Public Education is Not Sufficient.
America’s Public Education System Is a Joke.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: America’s public education system is outdated, ineffective, and, in many ways, destructive. What’s supposed to be the foundation of personal and intellectual growth has become a machine—one designed not to elevate individuals but to mold them into obedient employees for a corporate world that is no longer even promising security in return.
The Problem at a Glance
The structure of American schooling is not built to inspire greatness—it’s built to enforce compliance. Creative thinking, innovation, individuality, and curiosity—these are the engines of progress, and they’re the first casualties in a system that prioritizes memorization over understanding. Students are taught to accept authority, not question it. To absorb, not to think. To regurgitate facts on standardized tests, not to discover truths for themselves.
We’re not preparing kids for life—we’re preparing them for obedience. And the results speak for themselves.
What School Doesn’t Teach You
Modern education fails to teach the most vital life skills:
How to escape poverty
How to manage mental health
How to think critically
How to build healthy relationships
How to discover and pursue your true potential
Students aren't guided to understand who they are or what they’re capable of. They’re pushed into a one-size-fits-all pipeline: behave, get good grades, go to college, get a job, and magically live a good life. For a select few, this works. But for most, it’s a lie wrapped in a diploma.
The “American Dream” hasn’t been possible for the average person since the 1960s. What we’ve inherited is a fantasy sold by a system that refuses to admit its own obsolescence.
The Historical Blueprint: Obedience, Not Enlightenment
To fix the present, we have to understand the past.
Our education system wasn’t designed to unleash human potential. It was designed to control it.
The roots of our schooling model go back to 16th-century Prussia, where compulsory education was used to create obedient citizens for the state. Martin Luther believed children needed to be molded early—compelled, not inspired, to learn. This idea was later adopted by industrial-era America, where figures like Horace Mann and Calvin Stowe looked to the Prussian model as a blueprint.
It worked—for the state. Not for the individual.
The factory-style classroom—rows of desks, rigid schedules, passive instruction—was perfect for training factory workers, soldiers, and clerks. But we’re not in the Industrial Revolution anymore. Why are we still teaching like we are?
Control, Not Curiosity
The State has weaponized education. Schools no longer cultivate minds—they condition them.
Rena Upitis, in her book Raising a School, argued that the purpose of modern education is to instill respect for authority, not the pursuit of truth. It’s not about exploring the world—it’s about obeying it. Uniformity and orthodoxy over innovation and progress.
This isn’t new. Sparta did it. Prussia did it. Now we do it. And the result? As H.L. Mencken once put it: “The aim… is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.”
We’ve been here before. And it never ends well.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
You don’t have to be an expert to see the cracks:
American students consistently underperform compared to other nations.
Standardized tests—our supposed measure of intelligence—don’t measure understanding. They measure compliance.
Frederick J. Kelly, the man who invented standardized testing, later admitted it was “too crude to be used and should be abandoned.”
Our students are outperformed globally, and we import our best and brightest from abroad.
And it’s not for lack of funding. The U.S. spends an average of $115,000 per student. Where is that money going?
Teachers: Respected in Theory, Undermined in Practice
Teachers are expected to perform miracles with broken tools. They have one of the most important jobs in society—shaping the minds of the next generation—yet they are underpaid, undertrained, and undervalued. Most curriculum decisions are made by policymakers who have never set foot in a classroom.
A great teacher can change a life. Yet unions protect bad teachers, and great ones are crushed under bureaucracy. In 2009, fewer than 2% of LA teachers were denied tenure. In New Jersey, just 47 out of 10,000 were fired. That’s not a system that supports excellence—it’s one that rewards mediocrity.
The College Scam
We’ve been sold a lie: go to college, get a good job, and you’ll be financially secure.
Reality check: In 1968, a minimum-wage worker made the equivalent of $103,000 a year in today’s money. Today, that same worker makes about $13,000. That’s a 90% pay cut over half a century. And college? The costs have skyrocketed, the value of the degree has plummeted, and student loans are just modern-day indentured servitude.
Education doesn’t pay anymore—not the way it used to. And still, we march our kids straight into it.
What’s the Solution?
We don’t need tweaks—we need a transformation.
Look at Finland: shorter school days, no homework, teachers who are paid well and respected, and a focus on collaboration over competition. The result? The best education system in the world.
Look at platforms like Khan Academy and Duolingo: Students only move forward once they’ve demonstrated understanding, not memorization. This is the future.
Let’s stop treating students like products on an assembly line. Let’s stop pretending one teaching method can fit every mind. A doctor doesn’t prescribe the same medicine to every patient—why should a teacher teach every student the same way?
A Final Word
Don’t just take my word for it. Do your own research. Challenge what you’ve been told. Look deeper. Ask better questions. The system is not broken—it’s functioning exactly as it was designed to.
But just because it was designed that way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.
The 1% built this system to serve their interests. But the 99% can take it back—and build something real. Something human. Something worthy of our children’s minds and souls.
Because although students make up just 20% of our population, they are 100% of our future.
Let’s stop failing them.
