Since 98% of foreign countries use the SI, it is not easy to do normal tasks while traveling (English 1). These include reading road signs or even buying groceries. Road signs are written in kilometers and a jug of orange juice is in liters. The US customary measurement system does not convert to kilometers or liters simply. This whole process is tiring when you are on vacation. In addition, if you own a business in the United States, all international commerce is preferred to be conducted in metric. Traveling, business, and shopping are inconvenient when in a metric-using foreign …show more content…
The US customary system has more than 300 units to quantify objects (Harris 1). This is far too many for the average student to remember. Since the metric system is all based on the number 10, including the 10 prefixes, measuring is simplified. By teaching one measurement system, we could eradicate our mathematical instruction by 82 days yearly. Time not spent learning two systems could be used to sharpen our math and science skills and “would provide a yearly $17,653 million in savings to US education.” (Phelps 1). Furthermore, our testing skills would drastically improve. The US ranks 13 out of 17 countries when testing 8th graders. Lastly, the scientific, medical, and engineering fields all use metric. If the United States fails to change, we could lose our competitive advantage in these fields. Teaching two systems of measurement is costly, ignorant, and confusing for