Public Schools Perform Near Private Ones in Study

marite · July 17, 2006, 1:47am

kluge;

As the study which started this thread argues, there is not a great deal of difference in the performance of students from public and private schools.
But, wherever there is, it is not possible for all families who are dissatisfied with the education their child is receiving to go the private route. My brother pais $1k to send his daughter to the best private lycee in Paris. Here the equivalent private school would cost $20k+. I don’t think that is within the reach of families who have the most reason to be dissatisfied with their public schools, those which are in poor districts whether rural or inner city.

I agree that there are many factors and players at work in shaping US education. But I also think many schools could do a much better job than they have been doing. There are too many fads. My kids, 6 years apart in age and having attended the same schools had totally different experiences. One learned to read when Whole Language was the flavor du jour. The other learned when the same teacher had decided to pursue a middle ground between phonics and whole language. One had honors classes in high school, the other endured two years of heterogeneous classes. The vocational program was nearly destroyed between the time S1 was in high school and S2 came in. And so on and so forth. In most cases, it was change without progress or improvement. And it was wasteful.

Tarhunt · July 17, 2006, 10:50am

marite:

A few things.

First off, thanks for the clarifications. To me, it appears that the French system is not so terribly different from the US one as it may appear upon first encountering the differences. If I understand you correctly, the French system retains students for college prep only if they are tracked for college prep. If so, they must take a rigid curriculum that includes some very tough courses.

The US system is different, primarily, in that students self-track. It is possible to graduate from high school in the US (and in my school district) taking a remedial track. It is also possible to start college with standing nearly that of a junior (in some colleges). Kids can take Algebra I in the 6th grade or wait until the 9th grade or even, in some cases, the 10th grade. They can take a foreign language in the 6th grade or never take a foreign language at all. They can graduate with enough high-quality performng arts classes to go immediately to LA or New York, or to be admitted to the top theater and film schools in large numbers … or they can forego any fine arts classes, whatsoever.

If I have understood you, the differences in the high school systems appear to be in two places:

<ol>
<li> US kids self select courses</li>
<li> There is a much wider disparity in the quality and offerings of various school districts across the US</li>
</ol>

May I ask you a question? Considering the seeming inflexibility of Bac2, is it possible for students to exceed the requirements? Can a child in a French school district take, say, numbers theory if he/she is way ahead of others in math? He/she could in my district.

Another difference in the larger educational system, I am told, is that many more US students go on to obtain at least some college than do students in most of the rest of the world. I don’t know if this holds true for France or not. Regardless, it seems to me that kids who graduate high school without challenging themselves, but who go on to complete college, are probably better off than kids who are tracked into leaving school in the 9th grade (though, unfortunately, we have WAY to many people deciding to do that in the US).

As for your assessment of middle schools and the assumptions you make, all I can say is that I have never heard of anything like this in any of the school districts in which I have lived and in which I have had children enrolled. That would include four US school districts.

Child #8 will enter 6th grade next year. She will take Spanish I, Algebra I, advanced language arts (curriculum includes such authors as Shakespeare, Milton, Moliere, Goethe, Chekov, Balzac, Faulkner, Swift, and Hemingway), world history, advanced physical science (basically entry-level physics and chemistry), psychology, choir, and physical education (required). She is not the most advanced student in her class in mathematics. I know of at least one neighborhood boy who will be starting in Algebra II. His grandfather is a math professor and has been grooming him since he was very small.

My experience with middle school is that the work ramps up very quickly. #7’s middle school has told us to expect an average of 2.5 hours of homework/night in the 6th grade and up to 4 hours/night by the 8th grade. I have never heard any school administrator, counselor, or teacher assert that middle school is or should be for “reviewing materials and for focusing on developmental issues.” I would assume this would mean that it is not an “assumption” everywhere.

Certainly, any good middle school administrator, counselor, or teacher should be keenly aware of the potential lifelong psychological damage that can be done during this age if a kid becomes the object of physical and/or emotional bullying. In that sense, I believe it would be negligent and incompetent to ignore that aspect of middle school. But I have never, never heard that this sort of thing took precendence over preparing students for a very rigorous IB/AP course of study in high school, should a child want to pursue that course.

I agree that, without Algebra I in 8th grade, obtaining calculus in high school is very difficulty. It can be done by skipping pre-calc, but only at great sacrifice on the part of the student.

xiggi · July 17, 2006, 11:10am

“She will take Spanish I, Algebra I, advanced language arts (curriculum includes such authors as Shakespeare, Milton, Moliere, Goethe, Chekov, Balzac, Faulkner, Swift, and Hemingway), world history, advanced physical science (basically entry-level physics and chemistry), psychology, choir, and physical education (required).”

