Our schools are failing our students, and our school system needs an overhaul. If you don’t believe me, read about the Education Olympics. The issue here is not that we are failing, but how can we fix that? It’s really a simple solution, bring back programs that students are interested in. Students don’t often care about math, or history, or anything else that we’ve deemed mandatory. They never have, but if you find something they are interested in, they are more likely to challenge themselves and be successful.
In the San Joaquin Valley, a smaller percentage of 12th graders are taking the SAT than in California as a whole. Compared to the 36 percent of seniors in California, only Fresno County, (at 29 percent) even comes close. Madera has the lowest percentage, with only 19 percent of seniors taking the test. As a state, approximately 24 percent of the population has less than a high school education. Every single county in the San Joaquin Valley exceeds this number by at approximately 10 percent.
Not every person is meant for college. As a future teacher, it seems almost hypocritical to say this, but it’s something that needs to be said. Once upon a time, a high school diploma was an accomplishment and was valued in life. You could get a good job, and support your family with the income made on a high school education. Now, a high school diploma will rarely get you anything better than McDonald’s.
Elective courses give students the chance to bond with teachers that may otherwise be unable to make a connection. They also give students the chance to try out potential careers and to be well-rounded in their education. Students are able to become more independent, and prepared for their future as adults, not simply as college kids. Instead of expecting all students to go to college, where general education classes give them the chance to gain skills like this, we should put them back in our high schools. Stop pressuring students about standardized tests, and forcing them to plan out the rest of their lives at 16 years old. Let them learn about topics that interest them, and let them explore who they are.
Gone are the days of picking a job, working for forty years, and retiring from that career. Most people stay at a job for an average of 4.4 years according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, meaning that job hopping seems to trump a career nowadays. One way to combat the high rate of employee turnover would be to help guide students to careers that they can be passionate about. By reducing the number of college graduates (and dropouts), it would once again allow the Bachelor’s degree hold the value that it used to, and would make the job market significantly smaller, thus helping reduce unemployment rates in each category.
There shouldn’t be a war between blue-collar and white-collar workers, but instead a harmony between the two. There can not be a demand for workers in a particular field, and yet judgement of the people who go down that path. We need CEO’s, engineers, burger-flippers, car - washers, farmers and farmhands equally. We need artists if we want art, we need musicians if we want good music, we need craftsmen if we want quality products made. If we continue pretending that a college degree should be required for everything, we will soon have a society where everyone is overqualified and no one can find a job.
