What do you think is one of the biggest flaws in the American education system?

“I think one of the biggest flaws [in American education] is that the system is almost designed to make you fail. I think one of the benefits in living in the USA is that you have so much economic opportunity to pursue any interest that best fits you or even start your own business. The way that the school system is structured really pushes you toward seeking a lower level job. You learn more about the basic level of education than you do about specialization. I’d say the one advantage that the Career Center has over Rock Bridge is that it delves a little bit more into specialization, but not nearly enough to be productive in the workforce. We’re learning from teachers who’ve all specialized in various different educations, but at the very most they can only teach about education itself; they can’t really teach about specialized aspects of the workplace like going into finance, business administration or even med school. Maybe if our high schools focused more on actual jobs — like engineering, going into business, or becoming a doctor — we wouldn’t have to spend so much money on colleges pursuing that education because we would already have [the skills and knowledge] beforehand. It sort of creates this self-fulfilling prophecy or this never-ending cycle of always staying in debt and always being a slave to the government system. You’re always gonna be in debt, and you’re always gonna have to follow the school system structure. That really forces people who want to be successful to seek out alternative education, which is really tough because some people don’t have [access to those] resources. So, the way that school systems are structured now is that [they’re] almost designed to make you fail. To just be trapped in this endless cycle of mediocrity when we should really be aiming to pursue the best that we possibly can— I would say, in terms of personal experience, it’s the requirement of taking different level classes [that wastes my time].”

What steps could the government and educators take to combat the issues you have outlined?

“I understand that the goal [of required classes] is to make students exposed to different classes, but if a person is really set on becoming a doctor, they shouldn’t have to take multiple world studies classes or multiple math classes. They should really just take whatever they need. It’s more efficient that way, and it really creates a better workforce. This applied more to middle school, but I really wanted to excel in math as fast as possible. Even if you at this school, if you want to take a certain math class really early on to get it out of the way because the system forces you to take certain math classes, it’s very hard to even do that. It causes scheduling conflicts; it’s very hard for the administrators, and that’s another example that the school has created a system that’s designed to make you aim for mediocrity rather than aim for the best. If you want to aim for the best, you should have the opportunity to do so. Even though I believe in less government overreach, I wouldn’t mind seeing more federal funds go into education. That’s one of the few areas where I think the government could honestly make an impact. I think just increasing school resources as a whole or just allowing students to seek out alternative education within a school’s infrastructure [could help]. One size does not fit all, so we shouldn’t structure our schools like this. Not everybody needs to take this many science classes or this many math classes if that’s not what they want to do.” 

What are your thoughts on the American education system? Let us know in the comments below.