Tarhunt, that is a most remarkable curriculum -or at least a most remarkable list of classes. Do you know how this curriculum progresses through middle school, and especially through high school?

hereshoping · July 17, 2006, 11:12am

I agree with everything marite has said: the fads and fluff; the emphasis on socialization in middle school; teachers choosing their own “units” in elementary school, etc. It amazes me that kids were expected to learn to read here in FIRST grade in the fifties - it was a given - imagine that - FIRST grade - and the rare kid who didn’t learn had personal help. Now teachers applaud themselves if kids have somehow learned to read by FOURTH grade. That is now their standard.

In our district we have reached a new low - for all the kids who can’t read or do math on grade level by EIGHTH grade, we have endless “programs” and new after-school school and summer school programs to teach them! This is so that they’ll be able to pass our state tests! They are very PROUD of these programs. They are written up in the newspaper and our community newsletters. We are supposed to thank these teachers for not accomplishing their jobs which is to have the majority of kids reading and doing math on an 8th grade level by 8th grade. The best thing is, the parents have to PAY for these programs, and the teachers get PAID for their summer remedial teaching. Failure is big business for a lot of people.

marite · July 17, 2006, 11:25am

Tarhunt:

Regarding the middle school curriculum, there is quite a lot of discussion on journals such as Education Weekly. My impression of the middle school curriculum in the US is not based on my experience on a single district. Yours seem a real outlier in this regard.

As I suggested in one of my earlier posts, it is unfair to compare US and French 12th graders. It would be far more interesting to compare US and French 17 or 18 year olds, for some of the reasons you mention.

There is tracking–far too early in my opinion–into vocational vs. academic track. Most vocational students can stop after 9th grade (but they still have to pass an exam), and usually go on for further training. One young man I knew went on to learn to be a pharmacist assistant (one normally begins studying pharmacy or medicine, or law, or achitecture right after high school).
As I mentioned also in a previous post, the academic tracks are based on specialization, roughly into the humanities, social sciences and math/sciences. Whatever track students choose, they all have to study the same subjects but in different doses. They also all have to take two foreign languages; usually a combination of English, Spanish, Italian and German.
If a student does not pass the 9th grade exam, that student has to repeat the whole grade. Ditto for Bac 1 and Bac2. The failure rate is high, so by 12th grade, there is a substantial proportion of students who older than the typical American 12th grader.

The difference between the French curriculum and the American curriculum is reflected in the differences between the buffet-style AP curriculum and the full-course IB (modelled after the Bac). You are right that the Bac does not allow for many variations and exceptions. It would not have suited my S who needed college-level math by 9th grade. For the less lopsided student, however, the 11th and 12th grades are as rigorous as a curriculum full of APs–which is not standard in American schools.

My conclusion would be that while the French curriculum is more rigorous than the curriculum that an average college-bound student will encounter in an average school in the US, it does not necessarily serve all students as well as the more flexible American curriculum. Hence the difficulties of doing international comparisons.

marite · July 17, 2006, 11:46am

These letters to Edweek react to an article criticizing the middle school’s focus on socialization of adolescents. There have been many such articles published over the years and many such reactions to the articles.
<a href=“What 'Middle School Concept'? (Opinion)”>What 'Middle School Concept'? (Opinion);

I should note that the French now have middle schools (they did not exist in my days) and I’m told their curriculum is also weak compared to the primary and secondary curricula. The French obviously have discovered teen-agers (a totally American concept) and don’t quite know what to do with them.

Tarhunt · July 17, 2006, 11:46am

xiggi:

The math curriculum will go something like this:

6 - Alg. I
7- Geometry
8- Algebra II
9- Pre-calc
10- Calc or AP Calc
11 - Calc II and III
12 - Multivariable calc, AP Stats, or a class at the local university. Some kids have opted for engineering and/or science classes, instead.

Language arts will simply deepen and broaden from year to year, but most kids in this curriculum will take both AP Lang. courses by the 10 or 11th grade and go on to the local university for more if they like.

History is much the same as the Lang. courses, with dollops of geopolitics/human geography, and electives across a broad spectrum including European history, Asian history, the AP histories, ancient history, modern history, economic history, etc.

Science can take several paths. Typically, it might go something like this:

6 - Intro to physical sciences
7 - Intro to biological sciences
8 - Beginning physics, biology, or chemistry (or environmental sciences if preferred)
9 - 12 – Either a kid will continue to expand, taking the three major hard sciences up to AP level and beyond, or will specialize, perhaps taking all the basics but going on to the local university to take such classes as quantum mechanics. (The most famous physics student in our district ended up in grad-level physics classes when he was 16, but of course that’s a very rare exception.)

Foreign language may progress to level VI or VII by the end of high school (depending on whether the 6th grader takes a high-school equivalent course or a half-high-school-equivalent course). Or, once the child reaches high school, he/she can add another language or switch languages altogether.

