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schools are not coming inline with this new model. Additionally, in order to try to meet standardized testing and reporting requirements, children are not being given an education as much as school districts now are 'teaching to the test'. This phrase - teaching to the test - is one any teacher in a public school probably knows all too well, since much emphasis is put on these standardized aptitude and knowledge tests, so much so that a straight A student can fail the exit level test for high school and not graduate.

No longer does a student's performance itself show what the student has learned, but their entire high school career can now be summed up on the pages of one test, which many will argue are not a good representation of what a child's ability is, as much as what the child's ability to regurgitate information is.

We live in a society that has bred students who are short on attention, quick to act, and looking for that fast solution. The children of today may have grown up or are growing up, as some have stated, with a sense of entitlement.

Now, this isn't saying that this sense of entitlement is good or bad, but what it is saying is that how children of today absorb and learn and retain information has changed because of this in-demand, on-command, at your fingertip society. If our educational models don't change with it, we will raise a generation of children who are ill-prepared and unable to meet the demands of today's workforce, much less the workforce of 10 or 20 years from now.

We have children who can write CSS and HTML code to 'pimp their Myspace profiles', but who can't write in complete sentences or understand grammar and punctuation. We have students who can explain in detail the stoichiometric fuel ratio of their favorite racing or piloting video games, but couldn't spell stoichiometric or compute a basic 7th grade algebra formula on paper.

Children are growing up without physical education requirements of the past, and we have an obesity epidemic, rapidly rising amongst our youth in particular, that is unprecedented in the United States. Fine arts programs funding has been cut across the country, and we have students who no longer have a love of reading, poetry, painting - which results in a sociological shift in what is prized and considered art. The publishing industry and the arts and entertainment industry are suffering financially due to this shift.

In fact, many school districts so poorly lack funding that, such as in my local school

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