Leon Botstein's Broken School System

Education has changed little to none over the years, and must be drastically rethought for students to really benefit from it. Leon Botstein states that “high school [just] doesn’t work anymore” in today’s society (Source 3). Education has fallen behind as the world has progressed. In order for education to be effective and useful in our adult years, we must not “prolong the life of a flawed institution that is out of date” (Source 3). Society as a whole must find a way to teach differently and more efficiently to get the societal results we want. One strong concept in Leon Botstein's critique is that our education system has failed immensely in the fact that “the rules of high school turn out not to be the rules of life” (Source 3). These so-called “rules of high school” …show more content…
Unity is a rarity in high schools, and with the addition of sports, there is even greater division as some individuals place themselves “in a separate, untouchable category” (Source 3). Sports have been great fuel to the already existing fire of cliques and exclusion of many types. These extracurriculars have helped to damage what is the already broken schooling system. And while some aspects of sports can be beneficial to a student, they can also be very harmful in an extreme dosage. As shown in source 4, many high schools praise the “the game” more than the ideologies which give school a real purpose. Schools focus on “which varsity teams succeeded” instead of how well prepared we are to step into our adult life (Source 3). In a country where education doesn’t outweigh these school funded distractions, we continually send out a message to students, parents, and teachers of all countries alike- “We do not care enough about the future of our society to reform this obsolete system we call ‘proper