<p>Yea whatever. Debate this ad nauseum. The fact that we score below countries like Poland and Slovakia in PISA standard tests prove that our government mandated brainwashing…oops, I meant public education has failed us.</p>
<p>yeah seriously. who cares if the average public school = average private school…when the average sucks…</p>
<p>I don’t think the shortcomings of the US k-12 education system can be blamed entirely on the government, whether Dems or Reps are in power.
Whenever I suggested a more rigorous curriculum for 7th and 8th grade, I was told by some parents that if I did not like it here, I should go back where I came from. Other parents far more politely disagreed with me and said that it was right for 7th and 8th grades to focus more on developmental issues.
Most other countries do not have as mobile a population and as diverse a population as the US. They are not constantly fighting battles over what is appropriate to be taught in school; or re-inventing pedagogy. It does not mean that the contents are necessarily better or the pedagogical style superior. It means that expectations are clear, and all stakeholders are familiar with it. In my district, for example, each k-8 school can have its own curriculum and teaching style. Even if all were equally excellent, they present a thorny problem of integration for high school teachers. Did the kids do a unit on China or Africa? Did they study biology or geology? How did they learn their math? The teachers I talked to thought the situation “challenging.” And that was before a former hs principal decided to abolish honors and have heterogeneous classes. And now, honors have been restored, but the scheduled has been changed from a rotating one to a block schedule. The pace of change is just dizzying.</p>
<p>One should also consider that many other countries use some form of tracking, often starting relatively early. </p>
<p>There may be disadvantages to tracking for some students, although the claimed harm to weaker students is largely based on supposition, backed by weak, if any, research. At the same time, the ed establishment has not looked, to any great extent, at the effect of tracking on the better students. At most, they’ve looked at the achievement of rather low level goals. This, of course, is rather trivial for many better students.</p>
<p>But here’s the interesting part. Much of the reason for avoiding tracking is due to parental pressure. Public schools DO operate in a political environment. If the local voters wanted tracking, you bet they could get it (OK, I realize that places like Florida and Maryland, where they have county wide school districts have gutted parental influence. See Hoxby’s work for some discussion of this.)</p>
<p>So yes, I DO think a large part of the problem, if indeed it exists, is that we parents don’t push or ask in the right way.</p>
<p>'Whenever I suggested a more rigorous curriculum for 7th and 8th grade, I was told by some parents that if I did not like it here, I should go back where I came from. Other parents far more politely disagreed with me and said that it was right for 7th and 8th grades to focus more on developmental issues."</p>
<p>Marite, how awful to have to hear such a vile comment! </p>
<p>Regarding what is discusses, I have the following excerpts in my notes, but cannot provide free links to it:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Someone please explain how our public school kids can score poorly poorly relative to the kids in other countries and yet, the US has a majority of the world’s top colleges and universities and is still the leader in many technological fields.</p>
<p>Hey, Xiggi,</p>
<p>Your post prompted me to register online for Atlantic Monthly, where your article came from. </p>
<p>Dadguy, </p>
<p>Maybe we lead in many technical fields IN SPITE OF our educational systems, largely because of immigration? I do know that enrollments in advanced technical fields are disproportionately with folks from overseas, especially asia these days. And post WWII, we got a big boost because just before the war, many of Europe’s top scientists fled Hitler. </p>
<p>It would be interesting to see a count of native born Nobel Prize winners versus immigrants over the years. Anyone ever see such a thing?</p>
<p>Dadguy:</p>
<p>The US does not necessarily score worse than other countries at the K-12 level. As many critics of international comparisons have suggested different pools of students are being compared at the 12th grade level.
