Why Public Education is Ineffective

The United States government says that everyone has a right to a free education. Instead, they gave us school. Obviously, there has been a failure to communicate somewhere along the line. You can refuse any of your rights if you so choose. So why are children forced to go to school?

Right (n.) - a just claim or title, whether legal, prescriptive, or moral.

Obligation (n.) - something by which a person is bound or obliged to do certain things, and which arises out of a sense of duty or results from custom, law, etc.

Which category does school fall under? Obligation, of course. School is something that millions of students are bound/obliged to attend. Unfortunately, many people don't see the problem that lies within this system. "School is good," they're told, and they listen without question. Now you want to know why this so-called "education" system is so bad, I'm sure. Simply put, it discourages individual thinking. It takes in children and pumps out robots. Why is this continuing?

Unfortunately, with school, kids don't receive any sort of (relevant) education. Explain to me when the last time you used algebra was. Better yet, when was the last time you were reading through a book, trying to pick out hyperboles or sensory images? Please tell me why students are required to know the full structure of a plant cell. These are 3 out of the hundreds of things that students are forced to memorize in a year.
Many people will say that basic necessities are taught in school. Basic math, reading, and spelling are some useful things that are actually taught in public schools (I won't get into how poorly even those things are taught)... and yet they teach nothing about making a resume, income tax, buying a house/apartment, financing, driving, balancing a checkbook, etc. Even the useful subjects that are taught can be much more easily learned outside of school, when the information isn't being shoved down the throats of the students. After around the 5th grade, schools in this country don't teach anything useful anyway. They break students down into the mindset that they need to listen to their self-appointed superiors. They promote the fact that students need to listen to the teachers, and not question what they say. They teach us to be cogs in the machine. As a result of this blind obedience, many questions go unanswered, and many answers go unquestioned.

School should be about preparing students for life, and preparing them for what's ahead, not about graphing quadratic equations. Why should students be subjected to this? Encourage independece, encourage intelligence... Encourage entrepreneurs!

The curriculum in schools is unrealistic. You sit through 13 years of school, which are all filled with listening to teachers (who, the majority of the time, aren't qualified to educate) trying to teach you useless information, all so you can receive a piece of paper that proves you were forced to waste a good chunk of your life. But how much did you take out of school? How prepared were you for life? Are you happy with what you're doing, or are you living paycheck to paycheck, as you've always been told to?

You don't find an education in school. No. What you find is a religion. It's a religion that preaches conformity, forces you into dependency, and teaches you to spend your life doing what everyone else tells you to do.

While you may think that I'll be praising school in this section, I'll be doing just the opposite.
Let's look back to the roots of American schools. Why did they start in the first place? Let's just start by saying that schools do an awful job at preparing people for a fulfilling life. However, they excel at keeping young people off of the job market. This is very backwards to me. Allow me to dissect the situation.

Around 200 years ago, America was primarily still an agrarian society. Children were expected, possibly even needed to learn to be workers at the ages of ten or eleven. A fourth or fifth grade education was perfectly acceptable at this point. As society evolved, fewer kids were needed for farm work. Child labor laws came soon after, which prevented them from being in factory jobs also. But they had to get the children off of the streets! New curriculum was written (very poorly). No one cared what was in the curriculum, so it was filled with garbage... as long as it kept children off of the streets, it was deemed acceptable. Laws were passed saying that everyone needed an 8th grade education.

Enter the Great Depression. The same situation occurred, young people needed to be kept away from the job market because there weren't any jobs available. What better way to do this than opening new jobs (by extending compulsory school requirements to 12th grade), and keeping kids in school longer? The law was passed, and more nonsense curriculum was made up. I'll leave the rant about the push for college for another article.

After World War 2, there were more jobs than there were people to fill them. Graduates were being pumped out of 12th grade, not knowing much more than those who graduated from 6th grade a century ago. None of the worthless information they were forced to swallow was retained, and if it had been, it wouldn't have mattered. The graduates were barely employable, because the "skills" they had were totally useless from a business perspective. The response to that was so-called "educators" deciding to give the students more the same - poems to analyze, themes to write, variables to solve for. (to read more about the history of it all, visit this article.)

In conclusion, the school system does exactly what it was intended to do. It keeps teenagers off of the job market. But this system is outdated. At this point in time, it is completely and totally worthless, and hurts more than it helps.

I have one particularly awful teacher, who says some of the most idiotic things I've ever heard leave someone's mouth. I'll be keeping a log of some of those things here, and it will be updated each time something is said.

-A conversation between said teacher and a student. How horrible. Was actually posted soon after submitted to the Immature Entrepreneur's website.
Teacher: Are you going to get the homework done this time?
Student: I can't do all of this stuff. I have to work tonight.
Teacher: Well you have work here, too (referring to school). Where do you work?
Student: Price Chopper (a local grocery store chain).
Teacher: I hope you like it, you'll be working there the rest of your life if you don't pass this class.
Student: I hate my job. It sucks.
Teacher: All jobs do.

-Recently, the teacher informed us that in order to get us to ask more questions (which no one asks, because they understand the work), he will occasionally give us incorrect answers while we check our work. So he'll say that we're wrong, just so we'll ask him how to do correctly do the work. How backwards.

If you need more evidence, maybe from people you consider "experts," here it is.

Social Psychiatrist Shaun Kerry, M.D. says, "There is a sharp jump in the incidence of mental illness immediately after children begin school. This would suggest that something about our school system is in direct conflict with the human psyche."

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." - Albert Einstein

"I hated school so intensely. It interfered with my freedom." - Sigrid Undset (Nobel Prize winner)

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

"Let me control the textbooks, and I will control the state." - Adolf Hitler

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education." - Bertrand Russell (British Philosopher)

Many successful and/or intelligent people were high school dropouts. For example, Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, or Vincent van Gogh. (this list is by no means complete)

Actors: Russel Crowe, Tom Cruise, Beverly D'Angelo, Robert DeNiro, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Heath Ledger, Jason Lee, Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves, Demi Moore, Joaquin Phoenix, Uma Thurman, and many more.

Singers: Mary J. Blige, Louis Armstrong, Christina Aguilera, Michael Bolton, Cher, Kurt Cobain, Phil Collins, Thomas Dolby, Celine Dion, Duke Ellington, Eminem, Marvin Gaye, Jay-Z, Kid Rock, Avril Lavigne, LL Cool J, Nelly, Wayne Newton, Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty, Prince, Busta Rhymes, Axl Rose, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Barry White, Elliot Yamin, and more.

Education does not equal success.

Forced education must stop. The curriculum is counterproductive and outdated, and shouldn't be taught to students. Students should be able to learn at their own pace, rather than be standardized and grouped into one category.
School should prepare you for society, not set you up to fail.
Ignorance should be replaced with knowledge, not obedience.
School should create intelligent people and entrepreneurs, not educated idiots.

Independence is what America was founded on. Unfortunately, this unconstitutional system is separating the country from its roots. The school system shouldn't be teaching children to be able to conform and regurgitate information, but rather it should encourage individual thinking and teach leadership skills.
The only solution is a complete redesign. This system was designed during a time when it may have been effective (but still not good). Now, it's contributing to an ever growing problem -- stupidity. We need to stop this system before it's too late. The children are our future... and people wonder why the future looks grim.