Congo, Alabama a fictional town where the population is just over 600 has one elementary school, one junior high and one high school. This town has a colossal problem. Their towns average income rate is just over 40,000. Just fewer than ten percent of the alumni of Congo high end up going to a university. That’s a problem. The problem has to do with the major strength of the town. This town of 600 people has the lowest tax output in the United States of America. However, this town has out dated bridges, unsafe roads, and metaphorically most dangerous of all, dissatisfactory schools.


What this town doesn’t comprehend is that when the taxes go down so does the money put into the school. The high school for Congo is ranked in the bottom ten in the nation. The problem with this school is that they believe in success. They believe in making school fun. The problem is that they make fewer mistakes. As Will Durant once said, “Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” When you make hardly any mistakes you have hardly any mistakes to learn from. However the students have an inner need that they don’t even know about to find mistakes and because they have not been educated about it, they turn to drugs. This all would have been avoided if the city of Congo had put more money into the education of their children.


The theory of the decade is how is it possible to lift this planet out of poverty. The answer is simple. Education is the key. Without education Martin Luther King would not have had the inspiration to rebel against racism and discrimination. Without education Barack Obama wouldn’t have had the ideas to make him qualified to be president. Without education John Adams wouldn’t have had the courage to stand up to Great Brittan and play a key part in the departure from Great Brittan and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Without education this country would be unsuccessful and falling into a dark murky ocean without a life jacket. Yet there are kids out there taking school for a joke. Barely making strait c’s. Getting suspended from school trying to harass kids who are not as fortunate as them. We should be thankful for school.


It’s those kids who neglect on their obligations as a student who end up in poverty for the most part in the U.S. Of course there are the people who aren’t physically or mentally able to make a living. They should receive help from the government and sympathy. It’s the people who did not take school seriously and the uneducated who do not realize why they are in poverty, their lack of education. How do we make them realize that education is their only way to reach the American Dream? Is it the parents fault, the schools fault, or the kids none will to learn? I ask, “Why can’t it be all three?” My parents and my school make it very clear that getting good grades is not a job well done; it’s just plain and simply a job done. My individual will is there because I know that to be great, you have to learn great. If one of these three components was missing from my life I would simply be another one of those kids who did not take seriously and is struggling to keep up a 2.0 GPA.


The prosperity of this country is not measured with how much money, how much pursuit of happiness, or how much fun. This country is measured by how much education. Without education, this country would still be segregated black and white. Without education, this country would still not have an African American ever be head of the Oval Office. Without education, I would not be able to say our country; I would have to say England’s country. Yet most of the students of America don’t realize that the only reason they can do anything they want is because of education. So I speak to America, if you want to be like the fictional town of Congo, Alabama, I would keep it up.