Are Americans undereducated?

[zera]

Originally Posted by ojos_de_brujo

In Flanders ( everybody now going 'huh where') a few journalists tested a group of 18 year olds on common knowledge and found they did not know what holocaust was, who Hitler was, and when we last had a war over here.
We used to have a great educational system, if you were smart, you could get an education, and not really have to worry about money.
Since Europe decided to sign this stupid piece of paper in Bologna, this is all changing. The philosophy behind this treaty is that all degrees should be equal, so they can be used in every country in the world, thus making it easier for multinationals to find suitable candidates for their job openings. Secondly, education, according to the Flemish Minister of Education, should be usefull, meaning 'usefull to companies'. In these 'usefull' subjects money should be invested. The others (litterature, history, and 'god forbid' philosophy) are supposed to slowly disappear.
Swim can tell you our culture and prosperity aren't based on 'sciences like economics and stock broking. Swim is not a Marxist, but if this 'capitalist masterplan' is continued, our capitalist system might just implode. The human sciences are of more value than politicians and corporate ceo's think. But they are short-sighted,they only care about the money that will be in their pocket soon.
My short term worry used to be that the students who come after me, will not get the chances they deserve because our educational system is evolving rapidly into an american system (i'm talking about higher education) where a good education equals spending a lot of money. If you're poor you get to go to a bad school. At the moment all the schools charge the same fees (about 650 $ a year), a scolarship is granted by the state based on your (parents) income. This legislation is going to be changed though. Unfortunately.
In Swim's opinion education should be the governments primary concern, the more that can be invested in it the better. Swim still dreams of Utopia.

Swim knows she is privileged. She believes it wouldn't be possible in most countries for an ex-heroin addict to be studying for a masters degree.

On Americans being stupid, just like in any other population there are stupid people. Bummer that the main spokesman for the USA is such an excellent example of this alleged 'American stupidity'.

Actually that whole thing about American universities being priced on how good they are isn't really true. The main division in pricing comes between public and private schools. Pretty much all private schools cost around the same no matter how good they are, swim goes to an ivy league school and his tuition is actually slightly less than some of his friends who go to low tier private schools.

There are many excellent public universities: the entire UC system (especially Berkeley), UVA, U Michigan, Wisconsin-Madison, UNC Chapel Hill, UF, Penn State. All of these schools rank in the top 50 American universities (the cutoff for first tier), and are far cheaper than lower-ranked private schools. Depending on what you want to study you can find a public college that is most likely top in that field, for example Berkeley is world renowned for computer science, UC Santa Barbara is basically top ranked for material science, UVA is without a doubt one of the best business schools in the country, Madison has a top 10 law school, etc.

In addition to that the top private schools, the ivy league and others like Stanford, Duke and NYU are very very generous with their financial aid. These schools typically have huge endowments and can afford it. If you are academically qualified to attend a top school and you have a poor financial situation it's pretty much guranteed that the school will work something out so you can go there. For example Harvard recently just did away with all loans, student work programs, and anything else but straight financial aid grants to students. Basically if Harvard decides you're good enough to go there, they're going to make sure you can no matter what and it will hardly be a burden on you at all. Harvard's probably the most generous, but other top private schools have pretty much the same philosophy.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

I dissected a worm, a star fish, a clam, and a salmon in the 7th grade. my teacher was big on cutting open dead animals.

[Alfa]

I always thought this to be a very strange aspect of American education. Why the fuck would a kid need to cut a animal open? To cause trauma or sadism? I'm happy to have had school without it.

[Alicia]

^^^
eye eye..

Originally Posted by Alfa

I always thought this to be a very strange aspect of American education. Why the fuck would a kid need to cut a animal open? To cause trauma or sadism? I'm happy to have had school without it.

Biology to understands the working of a 'once' living thing. remember saying someone saying can it be sewn back afterwards.. it has to be alive thou...? but scalpels are funny things so is chloroform..

Sadism.... why does that word burn my tongue.. feels nice thou...

[Nacumen]

What most foreigners to the United States do not understand is that every school system in America is different than every other. The municipality has the greatest influence on the school (it also provides the most amount of funding), then the state (provides a significant amount of funding, also sets regulations as to what is to be taught in the state), then the federal government, which provides some funding but is by far the least influential.

To give you a better picture, imagine a suburb of the 'megalopolis', predominantly upper-middle class and white.

Now imagine a poor, crime-ridden inner city school with the majority of students being black or latino.

Remembering that, in America, the municipality has by far the greatest influence on the school, which school do you think provides the better education?

Do you understand now why there is such ambiguity when it comes to the level of education of the average American?

