Part of the larger mission of putting students first is to advocate for the educational reforms that will improve our schools, colleges, and universities. The American Association of College Students is committed to ensuring that every school, college, and university that a student attends will provide the best possible learning environment for every student. Unfortunately, many students are not experiencing their education as a positive experience. Sometimes this is because difficult circumstances in a person's life create so much stress that a student cannot focus on their education, while at other times the fault is the educational environment itself.

One of the reforms that would really make our schools better learning environments is to ensure that we have the best teachers. Unfortunately, a number of factors have made teaching as a career less desirable to prospective teachers. Some of our brightest and best, who would make outstanding teachers, are avoiding the field because of how we treat teachers at all levels of education. At the K-12 level people are discouraged from going into teaching because the pay is lower than it should be in many school districts, and the purpose of education has been skewed towards achievement scores, rather that genuine learning. Beginning with No Child Left Behind on through the Every Student Succeeds Act, the focus on K-12 education is on children passing standardized testing in order for a school to not be labeled a failing school. This creates perverse incentives to focus on standardized testing, rather than on great teachers who instill an in-depth understanding of material. As compared to great educational systems in other countries, the United States system of education relies too heavily on standardized testing. Finland, which always leads international testing scores in math and science uses standardized testing sparingly. Instead great schools systems in other countries focus on hiring the best people to be teachers, allows them to design outstanding curriculum, and lets them design the assessments that measure an in-depth comprehension of the material. Our system of education needs to move towards attracting and retaining excellent teachers, who really care about students, are really great mentors and role models, that have a great grasp of and love for the subjects they teach, and can communicate it in a way that is transformational. Do this and test scores will improve, but more importantly student learning will improve.

At the college level the occupation of teaching is being negatively impacted by the fact the fewer and fewer graduates with advanced degrees are being granted full-time jobs with tenure. The majority of all teachers at almost all colleges and universities are adjunct professors. This is because colleges and universities realize that they can save a lot of money by paying low wages and not offering any benefits like health insurance or a retirement. Someone could work their entire life at multiple colleges and universities and never have enough money to retire on. If they are willing to risk their health through overwork, they might make enough money to scrape by. The adjunct instructor can easily be discarded by their employer because of the vast multitude of other adjuncts desperate to find work. When institutions of higher learning see adjuncts as a disposable workforce and offering classes in terms of generating revenue, then students are all the poorer. Higher education becomes focused on credentialing, rather than profound, transformational learning that prepares an individual to be leader in their field. Given how technology is broadly and rapidly transforming the economy, students will only be prepared for the jobs of the future if they have the best professors at colleges and universities that are committed putting students first.

The American Association of College Students is committed towards advocating for our future teachers. Teachers are our guides and our future will be successful if we have outstanding teachers. The A.A.C.S. has a vital place in educating the public and lawmakers of the importance of preparing our students for the future. We will be working with lawmakers to create policies that will make teaching a respected profession that is supported and fairly compensated for the important work they do.

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