After reading Matt Mackenzie ’17’s article, I decided there was no way I could persuade IHS that high school was important. With arguments that strong, my task is essentially a lost cause. However, I still had an article to write, so I decided to just add on some points that were not included Mackenzie’s article.
One of the many unimportant things high school does is help you become economically stable. High-school dropouts are ineligible for 90 percent of jobs (DoSomething.org), which is great, because people hate having jobs. In fact, 70 percent of Americans report hating their jobs (Medical Daily). That means high school is giving students skills that are totally useless. Worse, graduating high school means you make substantially more money than if you don’t (partly because of the whole job thing). In fact, 38 percent of high-school dropouts live below the poverty line, compared to 18 percent of the general population (Edu Week). Now, “poverty” might have a negative connotation, but that’s only before you realize how hard it is to have money. People with money have to pay taxes, which is apparently very annoying. Having less money also means you don’t have to worry about learning to cook, because you can only afford prepackaged food, and you don’t have to clean nearly as much, because the only housing you can afford is ridiculously small cozy. This saves you a ton of time. Thankfully, that expression about time being money isn’t true (if it were, you’d be rich, and we all know how bad that is).
Another reason high school is unimportant is that it’s supposed to make people better citizens, which leads to boring politics. When students go to high school and learn about history and government, they will be more likely to support responsible, but boring politicians. Nearly everyone would agree that when voters decide instead to choose candidates who are complete outsiders, politics becomes more exciting. This year’s presidential debates were the most watched in history for good reason, and having a well-educated populace would ruin all of our harmless fun.
Finally, high school has the annoying side effect of making people live longer. In fact, a white high-school dropout is three times as likely to die young as his more educated counterpart (The Washington Post). Living to be elderly carries with it the burdens of disease, senility, and watching all of your friends die. Is that what we want for our children? Of course not.
Given that high school serves only to make our students more employable, more wealthy, more informed, and more healthy, it is clear that the entire thing is a complete waste of time.