Jayson California

Flawed Educational System

High schools don't teach us enough about fundamental life lessons

Dear future president,

I wish to tell you what I think of our current education system through this letter. I believe that our education system is not benefiting high school students as much as it should. We are forced to take mandatory classes that most of us would most likely not use in the future, yet we are rarely taught about fundamental lessons that would benefit us as adults. I’m hoping that by reading this letter, you would be inclined to address my concerns about the educational system.

Math, history, and science classes should not be mandatory. Not everyone wants to be an engineer, architect, historian, scientist, or anything else related to those subjects. Why do we need to be taught about what happened to our country 100 years ago or how humans evolved? These types of subjects should be counted as electives, like computer classes. There are just as many jobs out there for computers/internet as there are for jobs that require knowledge of Geometry and Algebra 2, yet IT and networking classes are electives while 2 years of math is mandatory. If computer classes, which can provide students plenty of well paying jobs in the future are electives, then math, history, and science classes should be electives as well.

Knowledge on economics, civics, taxes, loans, etc., would be used by every high school student in the United States when they reach adulthood, yet we barely learn about these subjects in high school. These subjects are vital to voting, yet most high schools don’t teach them until senior year. As a result, most voters have little to no knowledge on the policies of the presidential candidates and end up relying on the media to figure out who they should vote for. A good example of this is the 2016 election. These people depend on media sources so much because they barely have knowledge on how the economy, government, and taxes work. Instead of making educational choices when it comes to voting, voters are being influenced by biased media sources. I believe that if we are more educated in these topics, people would be able to make wiser choices when it comes to voting.

 Sincerely, Jayson