Is a high school education too oriented toward standardized testing?

Cartoons are a very effective form of communication between the artist and the reader.  The artist can express his ideas on a topic that he feels is controversial without droning on and on about how it can be fixed.  He simply states what he feels is necessary and moves on.  The cartoon that Daryl Cagle drew in the text is a slam on the way the education system works.  He drew an interview of what seems to be a first time employee and a human resources person.  Asking a simple question such as “How has high school prepared your for this job?” only gets a scantron answer from the interviewee.  The scantron represents how most schools test the intelligence of a person. However, by doing this, the schools really only test the students ability to pick out the correct answer out of four. 

Cagle does an excellent job presenting his views of high school education to the reader.  The interviewee has a dumbfounded look on his face like he has no idea how high school prepared him for the real world.  Cagle’s cartoon elicits a clear and strong emotional response from parents and generally people everywhere.  When someone points out a flaw in the educational system, people everywhere go crazy and try to find ways to get the government to change public schooling.  Without this cartoon, I doubt anyone would know that that is what goes on in public high schools.  Cagle illustrates that scantrons are not the best form for teachers to make students show their knowledge because it cannot be applied to the real world in their future jobs.  Overall, his message is very clear and visually stimulating.