If you were to put your country’s school system on trial, what would it be for? YouTuber “Prince EA” did exactly that in his video which ended up going viral. In “I JUST SUED THE SCHOOL SYSTEM!!!”, Prince ‘sues’ the American School System by focusing on why the public education system in America is doing wrong and why America isn’t doing as well as other countries.

Prince is not the only one to point this out. There are many others using their content to express how they feel about America’s school system. An example of this is “I choose C” by rngutierrez on Youtube or John Oliver with his story about standardized testing.

America bases the public education on a program called common core. Common Core is a widely recognizable term among American students and teachers alike. Common core is “A set of educational standards for teaching and testing English and mathematics between kindergarten and 12th grade” according to Corestandards.org. They also put stress on standardized testing and homework which have been scrutinized for a considerable amount of time.

Even with all the standardized testing and common core lessons, America is not meeting the standards of other countries. On a list of the top ranking school systems by country for 2015, the U.S didn’t make it into the top ten. Edudemic claimed the top countries were South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Ireland, and Poland. This list was decided by a international test taken by 15 year old’s in all countries.

Looking further into their school systems we can see a vast difference in the way they teach. The country that America gets compared to the most is Finland because of the amount of differences between the two countries. While both countries have national programs similar to common core, Finland’s curriculum is considered to be made by the educators themselves. Another main difference is the way teachers are treated. In Finland, teachers go through a much tougher training, needing many degrees to be trusted with children. Finland’s teachers are also encouraged to use different approaches in teaching for each child, rather than using one specific way.

In the end, it seems America should take a lesson from other countries and figure out a way to reform the school systems. Whether it be taking inspiration from Finland and making school days shorter or taking inspiration from the UK’s long list of choice classes and giving students more offers. Zara, a Year 8 (7th Grader) from the UK said “We do English, Math, Science, Art, Music, History, French, Spanish, Geography, Religion Education, Computers, Design Technology, Food Tech, Skills for Life, and Physical Education.”. The US could also be taking advice on the way the students want to be treated, from the students.

“I don’t think it (U.K school system) is effective at all because of time management, lessons and the staff and students. I’ve been to several schools since I’ve transferred a lot but I don’t think any had been good at all. I believe that Japan and other stricker educations systems are better. They have homework given and they are less lenient.” explained Sarah to me. Sarah learns in the United Kingdom. She is in Year 9 which is equivalent to an 8th Grader here. Another student from Canada told me that in their school they “Use smart boards while computers are a hit or miss depending on the teacher. I usually have several hours of homework a night but that’s because I have ADD”
Our own Unis Student Zeina Bazzi thinks we should be schooled like finland. “They could focus on subjects that students are most comfortable with and if the students have already mastered the subjects they could focus a bit more on the weaker subjects.” Reforming America’s public education to become more personalized with the students, like Finland and other countries, is probably the direction that should be taken if America wants scores to improve.

Amira Said

Unis Middle School Journalist