Not intended to lay the blame on schools. They’re only one piece of our broken education system.
Agreed. Countries with high performing education systems understand that they need to manage all of the things you mentioned. They understand that educating the future workforce requires more than just providing schools and teachers.
Depends on the state. NC does not have a variety of things other states have. My brother is a now-retired NC HS English teacher (20+yrs).
- No homework for students to do. So, no teacher reading/grading.
- No individual textbooks for the students. Everything is online.
- All tests are online and are not graded by the teachers.
- Teachers teach, answer questions, help students in class, etc.
- State system grades students–and tells teachers which students pass/fail.
- Teachers copy the info to another system and the students get the results.
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To be contrarian for a moment - what broken education system?
The supposed travails of our education system have been a handwringing staple for decades. For as long as I can remember, it’s been failing and broken. The article below is from the early Reagan years, but I bet even casual googling could find even earlier lamentations. Back then, it was the Japanese that were going to dismantle us because their educational system was so much better than us - but over the years it’s been a host of countries were doing worlds better than us.
Yet even though virtually every member of today’s workforce came through that horrible educational system, our economy is still a world leader on tons of metrics.
We have an extremely productive and efficient workforce, we lead the globe in many technological fields - arguably one of the strongest economies anywhere. Which is pretty inconsistent with the idea that our educational system has been failing for 40+ years. It’s hard to square the results with the idea that our educational system is materially worse than so many others, which presumably would have kept us from maintaining that incredible success (as Reagan warned would happen, but never materialized).
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Um, no. Because the US is not producing enough STEM talent, we’re relying on immigration to fill that need.
The percentage of foreign-born STEM workers continues to go up, up, up!
The number of students in the US made it irrelevant that we’ve underperformed other countries. With US birth rates declining, this advantage won’t be as impactful in the future.
From EdW (2005)-
“In fact, using the 1996 TIMSS data on 8th grade students, the Japanese rank fifth in math and we rank 18th; 64 percent of Japanese 8th graders scored in the top quartile of international benchmarks in math, compared with 28 percent of U.S. students. But because our 8th grade population is twice as large as the 8th grade population in Japan, there are 970,000 U.S. students in the top international quartile, compared with 928,000 Japanese 8th graders.”
More foretelling stuff from 2005 -
Thanks for linking the Reagan article. Reading deeper than his warning, his approach may be have contributed to our current state of affairs. Lambasting private industry to take more responsibility for education, because it’s not the government’s job. At the risk of drawing the ire from Reagan lovers - his douchey policies continue to screw us.
The US education system is one of haves and have-nots. Many people who are in the haves population probably don’t think anything is wrong. Those of us who want a more equitable education system believe things need to change.
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“Thought leaders” say the only immigrants that are welcome are from western Europe, and people in western Europe, generally, do not want to come here.
According to “thought leaders”, “equity” is a bad thing.
The future for Shiny-land is coming to a fork in the road.
Steve
Sorry, but if you are going to take international test score comparisons at face value then it is very naive. Same with your NCEE link, which has this deceptive diagram.
It is well known that China is selective about what schools get tested, tending to ignore all those in rural villages. Not a fair comparison and to ignore it strikes me as being very naive. The children PISA ignores in China | Brookings
It is also well-known that culture and ethnicity matters. For example, in the 2018 PISA, Asian-Americans scored 538 in math and 551 in Science. Japan scored 527 in math and 529 in science. Hong Kong scored 551 in math but only 517 in science. Singapore was a whopping 569 in math but tied with Asian-Americans at 551 for science.
The data shows that Asian-Americans coming out of the American education system are competitive in their educational achievement with the best of the rest of the world. Would we see that if our education system was deficient?
A nation like ours that takes in immigrants from poor countries that speak a different language is going to tend to score lower than countries that are culturally more homogeneous in these types of tests. That’s not a bad thing. I think the benefits outweigh the costs. But it is a reality.
Because getting an MBA makes you god like. Next you could double the admins’ pay scale.
I meant to comment about this last time but forgot. My kids are increasingly getting homework and exams in electronic form. And much of it is graded electronically as well (some almost even instantly!) Only things like essays are graded manually, and even those* are graded using tools and specific guidelines.