[Riconoen {UGC}]

Oh and a cow's eye.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

Well it was disgusting. especially the eye, when you remove the cornea, iris and lens with the scalpel a big glob of clear jelly comes out. ewww...

[Sitbcknchill]

Ok enough chicken guts and fish stories lets stear this back to the original topic. So what do people see as a resolution to this problem? Is it the generic response of more money? The United States spent 1.14 trillion dollars on our education system in 2004. So what, we need more cash to fund this or a reform of our schools?

I kind of like the idea on the 20/20 video (if anyone watched it in it's entirety) that we should have vouchers attached to our kids to give them the freedom to go to the school they want. Also, this would drive competition between schools and set higher standards for teachers who can't sit on their ass and do nothing anymore and collect a paycheck. It's hard to get a good education when you are forced to go to a poorly run school because of where you currently live. Either way I don't think we need to keep dumping money in a failing system if thats what it is. Look at the schools in Kansas I think it was in the video where they dumped tons of extra money in those schools to make them state of the art and all that jazz. What happened, they did just as good or worse then the rest of the schools with lower funding. So, I don't see funding as an issue. Having competition between schools and firing teachers for being bad teachers and closing schools for poorly educating students might not be such a bad idea.

[El Calico Loco]

Originally Posted by Sitbcknchill

Ok enough chicken guts and fish stories lets stear this back to the original topic. So what do people see as a resolution to this problem? Is it the generic response of more money? The United States spent 1.14 trillion dollars on our education system in 2004. So what, we need more cash to fund this or a reform of our schools?

I think Stossel's video makes a very strong case that money is not the problem - American public schools spend more money per pupil than private schools or European public schools, and with less result. He also showed that simply allowing parents to choose between public schools in their town improved things a great deal.

The problem is monopoly. Sure, you can put your kid in a private school...but most parents can't afford it, and they pay taxes to support public schools whether they use them or not, and it's hard to compete with "free." They don't realize that cost may be their child's future.

I believe in separation of school and state. I think it's as important as separation of church and state.

People think the government has to provide education. Why? Well...because it does. It always has! Well, at least since we've been alive. But there are even more important things - food, clothing, shelter - that the government does not provide, yet we seem to have no shortage of choice or quality in this regard. Sure, the rich can afford better food, clothing, and shelter than the rest of us, but most of us can still afford enough.

What about the poor? I used to like (and argue for) the voucher idea until I realized that it's just a different way for the government to control how individuals spend their money. This is how the politicians trick us. They tell us that the poor need food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, and XYZZY - therefore, we need either government-run-XYZZY (worst case) or government-provided, taxpayer-funded vouchers for XYZZY (food stamps, school vouchers, etc - better, but then we need a whole host of taxes to pay for them, and then the government must of course set standards on what kind of food or education is appropriate for us unwashed masses).

The problem with the poor is not that they have too little food, education, or health care; the problem with the poor is that they have too little money. To that end, I would like to see a Citizen's Dividend based on resource taxes.


ECL
(Of course, we'd have to fix the corrupt taxation and monetary systems first...but a man can dream.)

[Alfa]

In Holland there is an inspection that publishes it's findings (on how each school scores on varies factors) on the net. Parents use this to choose a school. The quest for good schools does cause the existance of 'black' schools though, as schools with a concentration of immigrants and people with a foreign mother language have lower scores than others.
That said, the Dutch schools are not optimal as they have not realised yet that they are serving customers, just like any other service provider.

[renegades]

Schools in America are geared to motivating students, so they lower the bar for passing grades as not to hurt those underachieving students' feelings. The school system must help build student confidence not to destroy it with bad grades. So standards are lowered so that the bottom 10% don't fail and have to take that the grade over again. However, colleges are different. Swim could not believe the number of people who dropped out after the first year due to poor grades. At least 35%. There are no lowering of standards in college, which catch people off-guard. True - there have been basketball players in the NBA that could not read or write after 4 years of college. But they are the exceptions not the norm.

[London_Bloke]

Ok, but here's the true irony of what standardized testing does to community schools, aside from the fact that Johnny Kanin't Read: here in my neck of the woods, standardized test are NOT used to make any educational adjustments to the curriculum, or the teaching approach used to bring a child or a group of children up to a proscribed level.

NO! It is used to give each school a "grade". If the children do badly, the schools get a bad grade their funding is reduced or increased, based on their "grade". So the schools where children do badly lose money, their teachers go to a different school systems where they are not having their salaries cut and they can actually teach a subject (gasp, how dare they?), and the school starts devoting more and more time to prepping the children on HOW to take the FCAT (Florida) and less time actually teaching the subjects they were hired to teach. The schools that get better grades get more money to attract only the very best teachers, resource material. My daughter graduated last year from a A-grade closed magnet public school for AP/IB* students ONLY. Her media lab had brand new Macintosh computers, each with Final Cut Pro software (over $2,000 per seat license).

