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A lot of times we don't want to look at our education compared on a global scale.
The other countries only let the smart ones to go college. Here..everyone is a winner and goes to college, even if they don't have the ability or the skills. The other countries separate the kids between academic or vocational.
Here...we just hand diplomas to kids and send them off to college because, why we are the US and all our kids are brain surgeons.
And that is why we are 25 out of 34. The bar has to be lowered so the kids that have ZERO ability for college "feel good" about themselves and can pass. They still can't read or do math, but by golly they have a college degree !!
I think this country needs to look at the more successful countries and figure out what is it that they are doing as opposed to what we are. Let's look at a country like finland where they de-emphasize test taking and work harder to actually TEACH students instead of just making sure they pass a stupid test. Also in a country like finland Teachers are not villified like they are out here instead they are considered higher up than bankers. Not to mention most of the schools are larger enough to fit students in comfortably and not like out here where it's more like a farm and they just pack the classrooms in.
Also before any of us blame the teachers of the teachers unions let's put some of the blame on the parents who do nothing but dump the kids in front of the tv/xbox/ps3 all day.
That's because education is not intended to make a generation of smart, objectively thinking, institution questioning and/or creative little innovators.
It's meant to make a generation of burger flippers, store clerks, office grunts and other people who can follow directions to the letter under close supervision, sit for long periods of time doing repetitive tasks and be comfortable with low expectations for themselves and their very lives.
The Man needs grunts, not smart people... and America's education system excels a pumping out people like that.
My only experience so far is from elementary school...so maybe not 100% relevant to this post.
But in my mind it is 50% educational and 50% daycare even in the 4th grade.
There is so much misinformation in the linked rant that it's hard to know where to start.
SAT scores: In S. Florida, all of the school districts (Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Monroe) encourage all students to take the SAT. The State of Florida has contracted with the College Board and mandates - yes, mandates! - that all public school 10th grade students take the PSAT. Most inner city school students (a large percentage of S. FL high schools) have no business taking a college readiness assessment test as seniors, much less as sophomores. In Florida, a school's grade is augmented when high numbers of students are enrolled in honors/AP/ICE/IB courses and schools get even more points when those students actually take one or more of these very expensive tests (participation points). I could write a book on what the need for jumping through legislated hoops has done to public school education.
The fact is, when you factor out the effects of poverty on student performance, American students DO score at the top of the charts when compared to other countries (who do not encourage, much less mandate that all students be tested).
Quote:
To justify their campaign, ed reformers repeat, mantra-like, that U.S. students are trailing far behind their peers in other nations, that U.S. public schools are failing. The claims are specious. Two of the three major international tests—the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and the Trends in International Math and Science Study—break down student scores according to the poverty rate in each school. The tests are given every five years. The most recent results (2006) showed the following: students in U.S. schools where the poverty rate was less than 10 percent ranked first in reading, first in science, and third in math. When the poverty rate was 10 percent to 25 percent, U.S. students still ranked first in reading and science. But as the poverty rate rose still higher, students ranked lower and lower. Twenty percent of all U.S. schools have poverty rates over 75 percent. The average ranking of American students reflects this. The problem is not public schools; it is poverty. And as dozens of studies have shown, the gap in cognitive, physical, and social development between children in poverty and middle-class children is set by age three.
So, the know-it-all author of your linked post actually knows very little.
That's because education is not intended to make a generation of smart, objectively thinking, institution questioning and/or creative little innovators.
It's meant to make a generation of burger flippers, store clerks, office grunts and other people who can follow directions to the letter under close supervision, sit for long periods of time doing repetitive tasks and be comfortable with low expectations for themselves and their very lives.
The Man needs grunts, not smart people... and America's education system excels a pumping out people like that.
Sad, but true. Savvy parents know this and research schools before enrolling their child(ren) in them. That leaves regular, neighborhood schools with students whose parents care but are not savvy, or just plain don't care, which makes teaching those students especially difficult. Educating a child is a 3 legged stool and it takes the participation all 3 legs to make it work: school, home, and student. In many of today's public schools, the only operational leg is 'school' and there is no way the stool can stand.
A lot of times we don't want to look at our education compared on a global scale.
The other countries only let the smart ones to go college. Here..everyone is a winner and goes to college, even if they don't have the ability or the skills. The other countries separate the kids between academic or vocational.
Here...we just hand diplomas to kids and send them off to college because, why we are the US and all our kids are brain surgeons.
And that is why we are 25 out of 34. The bar has to be lowered so the kids that have ZERO ability for college "feel good" about themselves and can pass. They still can't read or do math, but by golly they have a college degree !!
The reason we have our system in place is so folks like GHW Bush's son can go to Yale instead of taking a horticulture class at the local ROC, if things were based on merit alone. I'm sure he felt good that daddy hooked him up.
I think this country needs to look at the more successful countries and figure out what is it that they are doing as opposed to what we are. Let's look at a country like finland where they de-emphasize test taking and work harder to actually TEACH students instead of just making sure they pass a stupid test. Also in a country like finland Teachers are not villified like they are out here instead they are considered higher up than bankers. Not to mention most of the schools are larger enough to fit students in comfortably and not like out here where it's more like a farm and they just pack the classrooms in.
Also before any of us blame the teachers of the teachers unions let's put some of the blame on the parents who do nothing but dump the kids in front of the tv/xbox/ps3 all day.
To achieve that, you'd America would actually have to place the same kind of value on education that the rest of the developed world does, yet America historically hasn't outside of certain regions of the country and likely never will.
I still think the problem is many parents just don't want to sit at the table with their children, night after night, for years to help them study.
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