* My son just took a practice AP Physics exam this afternoon and then graded it himself. Half the exam is multiple choice (so easy to grade yourself) and half is an FRQ (essay). I immediately asked him how he graded the essay himself, and he said there are specific guidelines, and presence/absence of specific items is what determines the score.
That’s fair. What about Finland, Canada, Poland, Estonia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore?
Yes. Where do they live and go to school? Asian-Americans have a 43% higher median household income as compared to the national average. That means they often go to better schools, with more opportunities. The best schools in the US are competitive, but the US has a huge performance gap between wealthy suburban schools, and poorer schools. While this gap exists in other countries, it is much more pronounced in the US.
Yay! I agree that immigrants in US are a strength. While language is certainly a challenge in the education of immigrants, it’s not the problem. If it were, we’d see second and third generation immigrants performing at a higher level. Poor immigrants live in poor neighborhoods, with poor schools. The US education system is not equitable. Students in poor schools receive a far inferior education than students in middle class or affluent schools. Test scores aside, this is a fact. There’s lots that can be done to address this problem. But it won’t be addressed if we continue to pretend that everything is hunky-dory with the education system in the US.
I believe the education system’s primary objective is to meet the growing / changing workforce needs of our country. If our education system is successfully addressing the workforce needs of our country, why do we have to rely on immigration to fill STEM jobs?
Anyway, maybe you don’t mean to come across this way, but your overly insulting manner is off-putting.
Thanks for the reply.
Years ago there were test prep companies that would teach you how to take the FAA written exams for getting your pilot’s license. But they didn’t teach you any aviation concepts. They just gave you a bunch of stuff to memorize from previous test questions like, “If you get a question mentioning the Brattleboro, VT airport, the correct answer is “C”.”
After a graduate of one of these test prep companies finished the multi-hour Airline Transport Pilot exam in about 20 minutes with a high score, the FAA completely retooled the questions to make it harder for the test prep companies to game the system.
intercst
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Sorry, though I suspect you may be overly sensitive. But you are the one telling all those American educators that they are doing a poor job. And without much justification I might add, as international test score comparisons are of dubious value. They are like rankings of universities by magazines, lots of hype but little substance.
Okay, but since the majority of Americans are middle class or better we can say that most American kids have good opportunities for education. Statistically it appears that Asian-Americans tend to take advantage of those opportunities more so than other ethnicities.
In any case, rather than a blanket indictment of the American education system what we really have is a problem with poverty. If that is the case, then the problem is now very complex because poverty is associated with a lot of other factors that impact education without themselves being part of the education system. Factors like a higher percentage of single-parent households, food insecurity, higher rate of drug abuse, etc. Why make schools the scapegoat of what is a difficult and complex problem?
Most school systems now allow a fair amount of mobility and parental choice about which schools can be attended. In conservative communities this might come in the form of vouchers while other school systems have magnet programs. To be honest though, in my experience the single biggest factor in the educational performance of a kid is the involvement of the parents or other adult guardian. The quality of the school is secondary. Having volunteered for math and science clubs my impression is that Asian kids are disproportionately good in math primarily because they have parents who really insist that they be good in math. It is a cultural thing. I’ve also found through participation and volunteering that kids who are really good in basketball, tennis, swimming, cross-country, music tend to be that way because they have parents who insist that they excel in those areas. Again, it is a cultural thing with different cultures having different priorities.
Because we are an aging nation with a declining birth rate whose population is only being maintained through immigration.
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Educators are in a tough spot. We’re telling them to dig a six foot deep hole, then giving some a back-hoe, some a shovel, and the rest a toothpick. Our government and society are doing a poor job of prioritizing and addressing the things that will improve our education system, the failure is on us, not our educators.
Who’s making schools the scapegoat? Poverty, mental health, parent education, etc. all impact the education of children. I’m not suggesting our complex issues in society are caused by our failing education system. I’m suggesting the opposite, when we fail to address the complex issues in our society that directly impact education, our education system suffers.
