School a place where parents or guardians send their most prized possession, their children, to learn. School alone cannot bring about the educational results we need, parents must take more responsibility and interest. All children are capable of learning and no child should be permitted to fail, as an old proverb said: "It takes the whole village to raise a child." Together the results will be rewarding.

"Excellence in education is possible today if we teach our students to read, write, understand the written word, master standard English, appreciate hard work, have self-respect and respect for others, seek values, and shun crass materialism." (Alexander, P4)

Learning is more than books, materials, and facts, it's a process that comes with time. Values are also important factors of learning and of life. Respect is one of those values. To understand that there may be more than one way to do something well. Respect

"Teachers", how do we describe this human being? He or she must be intelligent, personable, motivated, creative, dedicated, and gifted all rolled into one.

We as 2000 educators need to provide more than facts and figures we need to show compassion and love for our students. What we are and what we believe can make the difference in how we project ourselves. Schools are structures, curriculums are our guidelines, but our knowledge, our experience, and the way we deliver this information will determine how it's received and absorbed. We must be accountable for the performance of our pupils and their learning environment.

On the other side of the spectrum we can compare our system with Japan, Canada, Soviet Union, Sweden, France, West Germany, and Britain. Our standard exam scores do not measure up. The average school day in these countries is seven hours and the school years run 210 days, ours 180 days. Their curriculum is also far more demanding than ours. They are asking for more from their students and they are getting it. For example the Japanese are building better cars, Germans are making more machine tools. Japan is graduating three times as many electrical engineers than we are.

Our schools are competing with the outside world to make school interesting. There are many things that lure the attention away from schoolwork, such as, television, drugs, sex, computers, high-tech toys, and adolescent culture. Bruckner believes school should be a place where adolescents feel at home, a place that they might want to come to even if they didn't have to go. Bruckner has tried to accomplish this by harnessing non-traditional means to traditional academic goals. The bright students have no ceiling on their ambitions to learn and to succeed. All the students bright, average, or below average, should have a strong basic curriculum available and a diversity of learning opportunities; which will allows them to learn at their own pace and all students regardless of race or religion should be treated equally.

"President Clinton stated "When I became president, one of the things that really bothered me was that our country was the only advanced economy in the world that didn't have an organized system to make sure that every student...who didn't go on to college at least had a chance to continue their education by blending school and work. We call it now school-to-work opportunities." (Clinton, P1) Many students are not college bound, we need to get serious and direct them into vocations, which would be enjoyable to them and benefit our Nation.

Will the typical kid be able to handle tougher standards? Absolutely! "I think they are as bright as ever in terms of raw intelligence, desire and so forth. I have no doubt

Some common words found in the essay are:
P6 Homework, P7 Putting, Nation Teachers, SCHOOLS School, Germany Britain, Ebel P1, Lund P1, P6 Understandably, P4 Learning, United America, educational system, read write, standardized test, living nature, education teach, people willing, business world, p6 homework, hard school, home school,
Approximate Word count = 1860
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)