The idea that k-12 is “free” makes no more sense than saying college should be “free.” Education costs money and someone is paying for it (at any level).
The US k-12 education system isn’t a monolithic entity. We have some of the best public school systems in the world as well as some of the worst (and a lot in between).
Question should be what makes the good systems good and the worst ones bad. There are no universal answers there though.
The amount of money spent is a popular reason. But looking at the amount spent per district, that isn’t always true. Some of the worst districts in the country are some of the highest spending districts. And some of the best districts in the country are some of the lowest spending districts. List of best and worst districts in my state show some of the best and worst districts in the state at the top of spending per student. And many of the best districts of the state are near the bottom of the list of spending per student. Some spend 1/2 what some of the worst districts in the state spend per student.
Looking at my kids school district which is one of the best in the state. Many kids getting top notch educations. But not all. Same facilities. Same faculty. Same course offerings. Why? From what I have seen, its a matter of priority. Some kids make education more of a priority than others. They take more challenging classes. They study more and do better in those classes. Other kids skate by. Take easier classes. Don’t spend much time studying and do not do very well in them. Many of them are focused on sports. Don’t want classes to interfere with their sports. They are managing to get a mediocre education in a very good school district.
How do you make education more of a priority? You could force them to take tougher classes. But you can’t make them study. Or care.
Issues with the US educational system are complex and not subject to silver bullet solutions.
I thought we already agreed that since we’re not complete idiots, it’s a bit redundant to keep repeating this. Obviously “free” things are paid for somehow, so if we can just define free (for the purposes of this discussion) as “supported entirely by taxes” and move on, that would be great.
And I don’t think anyone here really believes in “silver bullet solutions.” Nowhere has anyone said “the only thing wrong with U.S. public college is the lack of free college.”
I can’t see why the Feds need to step in. The states already run taxpayer-assisted school systems that are fairly affordable. I just looked up 2 examples in Ohio… Both Ohio State and Kent State have Tuition/Room/Board in-state sticker prices of 20K per year. 50% of OSU students get some need based financial aid, 90+% of students at Kent. And if you are a good student it is not unusual to get huge discounts at a flagship or directional in most states that I know of.
@Sethm2015 I have been reading this thread for a while, and I agree with you. More importantly, it is how and when they are educating their young.
I believe, that even more than free college, we need to do a much better job at math and science from the youngest grades. The “over-educated populace” problem will not occur if we are educated in the right areas.
We need engineers, programmers, scientists, and researchers to help create a valuable future of intellectual property for the USA to maintain the #1 position in the world economy for generations.
As usual, when things are government funded, quality eventually erodes to a state of mediocrity at best, and “broken” at worst. I don’t feel “free” college is the answer.
I think our current system works fine, although it probably could be improved to offer more reassurance to truly gifted students who may not be able to afford college.
Such students are readily given scholarships at directional and less selective schools where they can still get a fine education. I know several families who have gone this route; you just have to be willing to attend a less fancy name, and to work hard once you get there.
@snarlatron Generally speaking, if I am an employer and I see two apps… They seem to both have great work ethic, same degree, etc. Then eventually it is going to come down to strength of college, should the person who had to take the lesser option lose in lieu of the one who was able to afford it because of their wealth?
Arguable I suppose, but I just don’t see that as the right system for the US
As a hiring manager, if I see two highly similar applications, one from an elite college and one from a respectable college, I will likely call both of them, assuming that the person from the respectable college shined in either their classes or internships. And my list of “respectable” colleges includes all state flagships, plus strong programs like NC-State, UCLA, and MSU, and the top 50 private universities and LACs.
If I had to make an instantaneous decision between two candidates, one from an elite the other from a state school:
If they are equal in stats then the elite wins because the school is almost always more academically rigorous.
If they are equal in achievements then the state school wins, because that was harder to achieve. Elite schools provide much more support to make it easier for highly skilled students to have high-quality achievements, but the state school grad would have had to have taken a much larger degree of personal initiative to make it happen.
But that’s not how it works. They’re both people and you’d have to talk to both of them and see which one is actually better.
So what you’re trying to say is that our current universities are not government funded?
You mean… Interviewing??? Do you mean to tell me employers don’t just look at US News when choosing candidates? Do they at least use Hunt’s table of Prestigiosity?
I have a dozen friends (at least) who went to directionals and have very successful careers; one is even a partner at a major firm. I don’t think that going to less than a flagship, such as Ball State, Kent State, or Western Michigan University, is as much a stigma as many on these boards assume.
I think we’ve reached the point where the actual discussion on “free” colleges is just starting to retread old ground and go in circles. I’ve pretty much laid out my case in full, answered just about every question about how the system would operate and how it would address its flaws, and at this point you basically just have to look at how the each of the feasible systems available would work and make up your own mind. There’s 20 pages worth of discussion on the issue and I think every major point talked about in the last few pages has already been addressed, and we’re just re-discussing the same issues. So unless something new comes up I’d say that discussion is basically finished.
