Posted on 03/10/2010 2:31:54 AM PST by reaganaut1
One of the world’s foremost experts on comparing national school systems told lawmakers on Tuesday that many other countries were surpassing the United States in educational attainment, including Canada, where he said 15-year-old students were, on average, more than one school year ahead of American 15-year-olds.
America’s education advantage, unrivaled in the years after World War II, is eroding quickly as a greater proportion of students in more and more countries graduate from high school and college and score higher on achievement tests than students in the United States, said Andreas Schleicher, a senior education official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, which helps coordinate policies for 30 of the world’s richest countries.
“Among O.E.C.D. countries, only New Zealand, Spain, Turkey and Mexico now have lower high school completion rates than the U.S.,” Mr. Schleicher said. About 7 in 10 American students get a high school diploma.
Mr. Schleicher’s comments came in testimony before the Senate education committee and in a statement he delivered. The panel plans to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the main law governing federal policy on public schools.
The committee also heard from Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union; John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, a group that represents corporate executives; and Charles Butt, chief executive of a supermarket chain in Texas, who said employers there faced increasing difficulties in hiring qualified young workers.
The blame for America’s sagging academic achievement does not lie solely with public schools, Mr. Butt said, but also with dysfunctional families and a culture that undervalues education. “Schools are inheriting an overentertained, distracted student,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Does the report explain why ghetto gangbangers hold their glocks sideways?
My kids are at the Junior High level right now, and the math and science education is as strong as mine (actually math may be even more rigorous).
English is a problem which has forced me to look at remedial options for my oldest daughter and homeschooling next year for my youngest daughter (I am on the look out for some service that can do a quality job correcting essays with feedback - something my oldest kid is not being exposed to even though she is in 8th grade). The literature requirements for the kids are a joke (not reading Tom Sawyer in 7th grade??? I can’t even imagine it). Fortunately my kids are omnivorious readers so that is not an issue.
My kids do a whole lot more homework than I did at that age - some of it very good, some of it not so good (too much coloring and art type projects in classes like Social Studies). The competition for grades - especially in math is brutal - with a very high bar set for an A.
I am in an excellent school system (lots of kids of university professors, engineers, and other professionals). The parents really care about their childrens’ education.
Sorry, Mr. Butt (my, what an APPROPRIATE name), but the blame lies COMPLETELY on the "education establishment" and their leftist collaborators, who are more interested in using the schools to propagandize than to educate.
ping
Who determines the quality of education (US vs foreign countries) Judging by the degreed people from foreign countries I deal with, I not impressed.
During the recent Texas primaries, mainly liberal candidates were spouting data saying Texas was 43rd in education in the US.
Wonder how adding a large number of kids who can't speak English (and their parents) effects those numbers? Are other states who have high immigrant populations ranked toward the bottom?
The answer is YES.
Not one conservative understands that socialist, single-payer government schools are the very definition of socialism!
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS CAN NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT BE FIXED!!!
Why?
Answer: BECAUSE SOCIALISM CAN NOT NOT NOT NOT BE FIXED!!!
Solution: We must move to complete privatization with charity picking up the slack for the poor! Vouchers, tax credits, and charters can help move us in that direction and help start building the infrastructure for complete privatization, but the direction for education on all levels ( K-12 and university) must be toward complete separation of school and state. And...This even includes our state colleges and universities!
If we ever have socialized medicine in this nation, I can see it now. One hundred years from now conservatives will be posting:
** If only we didn't have medicine unions.
** If only we didn't have the National Union of Nurses.
** If only medicine were controlled by the the counties.
** If only we elected conservatives to the local medicine board.
** Medicine was good in 2020s. If only we could go back to the 2020s.
** If only medical school and nursing schools would get candidates that didn't have the lowest SAT scores on campus.
** If only we could get back to medicine basics.
Why don't you guys “get it”????? SOCIALISM NEVER WORKS!!!
And NO NO NO NO NO socialist schooling in the U.S. NEVER worked!!! NEVER! If it did we would not have had ( within one to three short generations) the following:
** the IRS
** the federal reserve
** Unions
** the feminist movement
** the failed “One World” League of Nations followed by the abominable U.N.
** FDR and all his socialist programs with the New Deal
** Johnson's Great Society
** the abolishment of the gold standard
** And thousands of socialist programs and agencies
Simply by attending, children learn that the government can take money from their neighbor to pay for a service their parents want for tuition-FREE!! And,..WORSE!..Their teachers teach them that tuition-free schooling is a right!
Well!...Duh!...If the government can take money from their neighbor for tuition-free school, why not other stuff?
Yes, I am shouting. I am **EXASPERATED**!!!
Public school curriculums have been hopelessly watered down.
The SAT exams have been watered down.
We already do not have an education system. We have indoctrination centers for the purpose of cranking out little shheple that will accept their soon to be serf status.
The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.
Bless you!
Never give up your clear and unadorned insight as to the necessarily socialist character of State schools.
It is still my opinion that only America’s children can shut down the System, adults having for various reasons bought into the Establishment narrative.
I agree with that. I will also note that many people who agree that government schools are broken will also say "I'm just glad my kids go to a government school which isn't broken -- our school is excellent."
I'm pretty sure that 90+% of the time those schools aren't quite so excellent and that parents would be dismayed if they knew the truth about their local school.
The underlying problems are one of basic economics. Parents do not pay for the education of their children. Single payer systems never provide top quality for low price. NEVER. It matters not whether it's education, health care, or automobile production. The Scoda never had a chance at being better and cheaper than a Corolla.
There are two requirements for improved education in this country
a) parents must pay directly for the service
b) fathers must be fathers to there children
Back in 98, the average cost per student was 5,900 per year. It’s gone up long a lot since then. Rush pointed out that we could save money driving them to school in limos [or something to that affect]. Heck, that’s $59,000 dollars in ten years. Let the parents have the money as a tax credit and let them educate their kids with internet/CD/DVD systems if they want.
The Dept. of Education, and the NEA will fight us tooth and nail over this. Reagan had one glaring failure. He didn’t abolish the DOE.
Some people here only parade as conservatives, but they’re really socialists. That’s why their solution for education is never the free market. They want the state to continue running the education system. So, instead, they propose things like an “immigration policy... to reduce low-IQ immigration.”
Yet, if there were no “free” public education, and if parents were on their own to educate their children using the options available on the free market, only those people willing to do for themselves would come here. This country would be like Galt’s Gulch, except with compassion because we Americans are very charitable and helpful, voluntarily, when we see another person is in a tough spot.
So many people don’t even know they are socialists, because for whatever reason their little piece of socialism is just “fairness” or “common sense”.
I heard Boortz mention today that teacher union pension plans are powerhouse investors. Why? Because of the marvelous education our kids get? They are ripe for ripping up.
One reason I say that is how Greece is an ideal poster boy for union-based economies.
Strike Paralyzes Greece
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240004575084853361540506.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_world
I love a couple neglected headlines:
Germany: ‘We’re Happy to Give the Greeks Anything, Just Not Money’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2463825/posts
Germany wants Greece to sell off its islands for cash
http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100304-25667.html
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