- Introduction
a. “About three-in-ten (28%) think that the U.S. ‘stands above all other countries in the world,’... Few Americans (12%) say there are other countries in the world “that are better than the U.S.”(Tyson).
b. Background info
i. American people have seem to always have an optimistic view of the U.S’ superiority to all other nations but according to most studies within the last 5 years, the US has gone down in ranking worldwide significantly. The question about it is whether or not citizens are aware and chose to ignore it, or they are misinformed.
ii. People who are uneducated about current rankings of world countries creates a domino effect which begins a cycle of negligence leading to less people desiring to change how things in the US work now.
c. Acknowledgement of areas where the US needs improvement like education and other economic factors is the first step to begin the climb back to the top of the world rankings.
II. Some of America’s strongest ‘selling points’ could be considered our level of freedom and education opportunities which actually are some of our lower ranking statuses.
a. Most Americans feel extremely confident in the education system that has been barely changed in the last 50 years. But in reality, when you think about the change that has occurred in the past 50 years in other areas like car development, cell phone development, and city development. The pictures that pop are drastically different than what we see surrounding us to this day. However, if you think about the development that has occurred in the past 50 years in a classroom, the change isn't nearly as drastic. That is within itself is a massive issue
i. The United States was ranked 47th out of 198 countries in best educational system which is partly due the the failure of the transfer and application of newer research into schools (Shomo). When you look around in a current high school, you will see most of the textbooks being used to teach things were published anywhere from 2000-2010. That leaves minimum of almost 7 years of hard work not being taught to society because of the failure to update things.
ii. Some countries that are ranked with a higher education system are Japan who is in first with a educated population percentage of 99.97%. Skipping a few places down on the rankings, Sri Lanka has a percentage of 96.17%, followed by Kuwait at 95.36%, then finally in 47th place comes the UNited States of America at 95.33% (McKay). There is an what may appear a ‘small gap’ between Kuwait and the US of .03%; however, it is a little percentage that will suffer from lack of an education that would unlock incredible potential that could push development to a whole new level.
III. Continuing on, most studies that are conducted to measure the level or quality of freedom in a society, research groups rank them on subcategories like access to contraceptives, religious freedom, corruption rates, marriage age, and percentage of people who report being unable to reach their dreams. So when people argue where freedom lies, one must consider these factors and which place these things are easy to come by.
i. The highest freedom ranking is in Finland with a whopping percentage of 91.54% which is way less than the top education ranking which exemplifies the lesser push governments have towards freedom and rights than education. Continuing down the list, one can find Germany at 84.85% and in 15th place. Then finally, we get to the 16th ranking which enlists the US at a percentage of 82.64% (McKay). Imagine that. Americans who brag excessively about the ample amount of freedom that can be found in the US is almost one-fifth less than everyone expected.
ii. One of the other factors calculated into the formula of coming up with the percentages of freedom is crime rates against minorities per 1000 people. If anyone has seen the news within the past 3 months, the hate crimes towards minorities in the US has gone up due to neglect for other cultures and stereotypes. Because of these past few months it is not surprise that America comes in 40th with 4.5 crimes per 1000 people (McKay). To some these statistics may look not all that bad but when put into perspective, they appear a lot worst. Think about it in terms of a medium sized high school with roughly 3000 students. This means if the percentage of students that were minorities was the same as the US population in 2012, only 1,500 students would qualify as a minority (Kayne). Then from that pool of people, approximately 14 people will be victims of hate crimes which could include shootings, false accusations, or illegal stereotyping.
V. Conclusion
a. In conclusion, people seem to overestimate the magnificence of ‘The All-Powerful Country of Bald Eagles and Freedom’, when it really struggles with most statistics that are supposed to support the claim of greatness.
b. Coming to the realization of this problem is probably the hardest yet most important part in changing things for a better tomorrow. As most people say, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery which is what we, as a society, need to do for sake of a potential turnaround.
c. The ultimate goal for this paper is to spark within you the competitive side that will want us to help change the world. After reading this my hope is to inspire citizens of the US to start little and change smaller things that we can control like updating textbooks used in schools and keeping them relevant as time progresses. I encourage you to take a look around at the society around and push it to become great, to become unstoppable yet respectable. Push this country to achieve new things at an exponential rate of change because once we all identify the problems, we will be able to work together to fix them.
