As it stands, Gulf Breeze High School is an 8 out of 10 high school, Navarre is 6 out of 10, Milton has a rating of 4 out of 10, and Pace is a 6 out of 10 according to Greatschools.org. One may suspect these ratings to be based off of success out of high school through enrollment in college or trade schools, success in finding a job outside of high school, or other metrics that gage the quality of life that came as a result preparation for adulthood from schools; however, in place of these, schools quality is instead determined through test grades, performance on standardized assessments, and graduation rates. And with better performances in these categories, teachers often get rewarded with bonuses among other things.  

While the existing system may seem without problems, it has the unintended effect of influencing schools to make the course work and difficulty of classes drop drastically to artificially inflate grades and graduation rates. As expected, students will gain an inferior education which hinders performance in college and life past high school. Completion grades and heavy curves on tests and other assignments don’t help educate a student and especially don’t give any useful knowledge that will be pivotal in life as there becomes no incentive to learn the subject enough to learn the information, in doing so promoting a system students work for an ultimately meaningless letter grade instead of success out of college, with teachers getting rewarded for lowering the level of education to pass.  

With the problems in with the existing system in mind, a better way to measure schools’ success would be to focus on a student’s success in life outside high school. Students might not want to pursue a career in mathematics, science, English, or other requires subjects in school and instead wish to focus on fine arts or other courses that do not have any bearing on graduation. As a result, the school’s failure to recognize the talent in what they are passionate in and instead hyper focusing on graduation rate. With this, the student may never realize their potential. It should be the school’s job to love the student, help them realize what they wish to do with their lives, and assist them by providing the facilities and education that is required to do so. 

Unfortunately, the current education system needs to be amended for the best results. Currently, schools are mandated teach niche mathematical subjects, English devices, and other useless topics without including context to the background they are used for. In contrast with that, schools should have more specialized classes that focus on different careers such as an engineering, finance, education, biology, and other fields that would help a student find out what they wish to do and provide them the specific knowledge to succeed in the class and the line of work after that. In this way, schools could more accurately gauge their rating, and students would be at an advantage.