This is a response I wrote to a journal talking about disgust with the failure of education in the U.S. I lay out my thoughts on what is and has led to the current failed situation the education system is for the U.S.

There are many reasons why the education system fails here (in my opinion). One is the ignorance of modern institutions and groups (I think that's the wording I should use) that create things like text books that don't actually have updated information that the rest of the worlds modern countries have (like U.S. students still being taught that it wasn't Vikings who discovered America but Christopher Columbus). Ignorance in our scientific community of historians, archeologists, and other disciplines relevant to this kind of information are partly to blame for their lack of trust with each other as it is up to them to finalize newly realized information that would be added to text books and thus benefit students and society as a whole. Another reason would be our country’s method of condemning failing institutions of education by shutting them down and not actually trying to improve the situation or fix the problem that caused it to fail. This leads to my 3rd reason of failed education being no communication between institutions when transferring from an elementary school to a middle school or from a middle school to a high school. Because each institution does not communicate records of students that say what the students have been taught, the new schools they have graduated into must guess at what they didn’t learn and normally end up teaching them things they may have learned several years ago. This leaves little time to teach new things

There’s also the new method of "curving" test and assignment scores so more students can pass regardless of the fact that they didn't actually perform to the level they were graded to be. This leads to more students graduating without having fully learned what they were supposed to learn. But this curving of test grades may have only come about because of schools funding being maintained by the number of graduates from the school. As long as there is this sort of business model approach to education, there can be no room for actual progressive education. There’s also some modern mentality towards tests that leads government policy makers to think more testing leads to higher education. Evaluation of education based on tests is redundant as it interferes with teachers educating the student by forcing them to spend time preparing students for the test with strategy's for scamming a multiple choice exam as well has calming students and reinforcing their confidence when they fear they are not prepared for the test. It is in my opinion that there should be no preparation for a test as all that is needed is to continue teaching as normal until the test day. It is up to students in the college if they study for tests or not. If grade school is to be a stepping stone that prepares students for higher learning then it is doing nothing by taking it easy on them with review sessions in classes that could be spent learning more new things (probably why most classes never reach the end of their text books as well).

There is also the lack of handling for retarded students and highly capable student as most of them are kept mixed together. This forces the teacher to slow the class’s progress in order to help the students who are too stupid to understand what they are being taught without assistance at nearly every moment in the process. If the teacher is not willing to slow down the class to help these slow students understand, then they are left behind and don't learn anything at all. Aside from this, when there are no mentally challenged students in the class but ones that have the capability for higher achievements they are held back by the slow progression of the class at its standard rate. Many countries in Europe (and probably Asia) separate these gifted students from the average, and the average from the poor achievers. This helps tailor education for each category of student so they may achieve the most they can.

Despite the U.S.'s advances towards improving education, as long as there are so many things working against it there is no possible way to salvage it from the smoldering ashes of what was once a good nation with a great education system (back in the late 1800's). In many of the countries who have high achieving educated people, the education institutes are often controlled by the government and not some privatized entity meant to operate like a business model. Because of the fear mongering that takes place in U.S. politics, people are too scared of having something like socialized education but it is perhaps the most beneficial thing that could happen to public schools since the enforcement of grade school education for youths in the 1800's (a state by state law that started taking effect in most states between the 1830's and 1850's). Socialism is not as bad of a government method of operation as most people are led to believe (the same can be said about communism). Capitalism is perhaps the most destructive method of government operations in comparison but all forms of operation have their benefits and detriments. Some are good at creating stability and spreading wealth around evenly while others do not allow for stability but do allow for great achievements (as well as great failures). Public skepticism fueled by political rhetoric is perhaps the ultimate hindrance to the U.S.'s education system as nothing can be done to improve the system as long as the politicians who vote on the laws and policies (as well as feed slanted truths and lies to the public to fuel support or hatred for the laws and policies) maintain their tyrannical grasp on the public and societal system that effects the entire country.