American Stupidity

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We Americans are stupid. Compared to other countries, our schools teach subjects that aren't as advanced. Our students could only be taking geometry_, and in other countries, they're taking calculus. Why are we so behind and why do so many of us not care?

I have to agree. By grade 3 I was doing Algebra! Grade 4, Ancient History and Grade 5, Biology. Thats all I know, I came here after. In Highschool, you learn stuff American Universities teach.Don't forget http://www.whereswilly.com/ Canada's in here too!Apprently, American is the country of knowledge, so I think your statement is wrong!

Most foreigners who come to university in the U.S. are way ahead of their American contemporaries. The first year is a re-do of high school; yet a lot of Americans need remedial math and English.On objective tests, American high school students are far behind their counterparts in Asia, and behind most of the industrialized world. Keep your eye on South Korea.The problem for the U.S. is that most good jobs are now highly mobile; you just need a computer and an Internet connection to get going. ("The world is flat", as Thomas Friedman says.)

Part of the reason for the difference is that US high school education is broader and specialises less.

US PhD degrees are very strong, though.

The school system in my area is playing with the idea of specializing more like they do in Japan.

Not so much any more. With the "No Child Left Behind" act requiring all of the states to meet certain standards in math and reading, the implementation by the states of standardized tests to measure progress in those areas, and with school system budgets dependent on the test scores, public schools in the U.S. are narrowing their offerings. For underachieving (according to the test) students, everything but math and reading is disappearing from the curriculum.Between that and tighter school budgets, enrichment programs are also disappearing, which is tragic. Things like music, drama, gym, etc. add a lot to and education. Even driver's education is disappearing.It would be sad if ten years down the road Americans high school students are getting a narrow education, and they don't test well against students from around the world.American Universities are very strong, but at a lot of them, a good part of the freshman class lacks basic skills needed to succeed in college. Its also a big problem for companies that want to hire people right out of high school. Some corporations run remedial classes for new hires.

Yea, that makes scence. Also american teens seem alot less mature then most of the tenns I know but I deffinatly can't be sure about that.I like our schooling system. I'ts not easy but it';s deffinatly very good. And I hate caluclus, It's a boring subject, I do statistics instead. hehe

Lack of maturity in students who are too busy watching TV and/or playing video games to care about learning anything (or doing anything else, for that matter) is part of the problem. A messed up education system is another. We lower the bar with this "no child left behind" idea and what do you expect to happen? You get less results. Apathetic parents is the biggest reason of all, though...they are in a position to make the biggest difference in children when everything else fails. Unplug the TV and make them study, and they'll excell regardless of what the school system does...but it's a lot easier when we have the school system on our side instead of having to fight them for a good education.

The schools are sickening here in Cleveland. With the last CEO and all her workers spending school money on themselves, I can't even blame these kids for getting low test scores. Last year, they had 52 high school kids in one classroom. Some of the kids were sitting on the floor and sharing books because they did not even have enough books to go around. Two years ago my sons class did not even have paper. And I feel awful for these teachers that are having to pay out of thier own pocket to buy the school supplies they need.

Years ago, I was one of them. I had two sets of textbooks for 5 classes. But I'll tell you this...on "parent/teacher" night, only 12 kids parents showed up. 12 out of about 180. That's really sad.

Schools are bad because education is not a priority in this country. 3000 people died and we're spending trillions of dollars on the "war on terror", but the war on lack of basic skills gets scant attention.In a country where academic achievement means little and intellectualism is mocked, and excellence at sports means everything, it's not surprising. Plus, the way money is parceled out within and among school districts, schools in poorer (i.e., less politically-influential) neighborhoods get the short end of the stick.The Claremont Decision in New Hampshire will be interesting. The State Supreme Court decided that the distribution of school funds among districts was unfair. New Hampshire's tax base largely comes from property taxes. Therefore, the richer towns' schools were well funded, while schools in poorer towns were not. The legislature has until next year to finally figure out what to do about it, and pass legislation. I don't think they would ever add a sales tax.(When I lived in Manchester, more than half of the property taxes went to the city's school system.)thor> on "parent/teacher" night, only 12 kids parents showed up. 12 out of about 180. That's really sad.That is deeply sad.

In reply to: more than half of the property taxes went to the city's school system.) That is the same here. But the people in charge keep spending it on fabulous luncheons, new cars etc. I do not even blame home owners for voting against tax increases for the schools. Why should they pay more when their money will not even make it to the schools?And Thor, I agree that parents need to be more involved. I work full time, long hours and have two kids. I make it to every school open house, meeting etc. And no video games at all until the weekend. But even that has a time limit.