So the final irony is that the schools in my community that desperately need the resources and teachers are having their funding cut based on their kids' bad FCAT scores. And that's Florida - Georgia has their own hellish ideas - they use tracking. The educational version of "profiling". It starts early and guarantee that rich white kids get a good Calculus 3 teacher while the rest are kept busy for 12 years making birdhouses in shop class or learning to enunciate, as in "You want fries with that?"

*AP/IB Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate

[FrankenChrist]

Originally Posted by renegades

Schools in America are geared to motivating students, so they lower the bar for passing grades as not to hurt those underachieving students' feelings. The school system must help build student confidence not to destroy it with bad grades. So standards are lowered so that the bottom 10% don't fail and have to take that the grade over again. However, colleges are different. Swim could not believe the number of people who dropped out after the first year due to poor grades. At least 35%. There are no lowering of standards in college, which catch people off-guard. True - there have been basketball players in the NBA that could not read or write after 4 years of college. But they are the exceptions not the norm.

In the States, is there even such a thing as repeating your year if you failed your yearly high school exams?
Do you even have regular examinations?

[podge]

Swim has talked to intelligent and stupid people from diffrent places in the world...america included.swim has talked to americans who know little or nothing about anywhere else in the world that doesnt have a tv sitcom about it. It seems that many seem to presume that america is the only place worth knowing about....its not stupidity , they are just being force fed with "clean cut morally correct television and advertising"..... eg...... GO AMERICA WERE SO GREAT - the rest of the world wishes they were like us. And the sick thing is most people buy into this !! The team america song really sums it up nicely...AMERICA , FUCK YEAH !!! Swim feels the vibe of american brainwashing from ireland creeping through the television..... luckily swim lives here or else he may have become one of the thoughtless masses. Americans are not stupid.....americans are people who have been tricked into believe that they live in a land of the free and the brave....when in reality its a land where the rich and the arrogant rule . There needs to be a new psyhedelic revolution in the USA to spread a bit more free thinking so the power hungry people in charge can be replaced with people who actually give a shit about their fellow country men. Its not an acedemic problem as much as a freedom issue !

[ojos_de_brujo]

Swim did not know the financial aid was so generous in top private schools. She did know there were some top public schools, but really the idea Belgians have about American education is pretty much how Swim summed it up above. Thinking about it, it's even worse if our European educational system is going to be based on a fictional 'American' system, which would have all the cons of the real American system, but not the pro's.

[Trebor]

I saw a TV show on Sunday where three men, sojme of the Brits here might know it, Top gear, went to Alabama. Here's a blog cuase Swim's to stoned to keep typing for me.

http://www.topgear.com/blogs/planett...-home-alabama/

Think Mr. May said it better then I could.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

Exactly ECL, why does everyone seem to think education is a right. no, it isn't education is a priviledge, you don't need an education to flip burgers or to pick up garbage or really any job that requires manual repetitive labor. You know why the us has such great colleges? BECUASE YOU PAY FOR THEM. I'm all for privitizing education.

[London_Bloke]

Probably one of the few good things to ever come out of a state lottery is Florida's Bright Futures scholarships. Any kid in any public school in Florida, with good grades, decent test scores and a few other little things like some volunteer hours can have either 70% or 100% of their tuition paid to any of Florida's state schools. Last year the state legislature passed a bill that allowed for any kid who qualified for the 70% scholarship to receive 100% tuition if they agree to do their first 2 years of undergraduate work at a Florida junior or community college. It lets the kids get the required classes out of the way, smaller class size than the bigger schools and makes a good bridge between high school and freshman English at the University of Florida with an average class size of 600. So the freshman and sophomore load is reduced at the big state schools and the kids are getting a stepping stone into the huge educational mechanism that is higher education in Florida. The big state schools have also stated they will show a preference to kids who start out at a state community college when they want to transfer and finish their bachelors degree.

[zera]

Originally Posted by BadnessNeeds

Probably one of the few good things to ever come out of a state lottery is Florida's Bright Futures scholarships. Any kid in any public school in Florida, with good grades, decent test scores and a few other little things like some volunteer hours can have either 70% or 100% of their tuition paid to any of Florida's state schools. Last year the state legislature passed a bill that allowed for any kid who qualified for the 70% scholarship to receive 100% tuition if they agree to do their first 2 years of undergraduate work at a Florida junior or community college. It lets the kids get the required classes out of the way, smaller class size than the bigger schools and makes a good bridge between high school and freshman English at the University of Florida with an average class size of 600. So the freshman and sophomore load is reduced at the big state schools and the kids are getting a stepping stone into the huge educational mechanism that is higher education in Florida. The big state schools have also stated they will show a preference to kids who start out at a state community college when they want to transfer and finish their bachelors degree.

