The purpose of going to school is to learn. It is not so you can get a good job or so you can make lots of money. It is this all-too-common view that is a major reason that Americans are lagging behind much of the world (and even some of the 3rd world) in primary eduction.

Most kids are told that the reason to get an education is so they can get a good job. But kids don't want to grow up and get a normal 9-5 job that most college grads get -- they want to become professional athletes, musicians or movie stars. So they become disinterested. If learning and becoming smart was "cool", maybe they would be more interested in doing well in school.

I am 11 years removed from college and 15 years removed from high school, but even when I was in school it was considered cool if you cheated and got away with it. Why? Because the goal was to get good grades. Kids did not care if they actually learned anything. Even in college -- where you are actually paying for them to teach you -- most kids did not care about learning and only about getting the degree. If they could have skipped college alltogether and just bribed someone to give them the degree, 75% of them would have done so.

I own my own business today, and I have quit even looking at education background on resumes when I hire. Some of my best employees, including my current office manager, never went to college. And I have hired some people who had masters degrees who could not spell or write a complete sentence to save themselves. To be honest, I have found absolutely no difference in real education levels between people who have gone to college or grad school, and people who have not. That certainly should not be the case.

The quality of American education is going down the drain, and until we promote the idea of "learning" just for the sake of learning and becomming smart and educated, then we are doomed.