Persuasive Essay on American Education System

America is the land of opportunity, the land of hope, the melting pot of the world. When America was founded, the founding fathers created a country where you could be anything you wanted to be. Years later this would become what we know as the American Dream. But today America has seem to have forgotten about it and become a cookie-cutter culture. Long gone seem to be the days of human excellence that put humans on the moon, put people's stories into motion pictures, and created the first automobile. Where did it all go? It seems that America has underprepared the youth of America to fulfill the American Dream. This is because schools are not teaching necessary life skills in schools. School systems express bias against different careers. Students are sheltered from the realities of the real world. 

Schools do not teach you what you need to know for the real world.  “The average educated American forgets about 40% of what they learned and uses just 37% of the knowledge and skills in their everyday lives on average” (Renner). Most people forget everything they learn and is symbolic of the fact that the subjects we are taught in school are pointless. If they were actually important the forgetfulness percentage would be less. Cause of this there is many young people that are questioning the purpose of the school system. Even in college students are finding “students developed an alternative conception of the ethical responsibilities of educators and students, they began to question their prior collegiate experience” (Keene 66).  There needs to be a change in the way education is approached in the United States in order for students to excel in society to where it was back in the days of America's Golden Age. 

The school system was not made for the dreamers, inventors, and entrepreneurs but for workers. People like John Rockefeller said, “ I don’t want a nation of thinkers I want a nation of workers” (Rockefeller). For some reason, our education system was formed by corrupt billionaires who wanted more workers in their factories. The concepts of education have not changed since the Industrial Era which consists of learning the basics of topics by for a certain amount of time then getting tested. Depending on how well you on that test decided whether or not you succeed. While being controlled by bells. People today say “They too are searching for a meaningful education” (Keene 66). Everyone just wants to succeed in whatever they do and getting n education that will not help to achieve that. America used to be the land of dreamers and now it seems lost by a damaged education system. 

Secondly, educators and the school system itself show a lot of biased towards many different career paths. But for some reason, Americans have been fed a notion that you must live to a standard set by the education system. That means that certain jobs and career paths are discouraged based on what the government, which is behind all of this, wants. Many people like Thomas Green have seen this and have come to the conclusion that “ “It does not matter how the American Dream is shaped by individuals when we consider the harsh realities imposed upon us” (Green 328). The harsh reality is that the school system doesn’t care about you, it is business that will leave you bankrupt. Many of the top CEOs like Elon musk even say “I don’t consider going to college evidence of exceptional ability” (Musk). The point is that we feel like the degree we were told to get was evidence of our ability but in reality, it is experience that builds ability.

From an outsider's point of view, the college admissions process seems like a business making money off of teenagers trying to get into their dream school. They're not wrong considering the amount of money that is needed to apply to colleges like SAT prep, the SAT itself, college applications. It can be a lot for some families not to mention the tons of debt that one will have after and be paying off till there 40. America today is in “$1.73 trillion in student debt—borrowers from these states owe the most” (Hess). In many schools, the expectation is to go to college but a lot of the time college is not for everyone and especially for those who can’t afford it. It is unfair for schools to force that upon students or make them feel left out because of their choice. As Sara Keene puts it “My experiences in higher education - on both sides of the desk - suggest to me that remedial and dumbed-down courses may be simply another means of reinforcing class-based inequalities” (Keene 65).

With every person whos ever been successful or done something meaningful, they all have one common characteristic which is a risk taker. Risk-taking is essential in order to achieve our highest desires in life and school greatly diminishes students' willingness to do so. In the past couple year's many different groups have been skeptical of the American Dream. As Christ Stout writes “If previous research is correct the declining levels of success for blacks on several economic indicators such as wealth, employment, and income in recent years should lead blacks to become even more skeptical about the American Dream”(Stout 1339). There skeptical because their education and what they learn is to always play it safe. One of the greatest lines in cinema history deals with this exact topic when Oscar Issac says “ When it feels scary to jump, that is exactly when you jump, otherwise you end up staying in the same place your whole life, and that I can't do” (Issac). Showing the mentality it takes to truly live the American Dream. 

“Nothing beats a first-hand experience” ( Rosling). Experience is the root of being successful. Edison conducted 1,000 experiments to get the lightbulb, Henry Ford was kicked out of the original Ford Motor Company. These men learned from their failures and became some of the most successful people on the planet. But in school, this type of experience is not given infact the opposite. When a student fails something they are given an F that is forever there for that quarter and the final grade is now affected. The truth of the matter is that kids are now afraid to make mistakes. For example, a question is asked by the teacher and no hands are raised, why? Cause kids are afraid of being wrong and now instead of trying they don’t even bother. A teacher John Holt says that students “fear a teacher's displeasure, the scorn of their peers, the pain of being wrong. "Even in the kindest and gentlest of schools, children are afraid, many of them a great deal of the time, some of them almost all the time” (Holt 1). Students need to be able to push past fear to be able to succeed and not be punished for working hard and failing. 

In conclusion, all humans want to live a life of prosperity. Which is why education and the habits learned from that education are important. The U.S. education system has proven faulty and hinders the achievement of the American Dream by schools are not teaching necessary life skills in schools. School systems express bias against different careers. Students are sheltered from the realities of the real world.