Education on America

[Toastedlightly]

Since most of us here are Americans (or care about what America does) and since I am sick of healthcare:

What do people think of the public education system here?

I have my opinions, but I need to flesh them out more before they are torn apart on a public forum .

 

[StageLeft]

It varies so wildly. I think overall it's honestly not that bad, but I do think teachers' unions and public education system bureaucracies are a problem. There is, like with any government org, an addiction to extra money with the lie that more money = better education and this correlation breaks down as more and more money is given, at times incredibly appearing to become almost inverse (if not literally).

Schools are possibly expected to do so much, though. I chastize Rochester city schools, for example, for having a 39% graduation rate of high school grads (rest drop out) despite getting well over $10k/year per student (really), but can a school really repair a dead beat crack baby who's daddy is God knows where and his mom probably a meth head? No, and even without that extreme many parents just don't give a sh*t and expect mediocrity, so that's what their child delivers.

 

[BoberFett]

Our education system sucks, but it's not an education problem, it's a value problem. Americans don't value education. We value rock stars, actors and athletes. You don't need an education to do that.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Our education system sucks, but it's not an education problem, it's a value problem. Americans don't value education. We value rock stars, actors and athletes. You don't need an education to do that.

While true, I do think there is an education problem as well. I've posted quite a bit here about our education system and how it's not even close to optimal.
However, the biggest "problem" with education in America is parenting which isn't something easily addressed.

 

[ElFenix]

it'd help if there was time for work in class. there is so little class time that nearly all of it is instructional, and some thing are just hard to learn by getting instructions.

 

[Kirby]

Compared to my asian friends, I feel stupid.

 

[StageLeft]

Compared to my asian friends, I feel stupid.

Compared to your asian friends you probably are stupid. I would be, too, if I had any

At my last company I worked with a guy who had been in the US for perhaps five years or so. My vocabulary is ok but his blew me away, he regularly and comfortably used words that most people did not understand and that not in his native language, even. I don't know how representative he was of Indians but it was impressive

 

[brblx]

our schools are poop. it's daycare. even for those who actually want to learn, the opportunities to do so are minimal. and for those who don't, they're basically allowed to drift through.

i'm not quite sure how you can force education, but it needs to be done...

 

[werepossum]

Compared to your asian friends you probably are stupid. I would be, too, if I had any

At my last company I worked with a guy who had been in the US for perhaps five years or so. My vocabulary is ok but his blew me away, he regularly and comfortably used words that most people did not understand and that not in his native language, even. I don't know how representative he was of Indians but it was impressive

Indians are very smart people handicapped by over-population and an overly bureaucratic socialist government. Much of what we were taught came from the Arabs was actually of Indian origin - for example, the concept of zero, developed as a form of notation by a Greek astronomer but recognized for its overwhelming utility and popularized by an Indian astronomer.

Our education system pretty much sucks up until college. Americans test among the best when starting school and among the worst when leaving high school - which could still be due to poor parenting and not valuing education. We have some pretty horrible universities but also some excellent ones, some of the best in the world.

 

[0marTheZealot]

We have one of the worst primary school systems in the world.

We have one (if not the best) college/university systems in the world.

The biggest problem is politicians don't have the balls to stand up for a right solution. They much prefer half-assed solutions because the power many different groups have (eg teacher's unions). Take a look at the successful systems around the world (the Nordic systems, the Asian models) and adopt what they do. They don't spend 200 days a year in school, they spend closer to 270 or more. We don't need a 3 month summer vacation. That was a necessity in the agrarian lifestyle, but it's completely obsolete now. Honestly, we should have a wonderful system, considering how much money we pour into the public school systems. We spend far more than any other developed country on education, but we rank, consistently, near the bottom.

 

[piasabird]

In South Korea school is run by the government but only to what we consider the 8th grade. To go to high school you have to pay and you can send your child to any high school.

Public school is too structure and too boring. It is just a way of brain washing liberals.

 

[nageov3t]

it's a value problem. Americans don't value education. We value rock stars, actors and athletes. You don't need an education to do that.

that's true of like every society the world over.

the guy who figures out how to keep the fire burning longer was never as cool as the guy who brought home the largest buffalo.

 

[ebaycj]

Public school is too structure and too boring. It is just a way of brain washing liberals.

Perhaps you should have paid more attention in your structured and boring classes.

 

[stateofbeasley]

The problem is that the pubic schools for K-12 education are funded mostly by local tax dollars. I grew up in an area that had both prosperity and a population that valued its schools. There were tax dollars to fund the schools, and a community that was willing to put a lot of effort into running the schools.

In low income areas, the low tax base makes running a good school difficult, even if the people there want a good school. Parents instinctively want good, safe schools for their kids. A lot of populations just don't have the skill or tax base to implement them.

The best US public schools are on par with the best the rest of the world has to offer. However, the local nature of the US system means that a VERY high percentage of US students languish in bad schools which cannot hope to compete in the global marketplace.

 

[stateofbeasley]

Public school is too structure and too boring. It is just a way of brain washing liberals.

This kind of attitude towards education is the result of a slacker culture that does not value education and knowledge.

