Patrick Nevins
Eng 1010
Education essay Ever since America’s schools surged forward during the Cold War as we raced to stay ahead of the USSR, they have steadily declined as the quality of teachers and materials degraded and our country stopped caring about education. Michael Moore in
“Idiot Nation”, and Benjamin Barber in “America Skips School” both talk about our education system's plunge from number one in the world and how it happened. Our
Nation’s children are being taught by teachers who no longer care as they already have received tenure. Teachers aren’t the only ones to blame, education has been put on the backburner because we care more about pop culture and memorizing sports statistics instead of algebra equations.
In “Idiot Nation”, by Michael Moore, he talks about how Americans aren’t stupid but we are focused on the wrong things. American students don’t care about history or geography because it isn’t necessary for most modern jobs. They instead focus on sports information or pop culture which will help them find friends, lovers, and connections to get jobs. Therefore the fault is not with students, but with our government because “they have decided it’s a bigger priority to build another bomber than to educate our children”(Moore). Instead of spending more money on education, there are budget cuts year after year and people are scared off of becoming teachers because of how hard it is to find and keep a job.

Throughout “America skips school”, by Benjamin Barber, he talks about how Americans don’t care enough about our education system as well as how students aren’t being taught the fundamental things they need to be successful. Instead of our education system getting better and better over the years, it has slowly deteriorated.
According to
The Learning Curve
, The United States ranks 17th in educational performance whereas we used to be first during the cold war. We have reports such as this all the time yet nothing is done about our education system, we continue to make budget cuts instead