What is school for? It's an easy question, but a poll in the USA shows people have different opinions on school. The poll is called the 'Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools'. It is from a worldwide group of teachers called PDK International. PDK asked Americans to name the biggest purpose of school. Just 45 per cent of people said the main goal was to prepare students to pass exams. Around a quarter of people said it was to get kids ready to find a job. Just over 26 per cent of Americans said the biggest reason for school was to teach children about citizenship.
Joshua Starr, CEO of PDK, said the poll questioned whether schools were doing the right thing and if they were, "what the public wants". He quoted from author James Baldwin, who said in 1963 that the purpose of school is "to ask questions of the universe and learn to live with those questions." Students had different ideas about school. Elena Brankov, 15, said it was to teach children to be creative, to share ideas and to use technology to make the world a better place. Lyndon Bailey, also 15, said school, "is just to make poor kids into robots who work and make rich people richer".