For example, my niece used to attend a private school after my brother decided that a 30% pass rate for the baccalaur</p>
<p>"Hey, Xiggi,</p>
<p>Your post prompted me to register online for Atlantic Monthly, where your article came from. "</p>
<p>Oh sorry, I should have provided the link but the AM has very few free articles, and a registration is needed. This said, it is a magazine worth subscribing to. Every November they have a series on admissions.</p>
<p>Or maybe it’s becuase that at least some of these tests that administer are not particularly relevant to achievement in later life.</p>
<p>I mean, if America’s place in the world ever depends on pitting our eight-graders against eight-graders from other countries, yeah we could be in trouble.</p>
<p>I totally see that there are a lot of foreign faculty and students in our universities. This begs the question that if their students are so much better prepared than ours, what’s the big appeal of coming over here? Couldn’t they form their own world-class universities?</p>
<p>Robert E. Lee: One-room schoolhouses were superior to Mann-type classrooms? In some ways, yes. However, they were often taught by young, unmarried women who hadn’t finished high school. I don’t think I’d want my children taught physics, chemistry, biology, calculus, economics, history, sociology, archeology, language arts, Chinese, Japanese, Latin, Greek, German, French, Spanish, and Russian by that young woman. But if that’s what you want for your children then, by all mean, help yourself.</p>
<p>As for US schools being good in the 19th century, what balderdash. Assuming you lived in an area with a public school (and many people did not), you might find a curriculum that got you done in the 8th grade knowing Latin and calculus, but how many school teachers in the entire US knew even a bit of calculus? How many knew even rudimentary algebra? How many teachers in that one-room school house were highly proficient in both Latin and mathematics?</p>
<p>My grandfather attended one of those schools for three months of the year because of agricultural demands. Latin? Greek? Calculus? Are you high? To the end of his days, he didn’t even know where to put capitals and rudimentary punctuation in his sentences. And, yes, to the end of his days, he was quite sure that public education was going to hell.</p>
<p>As for Latin, William Shakespeare probably knew more Latin than many classics majors today, since his grammar school classes were taught entirely in Latin. So? What did he know about physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and even history that wasn’t distorted by Sallust, Cicero, and the other Roman authors? What did he know of philosophy, pre-classical ancient history, or mathematics beyond simple arithmetic?</p>
<p>You know, Robert, I read your stuff over again, and I just can’t understand why you left out the word “whippersnapper.” It certainly would have been appropriate.</p>
<p>marite: Your experience with American public education is not at all like mine. In my district, foreign language begins in 6th grade and ends in 12th grade for those who want to take it that far. Many children begin 9th grade taking calculus and finish high school having taken multivariable calc. Its the rare college-track student that doesn’t at least finish calculus I. High school offerings include several levels in several sciences. There are 28 AP courses at one high school, and another has 18 AP courses plus the entire array of IB courses. </p>
<p>There are areas of the US that are fiercely anti-intellectual. I should know. I grew up in one. It’s a strain in the US one can find even in De Tocqueville. It’s not pretty, but it is what it is. Clearly, you are in one of those areas. I’m sorry.</p>
<p>On international comparisons:</p>
<p>I’ve read a few, and I’ve yet to read a good one. The US may lag behind other nations or it may not. It’s hard to tell from the research being done. It does seem clear that fewer and fewer US-born students are opting for engineering and the sciences in college, and that those slots are being filled by those from outside the country. It is not at all clear, however, that this has anything at all to do with public or private education in the US. Many speculate that it has more to do with the fact that the highest paying jobs are not in those fields.</p>
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<p>They are, which is why foreign students are increasingly more likely to “stay home,” so to speak.</p>
<p>We certainly do not reward the people who design and build things as highly as people who transmit money from one place to the other. If we did, we’d have a whole lot more native-born engineeers than we do now.</p>
<p>This is true. I met a few of DS’s MEng classmates at his graduation, CMU '06. Many of them are entering the financial field in many capacities.</p>
<p>Tarhunt:</p>
<p>I do not know how many districts start teaching foreign languages in 6th grade. Probably not that many. Don’t feel sorry for my district. Our public high school sends kids to HYPSM every year.</p>
<p>As for calculus: It is possible for college-bound American students not to take calculus, even though it is offered by their school (one of my sons falls into that category and was accepted at top 20 colleges). In France, it is not possible for students taking the Bac 2 not to be exposed to some calculus. How much depends on the track; but the track does not have to do with ability; it has to do with specialization (i.e, languages and literature; economics and social sciences; math and experimental sciences). </p>
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<p>I agree.</p>
<p>marite:</p>
<p>I am truly puzzled. Your high school sends students to some of the US’s top schools, but doesn’t offer foreign languages in middle school? Odd. I personally know of five school districts in my state that offer foreign languages in middle school. I’m sure there are more.</p>
<p>Yes, it is possible for a US student to attend college without taking calculus in high school. Are you saying that all French students must take calculus or they have to forego college? I’m afraid that, if that were the case in the US, I could not have gone to college. Calculus was not offered in my school district or, to the best of my knowledge, within a 60-mile radius of my home. Still, I picked up mathematics in college and went on to earn a Ph.D. My work often requires that I be reasonably adept at mathematics though not nearly so much as those in the hard sciences.</p>
