My thoughs on the Education System in America

Education System in America

My name is Savannah. I’m 27 years old and have gone to three different high schools and two different colleges. All of them were in Washington State, and also within a few hours’ drive of each other. Not one of them taught with similar classes nor did they all accept the previous schools credits I had already earned. My view about America’s Education System is extremely skewed because of my experiences within our Education System.  Because no school uses the same curriculum, every time I switched schools, I had to be re-evaluated to be placed in their system. And each time with them not knowing where to place me, was just placed in classes they “thought” would be the appropriate class, each time falling a little bit behind. By the time I reached the last six months of my senior year of high school and had transferred to my third school, I was attending full time high school and almost full time college through running start just to graduate on time.

I believe that our Education System is not one that is helpful nor do I believe that it really educates in a way that helps to prepare individuals for “real life”.  I also think that, just like most everything else in our country, the quality of it is based off of how much money one is able to shell out and not about  the amount of will, determination, hard work,  or even just dreams of what is wished to be accomplished by attending school, to get an education.

In our country, getting a great education is not a basic right. It’s a privilege. It is something that you are able to attain if you have the money for it or are willing to go into thousands of dollars of debt. It’s not very hard to understand why kids getting out of high school don’t want to go to college right away. Especially with the economy the way it is now. It doesn’t matter what sort of degree you have, how many years you spent in school, or what sort of experience you have. Most of the time you will end up working one, two or even three, minimum paying wage jobs to make ends meet. And that is just to survive. Throw on top of that all of the payments that will be made for student loans, and just plain old everyday life. It’s stressful and also disheartening.

   This is not just for College but for other levels of education as well. Starting as young as Kindergarten, family’s start paying anywhere from $5,000-$10,000 a year for their child to get a good education because public schools don’t cut it anymore.  You aren’t guaranteed a good education from public schools. And how can you when class sizes are outrageously large and teachers are under paid?

I think that it’s time for America to put its focus back on educating the people who help make the back bone of this country. Education should be a given, not just a right.  A great education should be available to anyone who wants one, regardless of where they are coming from, who they are, or where they are going.