Undereducated Of America Research Paper

Dr. Posey
English 1A
March 7, 2014
The Undereducated of America:
Let’s Prepare Our Students for a Career The education in the United States needs to make some important changes in the very near future as it is failing our children. Students are scoring lower on their standardized tests and this is an indication that American education is in trouble. We seem to have a very hard time keeping kids in school. “Contrary to conventional belief, legislators enacted compulsory-attendance laws to legalize what already existed. William Landes and Lewis Solomon, economists, found little evidence that mandatory-attendance laws increased the number of children in school. Despite enforcement efforts, nearly 15 percent of the school- age children
in our largest cities are almost permanently absent from school” (Sipher 3). Some children want to move forward and learn while others end up quitting and drop out of school. High school is an important step in education and should not be skipped.
When kids drop out of school they quickly learn they do not have the skill set needed to go out in the real world and land a decent paying job, especially jobs that require knowledge and skill. Consequently, when they apply for a job they are quickly eliminated. The most valuable experience a person takes with them is not how to land a job making minimum wage, but more importantly gaining the knowledge about what it will take for them to start making a higher wage in the field and environment in which they have chosen to work in. If we could involve our children in some type of ROP “Regional Occupational program,” it would be advantageous for them to get involved in a work like atmosphere. This is one of the major keys that need to change in our educational system; students need to have the opportunity during school to explore and learn about different types of careers and occupations that are available. Our educational system needs to integrate basic education with work based training. This provides an easier transition after school into a career of their choosing or helps them to narrow down a major if they decide to attend college after high
school. Many young adults go to college to obtain their degree and start an occupation, only to find they do not like it once they land a job working full time. According to Leon Botstein; “by the time our young students have graduated high school and moved on to college they may have wasted many opportunities and time” (1). It has been shown that taking a break from school before attending college can be a very good thing to do. “Twenty percent of Harvard students, for example, take off a year or more during their schooling. ‘We encourage students to take time off,’ said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard. ‘In fact in our admission letter, we talk about the idea of taking a year off. We feel it’s a good thing to do, to get off this very fast train that most of them have been on’” (Lee 1). Many students get burned out as they have been going to school for 12 years and need a break to step back from school and have a chance to mature and seek out what interests them the most. “It is noted that in a 1992 survey by the National Center for Education statistics showed that 30.6 percent of college freshmen did not return in the fall for their sophomore year” (Lee 1) which indicates that they were not ready to move forward with their education or they had some sort of crisis in their life preventing them from attending school.
After completing high school many students are ready to get out into the real world to try to get an idea of what life could be like in a particular occupation and determine if it is what they really want to do.
It is terrible loss of time and money if a student is not ready to go on to college and give a 100 percent of their effort. College can cost anywhere from $6,000 to $30,000 a year, and a person had better be ready to learn and have narrowed down their major, otherwise college becomes a waste of time, money and the student may end with poor grades on their transcript or drop out all together. College may not be for everyone, even for the bright students. “I don’t believe that learning isn’t for everyone,” according to Mr. Griffith, director of admissions at the University of Delaware, “but schooling may not be for everyone” (Lee 2). What do we do with high school graduates in the mean time? Let them go out and see firsthand how the real world really works. Give them the opportunity to live on their own and experience what it means to support themselves in the adult world. Many teens will begin to realize that without a college education, they are not able to sustain living on their own financially or find a decent
career. My personal life experience in regards to school is that if you are truly interested in learning and you are ready to rise to the challenge, you should go for it. Life is not stopping and you need to jump on the band wagon, because before you know it you will be forty or fifty years old and wonder where all the time went. Go out into the world and experience everything that you can to enlighten and increase your worldview, enjoy all of the splendors that life has to offer and continue learning all that you can. What a shame it would be to look back on your life in hind sight and wonder what it would have been like to be a fireman, a police officer, a pilot, a doctor, or anything that you once thought of doing but never did. I once saw a book that listed jobs alphabetically and it was about 5 inches thick and in small print. There are tens of thousands of jobs out there in the world and the trick is to find something that you are interested in. The key to a finding a successful career is first obtaining a good education, and second, finding what interests you so that your job becomes not “just a job” but a career that is fulfilling, rewarding and enjoyable. If our schools would give more individualized treatment to our students to explore what they are good at or what their interests are, they will be more ready to enter the work world or college so our country can continue to prosper. Letting children decide whether or not to attend school is not an option. They do not have the maturity to make that decision and our country would end up with a vast amount of undereducated people.

Works Cited
Botstein, Leon. “Let Teen-agers Try Adulthood.” The New York Times. Archives. 17 May 1999. Print.
Lee, Linda. “What’s the Rush? Why College Can Wait.” New York Times. Education. 02 August 1998. Print.
Sipher, Rodger. “So That Nobody Has To Go To School If They Don’t Want To.” The New York Times. 19 December 1977. Page 31. Print.