So many things bother me about the Education System in America. I could write pages and pages about how much I wish we could change, but I really don't want to bore anyone or waste anyone's time, considering experts on education are saying similar things, and the system remains unchanged. For the time being, I'm going to keep this topic general and bring many broad ideas to light.
To start, I think we are wasting a lot of time on pointless subjects. Now, depending on what kind of career you want to go into, your viewpoint on "pointless" can change. For example, if someone wanted to be an artist, taking physics probably wouldn't help progress his or her artistic talents. However, if that person wanted to be an engineer, taking French history would probably get him or her nowhere. The saddest part about this is students need to take these "pointless subjects" to progress their careers. The art student may need physics to boost his or her GPA in high school to get into a better college because physics is an honors course. The physics student may need the French history course as an elective in college. My point is; why are we having students who know what they want to do take classes that they won't benefit from? Why are they wasting time and money (I'm not even going to get started on how ridiculous a good eduction costs) by learning things they will forget in a year or two? Now if someone is undecided by all means they should explore every option, but if someone knows what they want to do, why are they taking something that will be useless? There needs to be a system set up for those students who know exactly what they want to do that allows them to focus only on the courses that will be necessary for their job.
This system could start at a high school freshman level. Of course, it is very unreasonable to have a 15 year old decide on their future, much less an 18 year old, but we need a system where those who know what they want to do can pick. The ones who are unsure could stay on the same course, choosing courses that dabble in every aspect of modern education until they decide what they want to do.
On a different note, I think the grading system discourages more students rather than motive them. The only things grades prove is who is willing to sacrifice more time and memorize more information. I feel like students would actually want to learn more if there weren't grades because without the fear of failing or looking stupid, they can focus on absorbing information and learning the material that interests them. Now, obviously there needs to be a system where we can evaluate the students' growth over the learning period, but grading on tedious homework and tests every chapter is not the way to do it, which brings me to my next topic.
Testing is flawed because, as I mentioned earlier, students don't really learn the material for a test. They spend more time memorizing the material for the chapter and then forgetting it to learn the next one. Perhaps there could be a progressive check over the materials being taught in the class, and the student was required to know that material before that individual moved on. However, that would require time and people to monitor the student's growth, and because time is money, that idea would never get off the ground. Facts are facts though, and the facts are showing that our country is slipping in education. We aren't the dominant country right now in reading, science or math. In fact, according to http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-rankings-2013-12 the US ranks below the OECD (the Organization for Education Co-Operation and Development) average on all three categories. Kids are more worried about passing their grades and getting into good colleges than actually learning the material. This is wrong.
I'm not an expert on this topic (is it obvious by now?) but there are definitely problems with the system. My ideas don't have a ton of support, but ideas can spark change. Sometimes, all you need is a spark to start the fire. Considering the state of the education system, unwillingness to change, and the people running the system, it may take a flamethrower to start this fire.
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