2 Million Minutes

Have you ever thought about how America lags in academics such as reading or mathematics compared to the rest of the industrialized world? American students are "treading the waters of academic achievement while other countries are swimming faster and faster" according to Bob Compton. The movie 2 Million Minutes addresses this and many more topics, including the burgeoning success of other countries like China or India. I believe the documentary was made to increase the awareness of our educational system compared to other countries.

I believe that there are many problems with America's education system; many of them very fixable. In a study conducted by Mr. Vivek Wadhwa, more than 66% of college-bound student have no more than one hour of homework per night. What could one infer those college-bound students are doing all those extra hours? Studies show that students spend 1,500+ hours watching television, and only spend 900 hours in classes. Students in China on the other hand, go to school four months longer than the US and spends two times more tedious hours studying than their American counterparts. While students in the US are watching TV or playing a time-consuming video game, students in China are studying, dancing, or even playing violin. In another study, we found that the math proficiency by 12th grade for African Americans is only 3% of students, for Hispanics it's 4%, for Native Americans it's 10%, for Caucasian it's 20%, and for Asians the math proficiency is 34%.

If we don't start stepping back to assess the critical damage this education system has on our economy, we will end up with no jobs available because everything will have moved overseas, where workers are more educated. If we fail to bring our education system to a higher level, we fail to produce jobs. If we fail to produce jobs, we fail to bring in sufficient revenue. If we fail to bring in sufficient revenue, it will bring the US into an economic plummet.

Today's students are indifferent to learning and many of today's teachers aren't doing anything to help that. More than 93% of students are being taught by science teachers with little or no experience. Even in India and China, some students have no motivation to be educated, but they have an acceptable excuse; because they are too busy fighting starvation. Students in America are the ones that are without excuse. Our excuses are ones such as "I'm working" or "I have football practice". The brightest students in the US are not able to study as much as they probably should not only because they are busy with things like 20 hour a week football practices, 20 hour a week jobs, and after-school extra-curricular activities, but also because even the brightest students don't think that school is important and they think that things like movies and hanging out comes higher on the list of priorities than school.

Our education system is most definitely not the best in the industrialized world. Many of our students are not able to write at grade level, and many more aren't proficient at math. After World War II, we were said to have the best education system. I don't believe that was true. All the other countries with educational systems superior to ours were hurting and crippled, therefore since we were not hurt or crippled; our educational system was the best of the worst. Since then, our country has stagnated educationally and we are no longer seen as a country that educates our students well enough for them to make the top tier schools, such as Harvard, Yale, or other Ivy League schools. Six out of 100 students from the National Math Competition were from Shanghai alone, and countless more were chosen from the remainder of China. In China, 110 million students are studying English, while in the US, only 50,000 are studying Chinese.

The US definitely doesn't have the most competitive students in the modern world. In China, students much brighter than America's are getting beat out by even more competitive students. In the US, most students have no motivation to get into college, so the ones that have the slightest motivation make it in. The bar is set much higher for countries like India and China, while in the US the bar has stopped at a place lower than that of many countries. In China, students are spending 583,200 minutes studying, as opposed to their American counterparts, who are only spending 302,400 minutes studying. If top tier colleges only took the best students in the world, chances are that those students would be from China and India. The brightest 25% of India's children could completely replace the US's children, and then some. This means that India has more honors students that America has students.

Overall, I believe America needs to intensify the educational system the US's students are receiving. If we ever plan to be an educational leader again, we have a lot of work cut out for us. Our students will need to step up their competitive edge and try to beat out those students from China and India who are taking their places in Ivy League schools. If the United States of America ever wants to be an educational leader again, it will be an effort from everyone, from teachers to students, and everywhere in between.