D

Although the United States has a highly developed educational system，it also has many problems.The most serious of these are poor educational quality，lack of equal opportunity for education and school violence.

Many Americans are seriously concerned about the quality of instruction in the public educational system.Many college administrators and business executives complain that some high school graduates need remedial courses in the so⁃called three R’s：reading，writing，and arithmetic（or“reading，’riting and’rithmetic”）.Various studies in recent years have found significant skill shortfalls among high school graduates.Between 30％ and 50％ of students entering junior college generally need help in reading.

To improve the quality of public education，the federal government has been providing more funds to the states for various programs.In 2001，Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act，a document of more than 1，000 pages long which President Bush signed into law in 2002.If a school is found to have performed poorly，it must adopt measures to improve.If a school continues to fail in meeting state proficiency standards，it faces the possibility of being shut down or taken over by the state.However，this law has not met much success.Some states simply lowered the standards of proficiency in order to enable schools to pass the test.

In addition to the poor quality of education，American education has also been criticized for its inequality.Before the 1950s，racial segregation of education in the South was sanctioned by law.Black schools had less funding，poorer facilities and their teachers received less pay than teachers of white schools.In 1954，the U.S.Supreme Court made racial segregation in education illegal through the case Brown v.the Board of Education of Topeka.Since then，the federal government has achieved some success in desegregating the schools.However，inequality in education still exists today.As a large part of the funding for public education comes from local property taxes，public schools in poor inner city neighborhoods usually receive less funding than schools in wealthier neighborhood.These schools can not afford good facilities，and their classes are usually larger as they do not have enough teachers to allow for smaller classes.Difficult conditions in these schools also make it hard for them to attract good teachers.In order to send their children to better schools，many urban middle⁃class families have moved away from areas served by these schools to wealthier suburban areas.In addition，many wealthy families choose to send their children to private schools.

In summary，while some progress has been towards equality at the different levels of the U.S.education system，much still remains to be done to achieve true equality of educational opportunity in the United States.

School violence is another major concern for many Americans，especially educators，students，parents and policy makers.According to a federal survey on school crime and safety conducted in 2012，85％ of public schools experienced at least one incident of crime and 74％ experienced at least one violent incident during the 2009⁃2010 school year.The most serious incident of school violence was the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007，in which 32 people were killed and 17 wounded.

Many people attribute much of school violence to the influence of TV programs and video games which regularly depict violence.In response for demands for action，many schools took a range of measures，one of which was installing metal detectors to prevent weapons from being brought into schools.While violent crime in schools has declined dramatically since 1994，a significant amount of violence continues to occur.