Tuesday night, President Barack Obama delivered a stirring State of the Union address. One of the most stirring and important parts of the address called for drastic changes in the American educational system. Citing Germany as an example of a developed nation that successfully promotes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in the pre-university educational environment, the president called for a far more technical and rigorous educational focus in United States in the future. I believe this to be potentially the most important and effective way to redefine the American economy in the future. With scientific and technological innovation playing an ever more important role in the economy, more and more jobs will certainly be created.

Unfortunately, these jobs require ever-increasing levels of education and technical ability. We have a higher education system capable of providing the necessary technical skills to students. Indeed, I may be somewhat biased, but I believe that American universities are, and continue to be, the best in the world, offering a more complete, holistic education not readily available in other nations. American students are, unfortunately, often unprepared for this environment. I therefore find Obama’s call for a more rigorous primary education somewhat refreshing. I believe Americans tend to focus far too much on a humanistic primary education, with a great deal of time spent on creative arts and free time, often at the expense of technical fields. While these are certainly important, primary education is also a time when students build the technical skills they will use for the rest of their lives. I would therefore encourage a more directed focus on mathematics, reading and scientific reasoning skills in primary education.

I am not suggesting we adopt the very strict and obsessive approach that some Asian nations take with mathematics, but we must nonetheless take a more rigorous approach to this branch of education. Mathematics is a subject that is necessary, both from logical reasoning and technical skills perspectives. It is also a subject whose education can be standardized relatively easily at a primary level. A standardized mathematics education can therefore be very helpful in judging how accomplished students are prior to entering college. The present-day system of various grades, judged independently by schools, with the unifying pre-college SAT exam creates a wide dispersion with respect to mathematics education across the country. Additionally, the SAT and ACT may not be technical enough in judging students’ preparation for STEM fields at the university level. I would therefore propose a completely standardized mathematics education, similar to the British General Certificate of Secondary Education exam that tests students at the age of 16 to determine if they have at the very least a rudimentary understanding of critical subjects.

As I am not an education expert, I do not know how such a system could be implemented, but a better way of measuring competency is certainly needed within the American education system. Redefining and reengineering the American primary education system is perhaps the most important challenge facing our nation in this day and age. Yet only through solving this problem will America be able to remain competitive and generate enough jobs to compete with the rest of the world.