Top Ten Ways to Make the U.S. Have the Best Education System in the World

Let's face it. Not every kid is smart or special. There, I said it. Not all kids can be doctors or lawyers, and there's nothing wrong with that. Apparently, the creators of No Child Left Behind and Common Core didn't get that memo. They believe that all children have an equal amount of potential, so they should all receive an equal amount of attention. By believing this, you are condemning the gifted and intelligent to mediocrity. We should teach to each student's potential and realize that every student has different needs.

In most public schools, it's not uncommon to have 30 or even 40 kids in a class with just one teacher. Because of this, students can constantly heckle and disrupt the class, as the teacher is vastly outnumbered. If we drastically shrink classroom sizes or decrease student-teacher ratios, teachers will have a better ability to maintain peace in the classroom while also having more time to spend with each student.

I don't know how lower-level teachers can manage a class of 40 students and how each student can keep up.

WHAT? Why on earth should it be harder to go to college? Shouldn't we be making it easier? Yes and no. We should be making college more affordable for those in society who are gifted, intelligent, and work in high-skilled jobs. We should, however, discourage low-skilled and less intelligent workers from attending college. Why? Because too many people are getting degrees.

A couple of decades ago, if you didn't go to college, you still had a good chance of getting a job. Now, college is basically necessary if you don't want to work minimum wage. Why is that? It's because average people decided to go to college and pursue worthless degrees that will never benefit them, spending thousands of dollars in the process. Now, because everyone and their mother has a Bachelor's degree, the degree is basically worthless. Lots of employers don't even care about BAs anymore.

So now everyone is pursuing a Master's degree, whether they need it or not, because from pre-K to high school they have had the thought drilled into their heads that they're worthless without a degree. Once everyone gets a Master's degree, that degree will become worthless. Then everyone will pursue a Doctorate. Soon, you'll have to take 20 years of college to work minimum wage.

What we should do is get rid of worthless degrees, such as Liberal Arts, Philosophy, Fashion Design, Family Studies, Music, etc. By doing that, college would become unnecessary for around half the population. Then, we can make college more affordable, or maybe even free, for those pursuing jobs in industries such as healthcare, engineering, STEM, teaching, etc., which all have major positive effects on society.

By doing this, the cost of college would go down dramatically. You would no longer have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a job that pays $40k a year, and degrees would become more relevant in our society again.

Remember when I told you that a good portion of the population cannot name the number of stars on the flag? Yeah, that's not okay. Not remotely. Standards should be raised at every level of education, from kindergarten to high school. I'm currently in high school, and I still have many classmates who struggle to read a sentence out loud. Some still have to sound out the syllables. Others don't know basic arithmetic. This is unacceptable. We need to drastically increase standards for all students.

Studies have shown that students and teachers who receive more breaks are both more productive and less stressed. Finland is consistently ranked as having the best education system in the world, yet school days there, on average, last only about four hours compared to seven or eight in the U.S. This gives students more time to study and reflect on the lessons they've learned, and teachers more time to plan for the next day's lesson.

Standardized testing has done little to improve school outcomes. They don't help students learn the material. They just teach students how to take tests. I remember one day in class when we were preparing for the state test. I didn't understand how the teacher arrived at an answer to one question, so I asked her about it. She said it didn't matter because we still had a lot more of the test to cover. There have even been reports of teachers helping students cheat on these tests because their jobs can depend on student performance. In Finland, students take only one standardized test in their entire academic career, compared to an average of around ten in American schools.

I'm not one of those people who simply claim that by throwing money at our problems, they will automatically be fixed. However, it is common knowledge that many public schools are drastically underfunded. Where I go to school, bathroom stalls are around one foot wide, our textbooks are five or six years old and have ten or so pages missing, and there's trash and graffiti everywhere. Schools need to be completely revamped to compete with the rest of the world.

We should make it easier for parents to send their kids to whatever school they want, be it public or private. Right now, public schools basically have a monopoly over the education system because they are free, and private schools can be costly. Because of this, public schools don't have the inclination to improve their facilities or performance. If we increase the amount of vouchers given to parents, public schools will have to become more competitive, which will increase their performance.

I was bullied and ostracized for being atheist. The only other school district in my Bible Belt town was a private religious school.

No, seriously. I'd like to see you stay alert in class after eating a slice of grease-dripping pizza and a burger that was cooked two weeks ago. You try to eat a salad, but it's 50% water. The vegetables are frozen and taste like bleach. Your stomach won't forgive you, trust me. Then, all you have to drink is a tiny carton of orange juice, which lasts for two sips. Our cafeterias are a joke and need improvement. We need to offer more fruits and vegetables that are actually edible, cut back on the grease, and encourage students to drink more water.

All homework does is stress students out. Perhaps ten minutes a night would be good practice, but an hour or more is just overdoing it.

Lockers are such a hassle, costing 25 bucks for a replacement, and they crowd the hallways. We should let kids keep their binders at school so they don't need to buy a backpack.