By GRACE GUNTER
September 28, 2006

Until recently, I naively believed the United States was ranked number one in education. Given the PISA international test a few years ago, students in United States ranked 25th overall. Granted China was listed twice, Hong Kong being ranked at number three and Macao at number ten. But that still leaves twenty-two other countries whose scores were higher. Among other countries, America was ranked behind Finland (1), Japan (5), Canada (7), Belgium (11), France (14), Austria (20), Poland (21), and the Slovak Republic (24).

American students aren’t inherently “dumber” than students from countries like Canada, France, and Poland. Fourth graders who take international tests score (on average) the same as fourth graders from countries with higher rankings; however, by the time they get to high school, American students’ test scores start lagging behind. Something has gone wrong. But what?

Speaking with different people here on campus about the subject, I found a pattern of sorts. Everyone placed blame on one or more of the following: the teachers, students, parents, and the school system itself.

Some fault the teachers for not putting in enough effort, not being creative enough, or not “connecting” with their students. Others point to the parents, saying they need to be more involved in their kids’ learning process. Still, there are those who place blame squarely on the students themselves. And who can forget “the institution” itself? Some blame the school systems and even the state government for not giving out and spending money responsibly.

While there is a bit of truth found in all those remarks, none of them are completely right. Educating students needs to be a cooperative effort between everyone involved -- teacher, student, parent, and even the school system. Unfortunately, most people can find fault with all four.

Since I am a student and not a teacher, parent, or employee of the school system, I can only speak from a student’s perspective. But it seems to me that over the years standards have been lowered. Point in case: In high school, I took honors classes. I completed (i.e., rushed through) my homework most of the time, rarely studied, and still managed to be inducted into the Beta Club. If more was expected of me, i.e., if the standards had been higher, I probably would have spent more time on homework and might have even studied more.

Not all problems with the education system are external; students have to take responsibility as well. I think my generation, generally speaking, is a bit lazy and complacent. Studies from 2002 reported that fifty-six percent of high school sophomores spent less than an hour on homework each night. How can we expect to become the “most intelligent” country if we put forth little or no effort? It’s impossible.

I also believe society has played a role in the way students think. Today’s society values status, money, material goods, and entertainment over intelligence. Just compare the salaries of a professional athletes to those of college professors; there is a tremendous gap between the two.

With society’s values comes the need for “higher productivity.” However, in pushing for higher productivity, we have sacrificed intelligence. The common thought is “If certain subjects don’t pertain to a person’s major/job, he or she doesn’t need to know them.” But aren’t we selling ourselves short?

Instead of learning as much as we can, we settle for what we have to know. Notice how many of us students ask, “What’s going to be on the quiz/test?” In doing this we are basically asking how to get the most output, i.e., the best grade, out of the least input, i.e., only studying the information that will be on the quiz/test instead of reading the whole chapter(s). But it is to our advantage, not our detriment to be well-rounded people.

America’s students didn’t fall to 25th in the rankings by themselves; however, they didn’t help themselves either. So what is the solution to the multi-faceted problem of the school system? There is no simple answer. But if conversations and discussions continue to take place, there is no doubt in my mind that America’s education system will benefit.