A Proposition for the Improvement of the American Public School System
An Honors English 11 Argumentative Essay
24 March, 2011
by Kenichi Takahata

1. Introduction: The Problem

The recent history of the American public school system has been defined by a failure to compete with the rest of the first world. While European students learn American college-level material in high school and Asian students surpass their western counterparts in nearly every practical aspect, American public school students have been observed to lag behind severely in mathematics and lack basic knowledge of their own language on graduation. Anyone, no matter how deficient, can graduate from an American high school. This has made college nearly mandatory for any remotely skilled job. With rapidly inflating college tuition, American students can expect years of debt simply as an inevitability. In order to repair our school system and restore higher education to an optional diversion, a total restructuring of the American public school system is in order.

2. A Proposal

For higher education to exist as a simple diversion and for high school-level graduates to be employable, a high school diploma must act as an assurance of competence. A high school diploma simply cannot be an assurance of competence when all diplomas are more or less equal and anyone can achieve one. However, if a high school diploma was simply made more difficult to achieve, students would simply be separated into two groups: vaguely employable, and completely unemployable. Those who did achieve a diploma would have little to assure potential employers of their strengths, and thus, college would remain necessary for all those who wished to specialize. Those who did not achieve a diploma would be certified incompetent, and as such, could hope for no more than a manual labor occupation. To be truly valuable beyond the college application process, a high school diploma must not simply assure competence, but rather act as a comprehensive list of a person's strengths and weaknesses. For this to happen, the education system must be more challenging and more forgiving than its current state.

2.1.

The first change made to the public education system should be is the immediate repeal of No Child Left Behind. Rather than making room for the less gifted, the act has, for the most part, allowed those who do not understand a class' material to leave that class too early. Every subject should be accelerated to the point where students who show deep understanding of a class in a year should be studying Calculus by the time that they are thirteen. These changes would allow students to accelerate and decelerate according to their understanding of each subject and simply receive as much time as they need, eliminating both failings of No Child Left Behind -- the failure to support lesser students and the boredom experienced by more advanced ones. It would also eliminate the social stigma associated with failing, as many students would require extra time for many subjects, which they should very well receive. Graduation should then be set to a certain age, and a student's diploma should list what classes they graduated with. This would turn a high school diploma into an incredibly precise list of skills and eventually make higher education completely optional, perhaps serving as a fall-back for students who graduate with relatively simple classes.

2.2.

It might be said that this system would increase the stress experienced by students, but the benefits of this system greatly outweigh this risk. The stress experienced by Asian and indeed many European students has been observed to greatly surpass that felt by American students, but Asian and European students are also measured to far surpass their American counterparts. To forgo an improvement in performance because of the risk of hurt feelings is a childish gesture that can, and will, lead to failure. Stress management is an important life skill, and a more stressful education system would do well to teach it to students. If a student cannot handle stress, perhaps that student is not meant to succeed at all.

3. Conclusion

America's public education system is in drastic need of remodeling in order to catch up with the rest of the world and prevent millions of students from going into debt. A system that adjusts to student's needs in order to better educate them and evaluate their skillset would do well to remedy the situation, but most of all, greater funding must be given to schools. If America wishes to maintain its status as the predominate global superpower, it must begin to treat the next generation's education with the utmost gravity, lest it be surpassed.