<p>BTW, calculus was not offered because there was no demand for it and no money to fund a class for which there was no demand. It was a very poor (monetarily and otherwise) school district surrounded by many other very poor school districts.</p>
<p>My French friends and I often talk about the differences in our countries. I maintain to them, as I will to you, that Americans are Romans and the French are Greeks. Both societies had much to recommend them, but they never understood each other at all.</p>
<p>Tarhunt:</p>
<p>You misread my original post. My district does offer Spanish , but only beginning in 7th grade. When S1 attended k-8, it was only available in 8th grade. It is now available in 7th grade, but requests (mostly by foreign born parents) to have it offered in 6th grade have so far not been successful.</p>
<p>Since passing bac2 is required to attend college, yes, you need to have some calculus. It need not be at the same level as Calc-AB, but you do have to have some. It is a national curriculum, so whether or not you learn calculus does not depend on where you live. Now, when I was in school, 40 years ago, I did not have to have some calculus as I was in classics and then philosophy. But things have changed since then. You also have to have studied physics, chemistry, biology, again, at different levels of difficulty depending on your track. Here, in the US, you can get away without having studied any Physics. </p>
<p>I should note that students who have passed the Bac2 are eligible for Advanced Standing at most US universities.</p>
<p>marite:</p>
<p>As you know, US colleges generally don’t require calculus and, while they have science requirements, those requirements can be met without one or more of biology, chemistry, or physics (depending on the school). Having said that, most kids from high performing school districts find that they must take the heaviest loads and most tortuous classes if they are to gain admission to the top colleges. After all, they are competing directly for those slots with other kids in their high schools.</p>
<p>Frankly, no US college could require physics, calculus, or some other advanced classes for admission without excluding children from impoverished school districts. There are still many school districts in this country that are so badly funded that they cannot offer one or more of these things. I recently talked to a senior at my old high school. He and a few other students begged a retired military officer to come to his school and teach physics, and the military officer did so. If he hadn’t, there would have been no physics class because there was no one to teach it.</p>
<p>I’m sure Bac2 is given advanced standing, as are British A levels, IB, and AP courses of study. </p>
<p>I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your main thesis, however. Mine is that your all-encompassing remarks on American school districts are not true. It is a very large country. In my school district, it is quite possible to take mathematics, science, language arts, history, foreign languages, or any other subject up to the limits of what any child, no matter how advanced, can achieve. Foreign languages (French, Spanish, German, and often Japanese) are offered in the 6th grade so that, by the time a kid is a senior, he/she can easily be taking Spanish VII. Math is offered up to calc III, and students progressing beyond that point are sent to college at the district’s expense. The same is true for all other courses of study.</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that things in your school district are not as you say they are. I merely tried to point out that things are not the same all over, and that generalizing from your school district is not useful. I guessed wrong about your school district, but that wrong guess is not central to my thesis.</p>
<p>I responded to different posts by making different points.</p>
<p>One, it is not possible to compare American 12th graders with French (or British or German) 12th graders because of the tracking. By the time they are in 12th grade, the French students who have not been retained or left school (one can do so after taking an exam at the end of 9th grade) all follow a curriculum that is more rigorous than the typical college-bound American students is expected to take. I do not mean that no American student takes as rigorous or even more rigorous courses–indeed my S2 did–, but that all 12th graders do. it is not a matter of choice. Apart from choosing a particular track (it used to be in 6th grade but is now in 9th grade), you do not have a choice as to whether to take physics or biology or chemistry. You take all 3 throughout the whole of high school. You do not have a choice as to whether to take Calculus. You have to. You also have to take two foreign languages, one starting in 6th grade and one in 8th grade. Again, it is not a matter of choice.</p>
<p>I am glad that you agree that a French twelfth grader who has passed the bac2 is more advanced than an American twelfth grader since the majority of American students do not take APs or IB (which is modelled after the bac). This supports my contention that the French baccalaur</p>
<p>Everytime I read a screed about how terrible public schools are I have to shake my head. If education is so easy, and public schools that bad why don’t the private schools absolutely clean their clocks? And if our schools are so terrible, and foreign schools so great, how did the US manage to keep up with the rest of the world over the past decades? Things like this study are what I use for reality checks. It’s so easy to fail to see the forest for the trees, to obsess over every (very real) failing of the schools we have under our personal microscopes, that it’s only too possible to forget the task they have and the tools they’re given to accomplish those goals. I mean, have you taken a good look at an average group of teenagers lately? These are not the focused world-beaters who frequent these pages. They are regular people, just as have been the majority of the population forever. The thing is, we view the past through rose-colored glasses, Like Robert E Lee above - comparing the best and the exceptional of yesteryear with the average of today. </p>
<p>Result of reality check: Public schools are imperfect. But they do a pretty good job with the challenges they face: students, parents, politicians, and yes - unions, and all the other impediments to efficient operaton that pretty much every large scale enterprise faces. If every student was like Xiggi, and every parent was like Marite they’d do a lot better. But that’s not the hand they’re dealt.</p>