Psychology is not a definite track. She will probably sample economics, sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences in middle school, and then take as many or few of those as she likes in high school. There are AP courses in the social sciences, of course, but not many advanced courses beyond that. Once again, if she goes as high as she can in high school offerings, the district will pay for college classes.

Choir will probably change to musical theater in her second semester. She can also, eventually, move into band, orchestra, graphic arts, performing arts, plastic arts, etc. as time goes on.

zoosermom · July 17, 2006, 11:49am

Marite wrote: “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.”

I totally agree with you on this. Don’t you think 7th and 8th grades are the perfect to time to really push? I do. The kids are old enough and should be mature enough to handle abstract concepts and just plain old hard work. My older daughter was in a Lutheran school that pushed ahead in science far, far ahead of where public and Catholic schools were (in this area, I mean), and all of the kids just excelled. The interesting thing is that it was a predominantly black school in a lower-middle class area with all the attendant social problems. (Although the class, itself, spanned the spectrum from great wealth to grinding poverty.) But, without exception, those kids were expected to bust their butts and did. Regardless of home situation, every child who graduated 8th grade with my daughter is well above average and, now that they are rising high school seniors, looking at nice colleges with excellent scores. Eighth grade is considered a waste of time here and I think so much more could be done. Marite, you really hit on something.

iloveagoodbrew · July 17, 2006, 11:56am

I went to a Catholic school in another country till 7th grade…we covered stuff till my 10th grade public HS here (on the list of Gates Foundation’s top schools)…

marite · July 17, 2006, 11:58am

Tarhunt:

I cannot begin to enumerate the ways in which your child’s school differs from the typical American school.

Tarhunt · July 17, 2006, 12:32pm

hereshoping:

I attended elementary school in the 50s, and I don’t remember it the way you do. Did we learn to “read” in the first grade? Well, after a fashion. I could read “Run Spot run! See Spot Run! See Spot run to the house. Come Spot come. Come come Spot.” I guess that’s reading, but it hardly means I was a proficient reader at the ripe old age of seven.

There were many, many children who never learned to read well. The very worst readers/students got labeled with the term “special ed,” which was a synonym for “■■■■■■■■” in our minds. I can remember being in the fifth grade when the class was reading out loud, and hearing child after child struggle one word at a time with books designed for children much younger than they. We had one kid in the fifth grade who was 13 years old who could barey read “rat” and “cat.”

I don’t know the exact drop out rate in my school district, but it was very high. Only a handful of kids went on to college.

We were all taught phonetic reading. The problem with phonetic-reading-only programs is that it is possible to go quite a ways sounding as though you can read without having any comprehension whatsoever. As an example, I have an ear for sounds, though I am not good at acquiring other languages. As a result, I can read a page of French text so well that my French colleagues tell me my accent is very nearly native. I can read a page of French fluently and with what little inflection the French use.

And I cannot understand anything of what I just read. So, I didn’t really “read” it at all. I merely did a great job of word-calling. A lot of kids in the 50s did a lot of word-calling.

I don’t have in-depth knowledge of actual test results on American kids from “back in the day.” I don’t know how good those tests were, how well children did on them, the differences between children in segregated school systems (as all the systems in the South were in the 50s), etc. I would have to do that work, or read good studies from others who have done that work, to have a firm opinion. I will say, though, that the articles I have read on the subject do not make it appear that there has ever been any Golden Age of American education.

iloveagoodbrew · July 17, 2006, 12:35pm

I think phonetic reading is a good method. This way, you can break words down to their building blocks. Helps in looking a new word up in the dictionary or when spelling (if you ever had dictation classes you would know this is quite helpful).

Tarhunt · July 17, 2006, 12:48pm

marite:

I’m aware that our school system is very strong in a number of areas. For instance, I’ve discussed only the curricula for very strong/talented students and even left out a few things (such as the fact that child #7 spent two summer disecting human corpses under the direction of physicians as part of a TAG program). But there are other tracks, as well.

We have a population of English language learners that runs as high as 20% in some of our high schools. Most of them speak Spanish as their first language. The accelerated track is not appropriate for the vast majority of those students. The trick with them is to make sure they get through and, in some family cases, stay alive, healthy, and out of jail. There is also a middle track for students who don’t want to push all that hard. Those students will take college prep courses, but will generally attend state universities and more middle-of-the-road private schools than the students on the accelerated track.

As I mentioned above, my own school district, growing up, was pretty awful. The last time I checked, only 20% of the students there take the SAT, and the average SAT score is just under 900 (old scale). The culture in the area is very anti-intellectual/education, so the local taxpayers starve the system fairly effectively. Even if there was more money, though, it’s a bit hard to convince children from families who sneer at “book larnin’” that they should study and excel in school.

There are a number of problems with US public education, no doubt. My concern is that the entire system is being painted with a very broad brush, and that this broad brush approach is leading to useless, and even harmful, “solutions.”

