It is no rumor that the United States school system has had its fair share of obstacles and challenges that have affected the learning of students. The U.S takes a very different approach than other countries who are excelling in the academic area. The Biden administration has put an enormous amount of money down on the table for schools, with a time span of about 10 years to spend it. Thirty countries now outperform the U.S in math at the highschool level, while many are ahead in science as well. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the millennials in our workforce tied for last on tests of mathematics and problem solving among the millennials in other industries.  We have the worst-educated workforce in the industrialized world. The idea of these corporations is to boost the achievements of the average highschool graduate and make American workers once again the best educated in the world, however to many this seems impossible. There has been no improvement in highschool math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress after more than over 40 years of trying. 

Why are we not succeeding? 

Although it seems impossible to some that the United States will be able to excel in these areas that are lacking, along with seeing some change in test scores, the evidence that it is not impossible is right in front of us. The evidence is all of the other countries who are countless times over and over again outperforming the United States in the education industry. Although the other countries have different value systems and cultural beliefs, many of their strategies to get to the top in academic performance seem to be similar. All of these countries have systems of education that are coherent and bounce off of each other. One system of policies will transfer over and support all other policies at every level of the system from the classroom to the top of the ministry of education. The U.S does not have a system like this, which can be seen as a main problem with why the U.S isn’t excelling in the academic area. Along with this, the U.S is huge on standardized testing and on nightly homework, while other countries that are succeeding in the educational area do not.  

I believe that for the United States to truly excel in the academic area, we need to continue to research these other countries and what makes them so successful. I believe that by doing this we will be able to see an increase in the test scores as well as an increase in the success rate of these children after they graduate. I believe that by using the money that the Biden administration has set down on the table for schooling, the United States should not be able to make any more excuses as to why the school system has seen students fail beyond the point of graduation.