What Our Education System Needs Is More F's

In recent years we have heard a lot about what needs to be done to raise the quality of the American education system. Some claim its a lack of funding, and if we just throw money at the problem the problem of a sub-par education system will just go away. Others claim we need to get back to basics or have more stringent certification procedures. The excuses are abundant. Carl Singleton offers more radical advice. He claims what we need more is more F's. Singleton believes F's would virtually overnight save our education system. Will more F's save the American education system?

The idea of throwing out F's by the millions may sound harsh, but Singleton claims by doing so it would elevate the educational problems we face today. Why give a passing grade to a student who doesn't know his or her material? The school system just perpetuates the endless cycle. The teachers of today are incompetent because they came out of the same educational system their students are in. Will this cycle ever come to an end? Singleton claims yes, if we start handing out F's left and right, it will force students to buckle down and learn the material.

Singleton uses two distinct strategies to support his argument. His first is his analogy of Gov. Lester Maddox's famous quote about the prison system: "We'll get a better grade of prisons when we get a better grade of prisoners." By using this analogy, he is saying that schools will not be better until the students are better, which helps to support his point about the way the fix the education system is to fix the students by giving them F's when they deserve them. Students who are given F's will naturally want to improve, will become better students, and by doing so will improve the schools. It is interesting that Singleton says that he is "tempted to make an analogy," then includes the analogy, then says, "but I shall refrain."

The other strategy that Singleton uses is repetition. He repeats the same words over and over in just