Ray Bradbury is not only my favorite genre author of all time, but he is probably one of the most skilled American writers of the American canon of the past 6 0years. In a 1988 interview with National Public Radio, Bradbury gave some very interesting insight into who he was and how he thought about a variety of different topics.

One question that stuck out in the interview was something along the lines of, “If you could come back every 50 years after you die, what would you want to see?” For a sci-fi author, one would imagine that Bradbury would want to see if we had spread out to Mars or if we had invented sentient machines yet. His answer is a little more thought provoking than that.

“I'd like to come back every 50 years and see how we can use certain technological advantages to our advantage, say in education.” (Bradbury)

"Wait, you don't want to come back and find out if we've landed on Mars or not?” (interviewer)

"It's not going to do any good to land on Mars if we're stupid and I want to save the future generation. I want to teach them to read when they're 5 and 6 and 7 years old. If we don't do that, we lose them forever.” (Bradbury)

When you think about it, Bradbury is right. America's primary education is not competitive when compared to other counties The United States ranks 14th out of 40 countries ranked in school proficiency. All that we are doing with this lackluster public education is digging a hole for the younger generations. I am not one who thinks that everyone needs or should go to college. There are plenty of well-paying and very necessary jobs that do not require a degree. (My dream job used to be an apprenticeship program and now requires a master’s degree.) However, what we do need is a public education system that sets standards for all American children in Science, Math, Art, English, and the Social Sciences that do not just focus on the memorization of facts (like "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell"). Personally, I see a more liberal arts style of education where application is stressed more than memorization as a useful tool in upgrading our K-12 education system.

Back to the topic, Bradbury was right. Reaching technological milestones won’t mean anything if our people as a whole cannot appreciate these advancements. I’m not saying that "Idiocracy" will come true and that our kin will all be bumbling idols in a few generations. However, a more rigorous and internationally competitive primary education is a good foundation for creating a better America.

This is why I get so annoyed when politicians want to strip common core and let states decide what children learn. If we don’t have unified set of standards for teaching children and teens how to think and how to learn, rather than what to think and what to learn, we will have a better educated average American. What will the future matter if we are all not intelligent enough to appreciate where we are going?