Somewhere, a hard working Indian engineer is thankful that morons in the US are giving up their jobs to him.

 

[werepossum]

This kind of attitude towards education is the result of a slacker culture that does not value education and knowledge.

Somewhere, a hard working Indian engineer is thankful that morons in the US are giving up their jobs to him.

Yeah - and he's making five bucks an hour to get that job too. There's more than hard work and education in play here, as important as those things are.

 

[JS80]

I like American education system. You don't have bitter cashiers that know calculus and organic chemistry like South Korea does. You have choose your own destiny education in the US.

 

[DrPizza]

Not enough opportunities for slightly above average students to excel. Too much money is poured into special education compared to regular education. i.e. your $10k per student average isn't the same as the median expense per student. Too much inclusion at the high school level in math and science courses - as unpolitically correct as it is to say so, it has led to lower expectations which has spread to the average students. There are several studies that have shown that since NCLB, states have decreased their standards in order to meet the expectations of progress and higher achievement for students with disabilities & for minority students.

Look at the algebra test in NY. 20 years ago, the test was worth 100 points. A 65% was passing, below 65% was failing. Now, the scores are "standardized" by psychometricians. A student now needs to get 30 points out of 87 in order to get a scaled score of 65%.
30 out of 87 is 34%. 34% is passing. Of course, there are some in NY who like to say "but they got to choose which 4 out of 7 ten point questions they did, so they really only needed 65 points out of 130 possible points." Sorry, but they didn't get the opportunity to do all 7 questions; they were only allowed to attempt 4, thus 130 points were never possible.

34% is passing in math.
http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/osa/concht/june09/ia-cc-609.htm

Here's the test: http://www.nysedregents.org/testing/mathre/609/ia-609w.pdf

30 of the questions are multiple choice, worth 2 points each. If a student manages to get just 15 of the multiple choice questions correct, without doing any other questions on the test, they pass. (All of my students pass based on the multiple choice questions alone.)

For what it's worth, a neighboring school district had a student on in school suspension. If not for that fact, the student probably wouldn't have taken the final exam a couple of years ago. They "forced" him to take the final exam. He only answered the part 1 multiple choice questions, by making a pattern of 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 on his answer sheet. He just missed passing by the skin of his teeth.

The pass scores are similar in Geometry (slightly higher), Earth Science, and Biology - basically, what's more or less required to graduate.

But, guess what happens over the long run when the expectations are so low? I personally try to keep my own expectations up for my students - the level of difficulty of the problems they're currently working on is far more advanced than what's expected on their final exam. But, statewide, this probably isn't generally the case.

 

[stateofbeasley]

Yeah - and he's making five bucks an hour to get that job too. There's more than hard work and education in play here, as important as those things are.

Fair enough that wage arbitrage helps move jobs overseas.

But when you have people like piasabird with a slacker attitude, it doesn't help America's competitiveness.

 

[MotF Bane]

I like American education system. You don't have bitter cashiers that know calculus and organic chemistry like South Korea does. You have choose your own destiny education in the US.

Unfortunately, these idiots who choose to remain uneducated still can vote.

 

[theflyingpig]

Unfortunately, these idiots who choose to remain uneducated still can vote.

That's how you win an election. Things like facts and truth do not really matter. All that matters is your ability to convince the stupid that you should be elected and you will be. Everyone knows this.

 

[Chris27]

Here's the test: http://www.nysedregents.org/testing/mathre/609/ia-609w.pdf

LOL at question 31. With the full blank page it almost seems like they are encouraging the kids to manually write down all permutations. At a high school level, kids should know how to count.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Public school is too structure and too boring. It is just a way of brain washing liberals.

You are a sad, sad man if that's what you truly think.

 

[woodie1]

Our educational system has become nothing more than a taxpayer funded daycare center. Most parents have little to no interest in what, if anything, their kids are learning. The kids are gone and out of mind for the most part. Some kids are motivated and do absorb a lot of the information presented to them but the vast majority don't. My sister worked at a community college and had to teach many of the new kids how to read and write before they could enroll in regular classes.

 

[Xellos2099]

We have one of the worst primary school systems in the world.

We have one (if not the best) college/university systems in the world.

The biggest problem is politicians don't have the balls to stand up for a right solution. They much prefer half-assed solutions because the power many different groups have (eg teacher's unions). Take a look at the successful systems around the world (the Nordic systems, the Asian models) and adopt what they do. They don't spend 200 days a year in school, they spend closer to 270 or more. We don't need a 3 month summer vacation. That was a necessity in the agrarian lifestyle, but it's completely obsolete now. Honestly, we should have a wonderful system, considering how much money we pour into the public school systems. We spend far more than any other developed country on education, but we rank, consistently, near the bottom.

I believe on average in USA, we spend roughly the same time on hours or more than the students in other countries. Yes, we spend less days in school but we spend more hours per day in school in comparison. Also, back when when I was in grade school in Hong Kong, students don't need to deal with all the politically correctness crap, need to learn the real truth on things. I personally think that teacher union, specially tenture policy play a huge part on the education. Also, IF students fall behind, they got to stay behind for year in grade or high school regardless of the pressure from parents.