“America Skips School” Nowadays we hear a lot about education, about how there is not enough emphasis put on education and too much put on other things like sports and T.V. The essay “America Skips School” by Benjamin R. Barber talks about that exactly. Barber begins the essay with a bunch of statistics concerning dropout rate, crime in schools, percent of criminals who have dropped out, literacy skills of Americans and things of that nature. After quoting all of the supposed statistics he jumps right into saying that teachers get paid too little, letting the reader draw the conclusion that this is the sole cause of the above statistics. Then he moves on to say that our whole education system is crumbling as well as our society. Americans say that they care, yet sit back and watch the walls of the educational system fall. He then raves on about how kids today learn all they know from the T.V. and society and all the older generation blames the younger ones for ruining society. This in fact is the fault of the older generation for “showing” them that this is what they need to do to survive. Society tells us it is much better to be a basketball star, or take over a company and sell the assets than to be a mere kindergarten teacher (p455). All of these horrible events are a result of not paying teacher enough. We should now start paying the teachers as much as some of the “best young professionals” (p460). That is the only way to fix this downward spiraling problem. I do agree with the basic concept that education does not take quite have the priority in society that it should but this is pretty much the only thing I agree with. The main point I want to argue is about the pay or lack there of of teachers today. I agree that the thirty thousand that teachers make a year is not very much compared the today’s “young professionals” (p460) but you have to