"The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible."  Toni Cade Bambara 

To be blunt, our modern education system is no longer sustainable.

Academic inflation has led our students to feel that anything less than a bachelor’s degree is failure. As a result, high school has become a GPA arms race – weighted courses give students the opportunity to surpass a 4.0, electives and philanthropy are simply for resumes, and College Prep Coaches provide admissions navigation to the highest bidder.

Because of this, occupations that don’t require a college degree have become stigmatized and marginalized. Woodshops, auto-shops, and skilled labor training is almost non-existent at public high schools, and “college and career centers” have really digressed into “college prep centers.” Visual and Performing Arts have also been adversely affected by this, as students load up on as many academic classes as possible to improve their transcripts, and arts programs have fallen to the wayside.

In addition to electives, mental health has also taken a toll. Student cases of anxiety, depression and suicide have reached historic highs – all with ties to the pressure and current reality of our secondary schooling system.

Our universities have reacted to all of this. In the past ten years the average grade point average of admission has gone from a 3.5 to a 4.0. And once students arrive at their college of choice, the cost of housing, tuition and books is enough to bury them in debt (Of 2018 graduates, 69% left college with loans. An average of $29,000 in debt). Despite unemployment for recent college graduates matching all-time highs, there are millions of skilled labor vacancies in our country that remain unfilled because there aren’t enough people trained for them.

• Historic cuts to electives.

• Historic numbers of AP classes.

• Historic number of college applicants.

• Historic rates of teen depression and suicide.

• Historic amounts of student debt.

We must make radical changes to our education system to avoid a national, systemic crisis. For our teenagers, that crisis is already here.

Ranked challenges audiences to question their own ideas of academic success, how it should be achieved, and what its implications are for a happy life.