What's A Checkbook?

As a teenager, I've been exploring my future; trying to find out what's there for me. I don't know where the roads that God has built are taking me, but I believe it is some place good. I believe I will be successful in my Faith and blessed beyond my wildest dreams if I keep God first in my life. I can do anything, take any career path, or explore any opportunity venue there is.

But there is one little problem: I don't even know how to balance a checkbook.

The people in my parents' generation learned basic life skills by the time they were sophomores in high school (i.e. balancing checkbooks, filing income tax returns, extracting loans, creating banking accounts, etc.) and I am now nearing the end of my junior year and I haven't a clue on any of these! Is there no hope for my generation?

There is, but it will definitely come at a price. Classes do not not even cover these things in their curriculm anymore. All attention is focused on state tests, rather than the old school mid terms and finals that built my mother's and father's generation. Students in Texas from third to eleventh grade are subjected to learning the skills to pass the infamous TAKS test; the "big dog" when it comes to tests in the Lone Star state. Math skills and reading skill and writing skills are based to the requirements set by the TAKS commitee or association or whatever the group is called and students must learn the tricks to passing this test. The whole school year is focused only on this notorious test and students are not even given the time or opportunity to learn the basic fundamentals that are definitely required to make it in today's society. Folks, this is a sad truth.

What happened to learning the preamble to the Constitution? Come on! One of the most important documents in American history and I'm sure 8 out of 10 in the previous generation can report "We the People" word for word for word. What happend to learning the Gettysburgh Adress? Or "The Star Spangled Banner", which 50% of my classmates do not know. Things that American youth should be taught in fourth grade are not even covered.

It saddens me to think that my generation will be blamed for what we get ourselves into in the future, but it is definitely not our fault that circumstances put us in this siuation. Do we not get the picture that our education agency is failing us? Is it not obvious? Where are our Representatives and Senators that are supposed to be reforming these issues? Are taxes all that matter in Austin or in Washington? I don't understand how our government expects to run itself on an uneducated generation that I find myself a part of.

Government is intended to be "by the people, for the people", so why aren't they training these people? The next generation is a doomed generation that will not be able to function under these education standards that legislators seem to overlook. Is America a doomed nation due to our education system? Definitely.

Mr. Legislator, where are you?