Is America's School System "Behind?"

After class, I began thinking a little more about how America's school system is considered to be "behind." Some of the work that we do in middle school is stuff that students in other countries learned in elementary school. In other countries, students go to school almost everyday. They dont' have tons of vacations like we do. They are also drilled and taught to be "test-takers" on a regular basis, which makes them a lot more prepared for for standardized tests.

Not all students are great test takers. I received a 21 on my ACT, but graduated from high school with a 3.73 gpa. I still consider myself to be intelligent, but according to the ACT, I'm average. Many people judge a student's/school's intellect by what the standardized test scores were, and some of the students who perform poorly on the tests are simply not good test takers. They may be nervous or overthink the answers, which happens to me pretty often.

It is very sad to know that some teachers lose their jobs based on their students' ability to take a test. What's even worse is that some teachers try to cheat for the students in order for them to keep their job. Standardized tests should not weigh so heavily in the school systems.