Do well in high school to attend college.
Pass your courses in college.
Get a good job.
Contribute to America's economy.
This is the story of the successful American life.
But that road to the top is no longer a road only for Americans.
Asian and European workers have proven to be serious competition for Americans in recent years. Recent studies show that American students are performing worse than their Asian and European counterparts, which makes a future overtake of the American economy a threatening possibility.
Seeing that something is wrong with education, President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address, proposed policies to enhance American public education and bring the U.S. back to the top.
His proposals included requiring students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18, increasing funding and replacing teachers "who just aren't helping kids learn."
Like all of the recent endeavors to strengthen American education, these policies are only slight touch-ups to a damaged infrastructure.
More money is not the answer.
The website MAT@USC reported that the U.S., compared to 10 rival countries including Japan and South Korea, ranked seventh and eighth in science and math testing, respectively.
This is despite the U.S. spending the most money per student.
Clearly there is not a problem with the amount of money we are shoveling into education.
No, the poor performance of American students does not stem from poor funding or teachers.
While these things are important, there are two factors that are much more significant in a student's academic performance.
One is the attitude of th student, and the other is the philosophy of the student.
Human behavior is malleable and tends to be a reflection of one's culture and society.
A society valuing personal work ethic, education and perseverance will produce successful students. Such a society has no need for scrutinizing teachers or dropout laws.
But much of the U.S. does not value the perseverance and work ethic that is critical to a successful education.
Much of the U.S. lacks this hardworking spirit and instead favors grade entitlement and inflation. The result is masses of under-performing students being barely strung along through a system of test-based evaluations.
The influence of society and culture on student performance is evident in comparisons of race. Even within the U.S., there are vast racial differences in student performance.
A study from the Center on Education Policy in 2008 found that, when looking at all grades, Asian-Americans outperformed white students in 51 percent and 80 percent of instances in reading and math, respectively.
Asian students are not inherently smarter than white students.
At least, you won't find any peer-reviewed, scientific evidence proving they are.
But Asian students tend to come from cultures that value perseverance, respect for authority and a strong work ethic.
These are the qualities of a Confucian mindset, a mindset that engenders a respect for education, and leads to successful students.
Instead of reforming education, we should reform the society that produces poor students.
If society as a whole does not value perseverance or respect teachers, then no amount of funding will fix education issues.
Instead, if we refocus our efforts on reforming our society's values themselves, students will learn not arithmetic or science but an earnest value of hard work, education and perseverance.
These values will resolve issues with teacher quality and student performance.
They'll do better at arithmetic and science as a result, too.
Abdul Zalikha is a biology and English junior at UF. His column appears on Wednesdays.
