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

[hitchhyker]

Thanks for the link. It was educational and depressing. Food for thought.

[ladyjillian]

I still think we need to continue to ask 'what is school for?' Wouldn't the American economic system collapse if schools actually did what you think they should do?

[evergreenheart]

well, the video is rather vague in saying that schools is for _Learning_, and the kids are not learning how to read, or not up to par with average test scores.

Why would the American economic system collapse? What is it based on? In the video, they said that many public schools are wasting money while complaining that there's "not enough money" (which some education reform people said it's a lie). Some schools, on the other hand, use less money on resources (such as hiring security guards and cafeteria staff), so they can pay the teachers more.

[ladyjillian]

In my opinion, if schools did what we think they should do--'educate' children to be literate and 'math-literate' and to think critically, we would run into two problems. First, if you look at the 10 fastest growing occupational categories listed in the Bureau of Labor Standards you'll notice that 8 of them are not living wage jobs--truck drivers, wait staff, home health care workers, etc. Well-educated people are unlikely to be willing to take low-wage service jobs. So we need to 'produce' far more low-wage service workers than we do literate, thoughtful educated people. Second, our economy is based on undiscerning consumerism--we can't afford for people to look too closely, or too critically, at an economic structure that requires ever-more buying of shoddy goods, or a political structure that doesn't subject officeholders to any kind of intellectual rigor.

I'll address the money issue in my other comment.

[ladyjillian]

Bureau of Labor STATISTICS, rather.... See Chart 8 here:

http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco2003.htm

[ladyjillian]

Hm...a further thought as I listen to this (as my computer doesn't have enough 'oomph' to actually play the video)--it seems that a lot of the things it seems a joke that kids are 'stupid' if they don't know are either culturally relative or propaganda (i.e. not true, or not really true).

[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...