I have a billion dollar idea. What would you do if I had told you that theres a pill of knowledge?

A pill that can give you knowledge to any subject you want. I am sure that everybody would want a piece of this because in todays society, education is the key to a successful future. According to a Wall Street Journal on 4/30/12, it states that over the past half century, countries with higher math and science skills have grown faster than those with lower skilled populations. Today, I will argue that education is the key to a healthy economy. According to a Washington Post on 3/15/12, only of Americans 52 million K-12 students perform on par with the average performance of the worlds 5 best school systems. With this statistic in mind, I will first talk about the problems that exist in our education system. Then, I will talk about how it is negatively affecting our economy, and finally talk about the solutions that can improve this situation. I. Our education system is lacking to produce quality students a. According to Newsweek on 9/15/11, Massachusetts have 51% of students that are above proficient mark, which is far behind students in South Korea and Finland. In addition, New York has 30% of students who are above proficient, which is the same number of students who are proficient in debt-ridden Portugal and Spain. Lastly, California has a math proficient rate of 24%, which is the same number of students at the proficient mark in bankrupt Greece and just a top notch above struggling Russia. i. This low proficiency standard is a result of a federal law called no child left behind, which lowered the standard of our education system far below the world-class level. However, no child left behind isnt the only factor. a. According to Whitehouse.gov on 1/25/12, it states that the student loan debts have now overcome credit card debts i. This is a result of constant increase in our education cost that makes higher education a luxury item. You basically go to school to receive a fancy piece of paper without learning the skills to help the society.

II.

Now that weve talked about the problems with our education system, we will now talk about how this affects our country. III. As some of you may understand, education is inextricably linked to the economy. a. According to volume 8 of Education Next magazine on spring 2008, it states that increasing the number of years of schooling attained by the labor force boost the economy. It states that each additional year

of average schooling in a country increased the average 40-year growth rate in GDP by 0.37 percentage points. i. This is because better-educated workers interact well with other well-educated workers. b. Furthermore, Investopedia.com states that the countrys economy becomes more productive with educated workers who are able to work more efficiently that require literacy and critical thinking skills. c. As a result, if our country stays below the standard with our education system, it will eventually slow down the growth of our economy. Now that weve talked about how it can affect our economy, we will now talk about the solutions. IV. Our education system can be improved with the implementation of a Civic Marshall Plan. a. According to Washington Post on 2/23/12, it states that we need global literary to understand the world, financial literacy to understand our finances, civic literacy to analyze social and political issues, smart technology to keep up with the future of our education, and early education and teacher training to produce the best students. Additionally, we can adjust our existing teacher evaluation systems. a. According to Los Angeles Times on 11/5/12, it states that we must identify both excellent and struggling teachers based on what they do and how their students learn. From there, we need a system that can help teachers to improve, target assistance where it is needed and remove teachers who cannot succeed with help in the classrooms.

V.

Today, you have just learned about the importance of our education system. First we examined the problems with our education system. Then, we looked at how it negatively affects our economy and finally talked about the solutions that can resolve this issue. Now that you have a deeper understanding of our education system, lets fight for the better education of our future, invest in the geniuses and hope for the ideas like my pills of knowledge.