On K-12, that’s a difficult issue. I’ve seen at least a few different major threads of issues that are worth looking into as to why the system is broken, and I can’t say that any one of them is clearly at fault, much less a sole cause. A few I’ve noticed are:
There is a weak degree of standardization across the board. Academically, there is little reason why one set of students needs to learn one set of topics while another needs to learn a different one. There's certainly room for teacher's discretion, to be sure, but the core learning has to be basically the same. The standards to be taught are widely disputed (algebra or no algebra? evolution or no evolution? what to teach in history?) and there are large disparities in how they are enforced.
Teacher quality. This is a complaint that many make, that there are plenty of rotten teachers who are allowed to keep their jobs despite being poor teachers. I personally am very suspicious of this line of reasoning - in my personal experience it is far more often true that students are just bummed out that they got bad grades or had to work too hard - but it comes up a lot. The debate of tenure ties into this issue as well.
Parent and student quality. Honestly, there are a lot of people in the US who unfortunately don't have much respect for education. Parents teach their kids not to respect school, and the students take after that suggestions and don't put in the effort. Schooling without motivation is torture, and there's no point in going to school if you're not ready. In contrast, I know a lot of people, mostly immigrants, who have parents who value education and who excel in school and college even though they go to the "terrible schools with crime and awful teachers that don't teach." Along certain racial/ethnic divides the difference in results between the driven and the average is particularly substantial.
Education is severely back-loaded in the US. Students learn way too little in their early years, and way too much in their later years. The early years of elementary school move far too slowly, making the smart students bored and not challenging even the average and below-average students. Part of what students can achieve is how much they are pushed to excel, and if little is expected of them in their formative years then they will not rise to higher challenges. There is a limit to this of course - you can't give middle schoolers calculus and expect them to just rise to the occasion - but you can do much more than what is done now. Otherwise, when education naturally ramps up in speed, mostly at the 5th and 9th grade level, more people will just fail to ramp up the effort and they just get left behind.
The curriculum is often designed by the wrong people. I've heard this complaint before through anecdotes - well-known experts in a field point out some fatal flaws in educational material for youngsters, but they get ignored because "look at those pretty pictures!" While it is true that certain experts tend to overestimate how far you can push those youngsters, they are in fact experts and they should get their due consideration in the design of the curriculum.
States pushing their separate agendas on what needs to go into schools. Self-explanatory.
Ineffective instruction of the weakest students. What makes certain countries particularly good at educating their population is that even their worst students are at an acceptably competent level when they finish. Not everyone can be great at math or writing, but an effective structured approach can allow everyone to reach a state of reasonable competence in those and other fields. That often doesn't happen. On the other hand, the best students usually find a way to survive even with a flawed system because they have enough natural talent to survive the changes alone.
Those are some of the major issues to look into when trying to improve the K-12 system.
I would point out that the original article was put out by a conservative pundit. I am currently at UCLA for a few days. @neodymium If the dorms were five miles away towards downtown LA it could take an hour and half at the wrong time of day to get to campus. This really comes down to the people who believe that govennment payments for college education helps the economy and society as a whole versus those people who believe in trickle down economics and give most of societal benefits to the rich. I take the Michael Moore approach to my review of capitalism
One of my friends in Sweden said that having college free downgraded higher education. Everyone has a college degree because it’s free education, so being in possession of one really doesn’t make you any special. She also said that students still graduate with a lot of debt.
Though I did support Bernie, I disliked his policy of having free education at community/in-state colleges. Government money could be spent in better ways and it really does nothing for me if I decide that I want to go to a college that is not in-state. College should only be free for students that maintain a certain GPA, are very poor (free college for family incomes of 125k? yeah, alright), and graduate.
@pinklinks 39% of Swedish students have completed tertiary education compared to 44% of U.S. Students. You may want to take some of what your Swedish friend says with a grain of salt.
However, that does some more problems specific to US rates.
The following indicates that even top quartile (by standardized testing) students from low SES families graduate college at only the same rate as third quartile students from high SES families.
I teach high school. I had a group of students discussing this issue. I said, “What if college was free? You could major in ANY subject, and get any level of degree; Associates, Bachelors, Masters and Phd. The requirements would be that you have to live at home, take all your credits online, meet with your classes once a month in person for testing and other things, and you have to have a part time job. But it’s free! Would you do it?”
Some students brightened up at that idea. Most didn’t like it. I asked what they wanted from college. They wanted a dorm situation, a football team and parties…
“I think our current system works fine, although it probably could be improved to offer more reassurance to truly gifted students who may not be able to afford college.”
“The following indicates that even top quartile (by standardized testing) students from low SES families graduate college at only the same rate as third quartile students from high SES families.”
The primary problem with the current 4 year system is that it results in 4 year degrees for less than half the kids who start out. So what everyone is paying for (via taxes and tuition) is a system that is optimized to produce college drop out. NOT college graduates!!!
Cost is part of that equation for sure, but there’s many other pieces to that puzzle as well.
Make 13th and 14th grade free to all (technical or CC) and you’d get tons of middle class kids taking that offer. You’d wind up with kids completing 14th grade at levels that eventually would approach 12th grade completion rates.
Then some kids continue on to two years of university where appropriate. Or not. Two years a residential college fun (for those who can afford it) is plenty.