Only now that my seventh year of American public education is coming to a close, am I realizing the inherent deficiencies of the schooling system of this country. Our forefathers founded the American public education system with the goal of creating an intelligent and informed populous that was able to participate in its government. They also wanted to make sure that the lower and middle classes had access to equal education and thus equal opportunity with the upper class that could afford private education. In a society where money is power, especially when it comes to being a politician, adequacy in public education is very important.

From legislators to cabinet members, money is the key to holding office and having power in the United States. The cost of running for office is skyrocketing, but not only can most candidates afford it because they were quite affluent to begin with, but they have lobbyists throwing money at them in exchange for votes. The great majority of our presidents were privately educated their entire lives. Power has always been held in the hands of the extremely wealthy and the grip does not seem to be loosening. The monopolization of the government poses the question, how can the plutocracy be broken down into a true democracy? The answer is in the public education system.

Today the system teaches to the STAR test or to an AP test and somewhere in the midst of the testing, the thirst for knowledge is lost and the desire for deep understanding dissolves. We are taught to pass the CAHSEE; the elementary nature of the exam itself speaks volumes about our standards. We are taught to pass the twelfth grade. We are not taught to aim for higher understanding and we are certainly not taught to ask questions. Private schools however, the same ones that have always educated our leaders, teach to a rigorous standard and surround their students in an atmosphere where achieving at the highest possible level is the goal. The government has minimal control over the curriculum of private schools and so these schools are able to do things like offer honors courses for their freshmen or AP English for their sophomores. I understand that these schools have much more money and therefore much more freedom. Public schools on the contrary do not have liberal sums of money and therefore are stuck beneath the whims of their overseers.

According to a 2005 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, the federal government is only responsible for 8.5 percent of funding for public primary, middle, and high schools. State and local governments are left to cover the other 91.5 percent of education costs on their own, the majority of which come through property taxes. Naturally, this leaves the inhabitants of rural and underdeveloped areas far behind the rest of the country because not only do they not have the money to be taxed any further, but their property is not worth enough to be taxed to the point where a significant improvement is made in their schools. The system essentially neglects those who narrowly get by with what little funds they have. There is no way these people can repair their plights without the knowledge to do so. As a result of calculated oversight, the impoverished are left in a cycle where they can barely make a living and they are kept from having an education to break the crippling cycle.

The Program for International Student Assessment compared American children to children of other developed countries and ranked them 24 of 38 in mathematics, 19 of 38 in science, and 26 of 38 in problem solving. In addition, many business leaders have expressed concerns that the quality of education given in the U.S. system is generally below acceptable standards, and should be modified to adapt to the needs of an evolving world. According to the 2004 U.S. Census, the voter turnout of the previous presidential election was 56 percent. Albeit a small increase from the 2000 election (51 percent), the turnout pales in comparison to the turnouts of countries like Denmark, Israel or Germany, all of whose turnouts were near 80 percent. There is no coincidence amongst the facts that our students face difficulty competing against the rest of the world, our voter turnouts are about equal to those of Nigeria, and that the federal government puts minimal sums of money into the public education system. The vast majority of the budding population is kept blind, kept stupid, and kept from participating. It all serves the goals of elitists and the richest of the rich; the same people who control big business, who in turn control our representatives. With this coming election we as students, or better yet, citizens, should begin to seriously question our candidates and more importantly, our entire system.