What matters Most...

“According to national assessments only 7% of 17-year-olds in the U.S. can solve math problems with more than one step”( What Matters Most 5). (This is an article you can find on the internet by typing in “What matters most: Teaching for America's future. Eventually you will come across a giant report about 150 pages long. In this you will find the authors talking about these statistics.) I find this baffling. I feel 17-year-olds should be able to solve something like this. I feel a main requirement in high school these days is to take up to algebra 2. How could a student achieve so low. I believe it’s because these students slip between the cracks. They either drop-out or they do go to school but because teachers would prefer to pass students and standards are low enough for them to pass the student, students end up graduating. It’s a shame that we cannot point out how poorly a student is and find a way to get them help with what they are struggling with. We should have programs to target certain problems. There could be after-school clubs for these students. Many students do not want to go to these kinds of clubs because they don't want to look stupid, but we as parents and teachers need to encourage free help. In order for our education system to do better, parents and teachers should work together to find solutions to finding ways to give proper help to students.