Other countries intentionally provide support and interventions to help minimize these impacts. They actually view the policy decisions that address poverty, child care, paid leave…as important aspects of how they manage their education system! The US does not.
The NCEE link goes into details regarding how other countries set their education systems up for success.
Or…
“Lack of Access: Lack of STEM access is a critical equity issue in education, particularly among many in urban and rural communities where students do not have access to an adequate high school-level math and science curriculum. In fact, across the U.S., more than half of high schools do not offer calculus, four out of ten do not offer physics, more than one in four do not offer chemistry, and more than one in five do not offer Algebra II (a gateway class for STEM success in college).”
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This is clearly true. Even Asian-Americans with median or below incomes outperform everyone else in test scores. That’s why the fancy universities desperately seek all sorts of ways to reduce their (Asian-American) number of admissions.
NYU Professor Scott Galloway has said that if NYU made admissions decisions entirely on academic merit, 75% of the student body would be Asian females.
intercst
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When it comes to the Asian schools, the NCEE is remarkably naive (there’s that word again). Much has been written about why many Asian nations score so highly on international standardized tests. The obvious answer has little to do with social safety nets. The obvious answer is that Asian families spend a lot of money on their kid’s education, who in turn spend a lot of hours in a school setting.
Asian countries focus their education on highly competitive standardized tests and start channeling students into career paths at a much earlier age than Americans. This has led to the prevalence of “shadow schools” that provide additional after school education for a fee. In South Korea they are called Hagwons.
As of 2022, 78.3% of grade school students in South Korea attend at least one and spend an average of 7.2 hours weekly in them. Most children begin attending them by age five, with some even beginning by age two. Hagwon - Wikipedia
In Japan they are called Jukus and are especially important because Japanese high schools have entrance exams and the choice of high school goes a long way to determining the quality of university one can get into, which in turn defines one’s career path.
Japanese children typically begin attending jukus when they are in their third or fourth year of primary school. According to a 1992 article from The New York Times, the Yano Research Institute in Japan found that almost 4.4 million students were enrolled in over 50 thousand cram schools. This total represents 18.6 percent of Japanese elementary school students and 52.2 percent of students in seventh to ninth grade. More than 37 percent of Japanese students attended preparatory schools in 2018 in order to prepare themselves for entrance exams or secure extra assistance in problem areas at school. Japanese Jukus: The Cramming Lifestyle
To sum up, Asian families spend a lot of money to provide schooling in addition to what is provided by the government. In addition, the Asian education system prioritizes learning how to be successful taking standardized tests. If the US truly wants to compete in international standardized test competitions then we must do something similar.
Personally, I think that would be a bad idea on many levels. “Teaching to the test” is not my idea of good education and I don’t think increasing the financial burden on families does much to solve economic inequality. I don’t know as much about European education methods but it wouldn’t surprise if something similar is going on there.
Seriously, for most Americans our education system is not that bad. We may underperform in k-12, but we generally catch up and surpass the world in college.
That 3 month vacation is closer to 7 weeks. By the time they keep school open after Memorial day and start before Labor day, add in some teachers work days and mandatory training, 7 weeks.
Of course there is a couple of weeks at Christmas and a week at spring break, but oh wait, there are no vacation days and everyday is closer to 10 hours rather than 8.
I don’t know about other places, but I have seen the inside of the Texas public school
system. Planning a career there is just a real bad idea. Much better off to get a business degree from a community college and start a career at Taco Bell.
Cheers
Qazulight
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Re: Asians
I think we know education is highly prized in Asia. Families are committed to educating their children. In China I’m told that goes back centuries when govt jobs were high prestige and required passing exams.
They tell us parents participation is an important indicator of education success. Children of educated parents have many advantages. Children of uneducated parents are part of the challenge.
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If only it were just a competition to score well on standardized tests. The US is falling behind in educating our future workforce. This has nothing to do with test scores. We are not producing enough STEM talent, our education system doesn’t fill the needs for skilled labor in the trades. Lack of universal access to purposeful education is causing real harm.
Immigration has been saving our bacon.
Some of us want more than not that bad.
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