Education is a major concern of any modern society, and nations with outstanding education systems are guaranteed to be world leaders for generations to come. Since this is such an important issue, it is vital that we as a nation, as a species, often objectively evaluate how our education system is working. Is our way of doing things really the best? What can we do better? These are questions we must ask ourselves if we want to continue to progress as a society. Our predecessors laid the foundations; According to John Locke, education consists of answering all questions concisely and completely and without ever mocking, of instilling belief in and respect for God, and of fostering virtue in young men. It is now our duty to take these ideas even further, by constantly improving the education of our society. I believe the most important issues we need to address in our education system now are pushing high-achieving students to realize their potential, ensuring that teachers are properly trained and doing their jobs, and instilling an attitude enthusiasm and eagerness in education which is unfortunately lacking. students today. Nine years ago, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law. One of the main problems with NCLB is that it requires all students to meet a minimum standard, but nothing more. As a result, funding for many gifted and high-achieving programs has been cut. Increasingly, all students are being channeled into the same stream so that they can meet the same minimum standards. Although gifted students have never been a priority in legislation, they have been even less so in recent years, which has had a very real and tangible impact on our better middle of paper. .....thinking specifically of a popular Disney series and Alice Copper's "School's Out.") Perhaps the fault lies in our approach to education. Maybe by imposing it on everyone we create a natural aversion. Perhaps by providing unsolicited information and mocking the questions, we teach students to stifle their natural curiosity and ultimately despise the institution designed to improve their lives. Or maybe it’s just a feeling that’s passed down from generation to generation. I don't really have the answer, but I do know that somehow, as a society, we have to embrace education in a way that we've never embraced it before if we want to make the most of the system in place. . If we succeed, I am confident that we will create a more educated and better prepared society than ever before, and we will benefit greatly from it...