Introduction
The United States is one of the strongest, most influential, and innovative countries in the world, but our education system is not supporting our desire to continue this trend of greatness. Hard work has driven the United States into an era of uncapped intelligence and limitless potential that needs to be stimulated by the American school system. Yet, “the nation’s system for educating teenagers seems to be stuck,” even with our national and state governments instating “repeated waves of reform.” (Stern 211) The common goal with education should therefore be:
Beginning with middle school, specific, high, common standards of what every student should know and rigorous common curricula are incompatible with the needs
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After elementary school, the standards and the process of meeting them must be tailored to the students. (Wolk 27)
The American dream is an individual’s freedom to pursue their passion and talents without resistance or restriction. But, it is being threatened by the United State’s current education system because it tries to force students into standardized subjects and an illogical system based on international comparison instead of cultivating student’s unique skills.
Issues with the system overall
The first issue that needs to be addressed are the systematic issues within the education system. If these issues aren't removed or at least acknowledged and understood the United States education system will never be able to move past the plateau that we are currently in internationally. This is not to say that the students and graduates in the United States are in anyway less intelligent than the rest of the world, but rather the way students are taught and the way we are rated is inhibiting their full potential. The main inhibitor in the education system is the age-based grade system. Instead of logically separating students into groups that are organized by skill