Tackling The Issue Of A Failing Education System In America

It Takes More Than Being "Street Smart" to Be Successful In Life 

  Education in the United States is currently in serious trouble. I'm not 100% sure about how schools around the nation are doing, but I am pretty sure they are doing just as bad as mine as well as the schools in the entire Houston area. What has education come to? First it was 'We can't go on many field trips this year', then it was 'Buy your own pencils because we are on a slight budget', but I never thought it would come to 'Your classes are going to be crowded next year because we are cutting teachers from their jobs', 'The administration is basically forcing some teachers into retirement', 'You can't go to an AP Test study session at the Toyota Center because the school feels is isn't important enough to spend money on' and 'Don't ask for a tissue, pencil, pen, paper, or eraser, because the school is not paying for anything else'. Are the students and teachers the only people who see a problem with all of this? It's just not cool. I mean to basically tell students that we're not going to get the same education we used to get because of money, and to tell teachers that they're soon going to be out of jobs because they cannot afford to pay them... This problem has gotten to a point of no return... most likely. I feel that Americans do not understand that when a lot of money is involved in something, we must be careful and smart with it. We can't just go crazy and buy luxurious "non-necessities". This mistake has been repeated time and time again, not even just in school-related situations, so why can't we learn from our mistakes? That's another problem with the education system in America, sometimes we just simply cannot admit when we are wrong and we all love to preach yet half of what we are so talkative about isn't practiced at all. People high up in the chain of education have always said that we need to be cautious when spending and we need to have teaching and gaining knowledge as the #1 goal, yet this hasn't been happening at all! At my school, I literally can only count about 8 teachers who are qualified to teach (in my mind at least). What administrators should have been doing in the past if teaching and gaining knowledge was the number one goal, is hire teachers who they truly believe can provide the proper material to students so that we can be successful in college and even after. To be completely honest, it doesn't mean anything to me that my school has gone up 20 places in the best ranked schools in the Houston area and it doesn't mean a thing to me that we were voted one of the most improved. Why? Because look what we are being compared to, it isn't hard to get up there. Also, look at us as a nation compared to every other country in the world and tell me how developed and smart we are. Just think about that. Some say that everything is fine and that there is no real problem in the school system these days, however, haven't we always said that? If you keep repeating the same patterns over and over again, nothing changes, and sure we can all say that we get that and we know that and "duh", but we never act on it. America is all talk. Especially when it comes to education. So what can we do about it? As students? As teachers? As Americans? We do what we do best: speak out. We need to be active and let our voices be heard to the people that are in control. Stop complaining to the teachers, it isn't their fault. Stop complaining to the principals, it isn't completely their fault. Take this to the state. Show them that we care about our future.

 In today's society, it takes more than being street smart to be successful, and you can quote me on that one.

Thank you for reading,

-B