Tarhunt · July 17, 2006, 12:51pm

iloveagoodbrew:

Phonetics definitely has a place in learning to read. As you say, it is very useful in “decoding” words. Unfortunately, some children never get beyond decoding to the stage where words become ideograms and, so, never learn to read well for meaning. That’s why I was very careful to specify “phonetic-reading-only” programs as having this problem.

As for spelling, I’ve always enjoyed the T-shirts that read, “Hookt on fonix.”

xiggi · July 17, 2006, 12:54pm

Tarhunt, the progression at your school is … brutal. In some ways, I hope that it reflects more a potential progression than an expected one. For instance, I don’t how much of the symbolism in Chekov or the classicism of Goethe will be captured by middle schoolers, but I supposed that it cannot hurt to glance at the books at an early age.

Echoing Marite, I also believe that your school is most definitely at the avant-garde of ultra competitive programs. For comparison sake, I provide a link to the curriculum at one of the very best schools in Texas -which can be verified by checking the matriculation and test scores.

<a href=“http://www.smtexas.org/ftpimages/73/download/download_group576_id115344.pdf[/url]”>http://www.smtexas.org/ftpimages/73/download/download_group576_id115344.pdf</a>

xiggi · July 17, 2006, 1:03pm

Forgot to add the 2006 matriculation

College Matriculations for the Class of 2006

Ivies + 2
Cornell University - 1
Dartmouth College - 4
Harvard University - 2
Princeton University - 2
University of Pennsylvania - 4
Yale University - 3
MIT - 1
Stanford University - 2

Amherst College - 2
Baylor University - 2
Boston College - 1
Boston University - 1
CA Polytechnic Univ - 1
Colgate University - 1
Elon University - 1
Emory University - 4
Furman University - 3
Georgetown Univ - 5
Haverford College - 1
Middlebury College - 1
New York University - 2
Northwestern Univ - 3
Occidental College - 1
Pepperdine Univ - 2
Purdue University - 1
RPI - 1
Rhodes College - 1 Rice University - 2
Southern Methodist University - 1
Texas Christian University - 1
Trinity University - 2
United States Air Force Academy - 1
University of Arizona - 1
University of Arkansas - 1
University of Georgia - 1
Univ of North Carolina-Chapel Hill - 1
University of Rochester - 2
University of Southern California - 2
University of Texas at Austin - 4
University of Texas at Austin-Plan II - 1
University of Texas at Dallas - 1
University of Texas at San Antonio - 1
University of Virginia - 2
Vanderbilt University - 3
Villanova University - 1
Washington and Lee University - 1
Washington University in St. Louis - 3

Tarhunt · July 17, 2006, 1:09pm

xiggi:

I’m afraid I gave the wrong impression. The curriculum I outlined above is simply what’s available to children if they want it. It is not required. There is also a middle track and a remedial track.

In some ways, the existence of a middle and remedial track outlines the problem in US schools. Our student populations tend to be more heterogenous that in countries such as France (though I think France is gaining in that respect). All students may pursue college prep if they like, and this puts a strain on resources. A great deal of money may be spent on English-language instruction and helping children who have never lived in one place more than a few months to catch up with their peers (to the degree they can).

My school system has a very large university smack in the middle of it, so the kids often come from homes with very well-educated parents. Or they can come from homes with parents who can’t read and write, even in their native language. As a result, 10% of the students at one of our high schools are NMSFs. That same high school runs special science courses (non-mathematical for the most part) off-campus during after-school hours to help less-fortunate children just to graduate high school.

The point I’m trying to make on this thread is not that American education is good or bad, but simply that painting with too broad a brush can lead to generalized solutions that can be harmful.

LakeWashington · July 17, 2006, 1:10pm

Zoosermom, I’m with you. Parental expectations are fundamentally important. And as Tarhunt said, there are parts of this country that truly (and sadly) are anti-intellectual. Professors I know at a very good university in a rural town in the south complain of constant school board battles with their neighbors whom have no connection to the university. They fought with ‘the farmers’ about priorities for the local high school, which serves the town and the county.

Tarhunt · July 17, 2006, 1:12pm

xiggi:

The local school board published a press release on college acceptance results for the district. It was not as detailed as yours, though. Out of ~2,000 grads, ~400 will matriculate at US News top 25 national universities or top 25 liberal arts colleges. About 300 will not attend college.

marite · July 17, 2006, 1:21pm

Tarhunt:

I reiterate that I have fully acknowledged huge variations in American education. That is both good and bad. 
But my comments were addressed to post regarding international comparisons. There is no point comparing one school that is so far off the scale to a large number of foreign schools that have exactly the same curriculum. Yours happen not to be the curriculum in place in most high schools, public or private, in the US.

Public Schools Perform Near Private Ones in Study

CONNECT WITH US