least a bachelor’s degree and a certificate of approval from the state the person is teaching in. Those who basically majored in a college-teacher education are qualified to teach in the public schools. In the mid-1980’s, a few states started creating alternative means through which an individual could be recognized as a teacher in public schools. Those who had at least a bachelor’s degree were taken to alternative programs and proper implementation done to recruit new teachers (Retrieved from www.teach-now.org.).

The U.S government uses an average of about 8.2 % annually to cater for the PK-12 public education. This is normally aimed at fostering a spirit of international competitiveness and promotion of students’ achievements in life. However, the greatest responsibility of ensuring that the aim is achieved is left to the individual states. The federal government only provides support to the states (NationalCenter for Education Statistics, 2011).

The educational institutions are one of the most diverse areas of the community in terms of the demographic and socio-economic backgrounds of the individual children. The ethnic and race composition, for instance, is diverse (Neckerman, 2004). From the government’s data on education, the breakdown of the individual composition by the year 2009 entails the following: blacks-15%, Asian-4.3%, whites- 75.7%, the Hispanic-55.9% and all the other races account for 4.7%. The majority groups are the whites, the Hispanic as well as the blacks. The socio-economic status of each element can be explained from the point of view of their diversity. Though most of the children are known to come from well-to-do families, the majority of them live on an average of $ 15,000 per annum.

The courses provided in training the teachers are to emphasize more on the global perspective whereby they are required to have vast knowledge of dealing with diverse cultures of the world. They are normally given skills and expertise necessary for them to keep up with the international perspective of the diverse students they are likely to deal with.