I have a feud with bright futures because I more than qualified, but chose to attend school out of state so I don't get a dime. I should get the same amount I would receive if I attended UF.

[London_Bloke]

Originally Posted by zera

I have a feud with bright futures because I more than qualified, but chose to attend school out of state so I don't get a dime. I should get the same amount I would receive if I attended UF.

You may have qualified - but the rules are the rules, and they are not a secret. This is about keeping the money inside the state of Florida. If you feel that the education they were offering you wasn't what you wanted, you walked away from it - they didn't take it from you. That money was the state of Florida's money to give - you chose not to accept, based on the strings. Everything has strings.

If Stanford offered you a grant, you'd never consider saying "No, thanks! But I would like to take your money and attend Yale." Same thing.

[Nagognog2]

Education in the state of Vermont underwent a radical change a few years ago. The education budget was centralized. This means that all the money collected by cities and towns in now equally divided among the different school districts.

No longer does Hortense Q. Fartbuckle III's class get 25 new computers for his class of 12 students in a "gold-town" like Dover, while Billy Bob's class of 35 kids get to share a broken microscope and coloring-book. Now it's all divided up (by someone with math skills) equally.

The Fartbuckle's in the gold-towns screamed bloody-blue murder - threatening to move to a state where the poor know their place. The state told 'em to go ahead and move. Stalemate. Damn commies!

[London_Bloke]

Originally Posted by Nagognog2

Now it's all divided up (by someone with math skills) equally.

The Fartbuckle's in the gold-towns screamed bloody-blue murder - threatening to move to a state where the poor know their place. The state told 'em to go ahead and move. Stalemate. Damn commies!

I love it! And Al Franken runnning is for congress. Love it!

[El Calico Loco]

Originally Posted by Nagognog2

The Fartbuckle's in the gold-towns screamed bloody-blue murder - threatening to move to a state where the poor know their place. The state told 'em to go ahead and move. Stalemate. Damn commies!

Heh...like the rich assholes couldn't just donate extra money to their kids' schools if they wanted to. Or send their kids to private school, as so many do. I bet it was the slightly-upper middle class that was complaining the loudest.

The question is: did it work? The poorer areas got more money, but did it improve education (and I'm not thinking "test scores"). I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that most of it went to raises and bonuses for principals, supers, and other bureaucrats. It's what has happened in the places I've lived. But I don't know Vermont that well; maybe things are less corrupt up there in the frozen north.

Come to think of it, that's probably a sucker's bet, given the way monetary inflation and energy prices have jacked up the cost of living...okay, I'll bet a dollar to one twentieth of a doughnut.

(And though I've already stated my position on the separation of school and state, I have no problem with Vermont's program. I hope it works for them. Why? Because it's done at the proper level, just as Vermont's socialized healthcare system was. I kinda liked Howard Dean when he was running for prez, but one thing that pissed me off was his insistence that his Vermont program be made national. What the fuck is wrong with different ways for different places? Texas ain't Vermont and Nevada ain't California, fer cryin out loud...)

Incidentally, one of the main reasons that the price of a college education in America has risen at double the rate of general inflation is due to increased demand: a bachelor's degree has become a requirement for nearly any white collar job. It has become what a high school diploma used to be, back when a high school diploma meant something. Thus we come back around to the issue of our crappy public school system. It's simply pathetic how many college freshmen need remedial courses in basic algebra and simple grammar.


ECL
(Not to mention how many can't even make it that far because they somehow managed to graduate high school without the ability to read. You'd think at least ONE of their teachers would have noticed. And cared.)

[katukulysm]

how many uk'ers are in this thread?

[Nagognog2]

"The question is: did it work? The poorer areas got more money, but did it improve education (and I'm not thinking "test scores"). I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that most of it went to raises and bonuses for principals, supers, and other bureaucrats. It's what has happened in the places I've lived. But I don't know Vermont that well; maybe things are less corrupt up there in the frozen north."

Do you know what we call a corrupt politician in Vermont? A hunting accident.

Vermont actually has honest people in office. Sure some crooks slip in now and then - but they are gone real quick. I know it's hard to believe by looking around the rest of the country, but the government of Vermont is actually of, by, and FOR the people.

Which should serve to prove one vital fact: This is possible. One can go slap a "Don't Mess With Texas" bumper-sticker on a Lincoln Continental limo and park it next to the Capitol in Washington - but Vermont leads the nation.

(for a good example of Vermont and it's political front - google Fred Tuttle - and hold onto your ribs)