Good for you...AND your kids, Lisa. :wink:

Here in Washington, they passed a levy for the public school system. This is where the public agrees to pay money into the education system after the idea being put to a vote by ballot. The administrators (the real crooks here) took 75% of the money and gave themselves raises and hired more secretaries (only 25% of the money actually making it into the classrooms). No surprise it was the last levy that passed at the voting booths here. :angry:

Same thing happened here, except after they gave themselves raises, they layed off a bunch of teachers. :angry:

The leaders of other industrialized countries laugh at us every time there's another creationism/evolution battle in some redneck school district or other. They know that they're going to get a lot of the high-paying science and technology jobs that we won't be able to handle, since we'll have too few workers having any idea what science is.Putting up barriers to ambitious and smart foreigners who want to come to this country to study and teach is also a bad idea. There's the idea that keeping them out will increase our security, but in the long run it will deprive us of people who would teach science and engineering at the university level. There aren't enough of the best and brightest American citizens who will do it.It's also sad that pre-college teaching is low status job, often with low pay. Someone with a degree in science or math often has better oppotunities elsewhere.

the biggest problem with the education system is that is run by unionised public employees!a few years back, out provincial government instituted dtandardised testing for students at various grades. The biggest objection came from the teachers' union. God forbid that their performance might come under the microscope by testing the students!

"a few years back, out provincial government instituted dtandardised testing for students at various grades... God forbid that their [teachers] performance might come under the microscope by testing the students!"Granted I have no idea how it works in Canada, the problem with that, as instituted around here, though, is that standardized testing is instituted without standardized funding. Here the funding of the school is dependent on the wealth of the district. Further still, the mill rates, that determine the funding of the school, vary between districts. For instance there is a particular retirement community near here who schools are woefully underfunded but the retirees in the community vote down raising the mill rate every time it's put to vote. It doesn't seem fair that the teachers or administrator should be judged on a statewide average when the community they're located in refuses to provide equal funding for even the most basic up to date resources.Secondly I have a little bit of an ethical problem judging the performance of one person by the performance of another. In reality that should be the job of the administrator and if the teacher isn't doing their job the admin should be able to dismiss them. If the admin isn't doing their job then the superintendent should fire them and if the superintendent isn't doing theirs then they should be fired by the people of the district. I'm not necessarily saying testing the performance of a teacher can't be done but it must be done with some consideration to poor test takers (such as myself), to kids who just are having an off day, and to a very large sect of parents who simply don't care how their children preform in school. I think, while a poor teacher can certainly pull down the value of the education available, more often than not, the value of the education is what the student puts into it and that value is instilled at home.

good pointshowever, all the schools within a board are basically equal here, as are the boards within a province.Also, judging a teacher by the student is totally valid as you would judge any employee's performance by results. We're not talking about a few bad kids having a few bad days. Every child is being tested and if there are consitantly bad results, it goes beyond the students.We don't even need to get into how the teachers are protected from their own performance by the union.

So the parents have nothing to do with it? Gimme a break. If the parents show that they don't value an education, most kids aren't going to bother trying to get one. Parents and teachers need to work together...it's a team effort that's necessary in order to get things to work. Either one drops the ball and the kids will suffer.

>>>"however, all the schools within a board are basically equal here, as are the boards within a province."

In that instance standardized testing may have some merit, around here, however, I think it's completely inappropriate for the reasons I previously gave. In the little town that I live in, for instance, higher level math is not even offered on campus, or at least wasn't as of a couple of years ago and their newest science books where published in something like 1976. The library, for all practical purposes, is non-existent. Worst of all, most people around here put little importance on the value of an education. Is it fair to judge and fund a staff without taking those things into consideration?

The worst part about that system, as is found here, is that rather than offer the resources and guidance needed to make the school preform on level, many would just like to shut the school down and bus the kids some 50 miles away to well performing school. For little kids, especially, I think a strong case could be made that is just to long of a bus ride.

Therein lies another problem, is it going to be fair to judge the performance of the new school after they're burdened with these poorly performing, poorly motivate kids, saddled with disinterested parents, who, in all reality, are going to drag down the new schools performance, thereby stripping at least some funding from them in a performance based system.

>>>"...as you would judge any employee's performance by results."

Point taken, with some reservation. How would this apply to teachers in inner-city or rural schools where education is often given little importance by the community at large. Again for instance, all that many small towns have going for them is the local football team. Therefore, students are pushed toward "easy A" classes rather than preparatory classes and the townspeople value a new football bus over keeping the library open more than two days during the school week. Many inner-city schools might value athletics more because it is seen as the only way out. Around here, it seems that the school systems, more than anything, are an accurate reflection of the community and the communities values that they serve. Given that, is it fair to judge the educators doing the community's bidding (that they serve) shackled by not only how much the community wishes to fund them but by what the community wishes those funds spent on.

There are many people who are going to greatly resist equalization of the system, but that must be done before standard measures can be adopted to judge performance of those trying to work within the system, it seems to me. Even then I still have a little reservation.