another look at America's education system

[evergreenheart]

A very interesting video about America's education system. Quite depressing.

Video

Comparing Belgian and U.S. schools

Wasting money

Lack of choice in public schools

Public school Teacher Union is too powerful (it is "almost impossible" to fire a teacher who is sexually offensive to students?!!!)--instead, they are sent to "rubber rooms" in

Comments

[ladyjillian]

And one final comment, before I stop listening halfway through. Whoa, this is a propaganda piece, and not a particularly subtle one. As I'm listening rather than watching, I'm not positive about this, but I swear I heard Rush Limbaugh being quoted. The agenda of the producers isn't exactly hidden, but I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the first half.

[evergreenheart]

ohh, propaganda for what?

[ladyjillian]

I realized that the point of the show was, 'public schools are bad, the government is incompetent to educate children adequately, the government wastes tax money (it was downright embarrassing to listen to the documentary making fun of paying for special needs teachers), the only solution is privatizing the school system.' There are a lot of people set to make a great deal of money out of getting people to believe this

[evergreenheart]

how these European schools manage to educate their children so much better?

I think the video mentioned that in Europe, children and parents get to choose which schools they go to--public and private. The school system is mainly based on competition, so if your school and teachers suck, no one will come to your school. In the U.S. though, you go to the public school that is closest to where you live geographically, or you pay and go to a private school, which isn't necessarily great either.

And moreover, i would think that most European countries are smaller than the U.S., so their system might be more centralized? Whereas in the U.S., different states have their own state laws and regulations, etc...

[ladyjillian]

Yes, all this is true--but what I wanted to point out here was that the structure of the show was designed to make a particular point--that the government cannot educate children--so the information presented was trimmed and slanted to fit. Even mentioning in more than a passing reference that European public schools educate children well wouldn't fit into that agenda. As far as I'm aware, here in the UK the schools don't operate on a 'choice' or 'competition' basis; children go to the schools that are near them, unless they attend religious or private schools. And there is a national curriculum--if I were to give an opinion on how American schools could approach European standards I'd certainly mention that.