Originally posted by: piasabird
In Korea which is one of the countries compared, the State pays for what we would call a grade school education and then the parents pay for the High School they want the kids to go to. My wife is Korean and I learned this in Korea and from talking to my wife. I dont really think Koreans are all that much smarter than Americans.
The problem in America I think is we dumb down the education system to make our school grade average look higher. If no one or only a certain percentage of people are taking college algebra, which is not really considered a college level course anymore, then there is a certain percentage of students who have chosen the lazy stupid track. So our so called high school diploma is not really worth much. We are dumming down the brightest to make the not so bright people look better. All because of stupid government intervention. A better way to descibe out education system is that it is a great model for a communist country.
The USA was built on Competition. Without competition we have no reason to reach for a higher goal. Good students thrive on competition.
Here is something you should look at. There is a big grind on our education system. It is called Immigration. Or dumb people immigrating here. They may not actually be dumb, but just not speak english so they have a problem with our school system.
I question the statistics of any comparison in education and would like to know what it is they are comparing. Do they count every person who lives in their country or only the people who they consider citizens. In many countries you have to be born of a citizen to be considered a citizen of that country. Many countries have high levels of immigrants who they consider non-citizens. Are all the muslims in France and Europe counted?
People seem willing to take the results as the truth without questioning how the results were arrived at.
I have an idea. Lets make the minimum wage based on your ACT Score.
America obviously does dumb down the grading system, as I've seen it happen in my high school alone. Just like the sports teams where "everyone is the winner", kids are being taught that nobody loses in sports and in life, and that's certainly counter productive. These "feel good" tactics are only making the youth less competitive, and only the over-achievers are really exerting themselves to get into a good college and to succeed in life. I know that I'm hardly an over achiever, but now that I'm in college and have actual competition with the students there (which all seem leagues smarter than me), I'm beginning to hate my local school system for ill-equipping me.
Immigration is hardly the problem, and though I generally disagree with mass illegal immigration (2 conservative parents made
that easy to latch onto), there are a lot of forces that are more influential in the worstening of our public school system. If immigrants want to really succeed in this country they need to learn our language fluently, period. It doesn't bother me if they are lax in their studies and test lower, as that's not the problem at hand. Of course I don't believe there's a quick fix to our education deficit, but take a look at public schools in China and you start to fear for my (and the next few) generations.
Facebook
Twitter