The Importance Of Education In America

Making America’s Education Great Again: Quality, not Quantity
The United States of America—a country whose citizens pride themselves on being number one; yet the nation’s education is a national embarrassment. Some have proposed that school days be extended to alleviate this; others believe that making better use of the hours we currently have is the better option (“Is an Extended School Day the Right Choice for Students?”). However, more school hours would only hurt students. Instead, the United States must enrich the education system if it to see an improvement.
The American education system needs serious improvement. For one thing, the results of the Organisation for Economic Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
In the words of Kristine Tucker, a longer school day will result in fatigued students, creating an outcome where students are not attentive during instruction time. Educators will be forced to work for longer hours, requiring more funds and schools will have to cut back on after-school activities (Tucker). Japan scores second on the PISA overall—giving the illusion that all is well—but the country requires 210 days of school, and most students spend up to 250 days in school (“PISA 2015 Results in Focus”, Iwana). Accordingly, the island nation has one of the highest teen suicide rates in the world, likely caused by the immense stress placed on students (Winner). In conclusion, the education system needs serious reform, but lengthening the school day would be a lose-lose situation; both students and teachers would be hurt, mentally and even physically, as teens are driven to suicide from a stressful
Abby Jackson and Andy Kiersz wrote that the country scored an excellent 5th place on the PISA test. Unlike what is expected of a highly-performing education system, the country’s 9-11 year-olds spend only 640 hours in school every year, compared to 821 hours, the average for an OECD country (Risku and Aalto). Additionally, Finland’s teachers focus on teaching instead of standardized testing, which Finland doesn’t have, as educators are trusted in the work they do (Ingram). Leticia Guzman Ingram, the 2016 Colorado State Teacher of the Year, wrote that only “the top candidates from that exam [on education pedagogy] are interviewed and then chosen for acceptance into a rigorous five year education program”. Next, the school schedule requires children to have undirected 15 minute breaks every hour, which has been proven to boost the attention of students, as stated by Timothy Walker. Lastly, the education system is seen as one of the most efficient in its use of time and money, according to Mika Risku and Eija Aalto, both of whom are from the University of Jyväskylä. In conclusion, Finland’s approach of improvement with rigorous training and freedom could be applied to the education system of the United States, and it would revolutionize the failing education