The education gap in America is getting huge!

Tell me about it man. I moved to the US from China when I just finished 4th grade. I started 5th grade here. The math class in 5th grade is doing addition and subtraction. I was laughing my nice person off. We were doing geometry 4th grade in China. I m not sure if that's still the case now, that was 11 years ago.

In college, I had couple of grad students from India as my partners for the senior design project. When I talk to them, they know so much that makes me feel like I know nothing compare to them.

So there's definitely a gap!

 

I'm dumbfounded. You've set some sort of record for unsubstantiated stereotypes. May I suggest you get a copy of "Freakonomics" and see what real analysis looks like.

 

There is some truth to this, but as usual, statistics don't tell the whole story.

There was a great article written not to long ago where a lot of people in Asian countries are worried that their educational systems just aren't doing enough to prepare students for the real world. Their cause for concern was the fact that their students test well (better than we do), but when placed in situations that require independent thought and innovation, the same students were outperformed by their western counterparts.

FWIW, I don't know of any 5th grade curriculum that teaches addition and subtraction in 5th grade, unless it's a very remedial class.

 

My real life experience shows windstrings' post might be right. I never meant to stereotype anybody. Of course someone might encounter something totally opposite.
But from word of mouth among classmates in college, seem like international students knows alot more (at least theory wise) than US students.

Like I said, that's 11 yrs ago and who knows what type of class they put me into.

 

And I hate to double post... but...

Who says that a 'jock' can't excel in their scholastic work as well as athletic endeavors? There seems to be this perception among certain people (we'll call them lazy) that participating in activities which cause them to exert themselves is somehow beneath them. To them I say: Enjoy your first heart attack when you're 38. Not everyone is the next Peyton Manning, for sure, but there's no reason you can't do well in school and be physically fit.

And the bladder on the Prius is a hack. There are many other PZEV cars, some even from 'merican manufacturers, that don't require a bladder to be PZEV. The bladder is a cost saving measure. It's actually elegant in it's non-complexity, but I doubt companies like BMW (with a PZEV 3 series) feel that customers will stand for a 'guess gauge' instead of a gas gauge.

 

Jonnycat26,
I concur. I'm a high school band director. I was fortunate enough to spend 3 weeks touring Japan this summer as part of the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund fellowship. I spent time in Japanese class rooms from pre-school through university. They're quite worried about their schools and based on my observations, they should be. They admit freely that there are problems in their system too.

Japanese kids are tracked at a very young age. If you are a slow starter you're probably destined to be a service type employee before you're in middle school. If you're bright and on a fast track to a good college you have to endure some mind-numbing national tests that require more regurgitation of facts then synthesis of ideas. They spend hours in "jukus" or "crammies" (an after school private enterprise that basically forces a lot of memorizing of facts). Depression, suicide, and stress are a real part of the lives of a Japanese 8th grader and senior (the years when they're tested). Overall standardized testing in Japan is a lot different than in the U.S. which causes a huge skewing of data. Not every kid in Japan takes the yearly standardized tests. Mentally and physically handicapped kids are not mainstreamed and don't always take the tests. In the US EVERY student takes it.

Having said that, the Japanese have an incredible work ethic. As a culture, the whole is more important than the individual. The greater good is paramount to the ya-yas of the individual. They are masters at refining a product to perfect, i.e. Toyota. They struggle with innovation, which is why the Prius is such a shining star.

What we are struggling with in this country is not a simple solution. Some of it is cultural i.e. the sports mentality that pervades, the individualism that challenges our educational system, some of it is financial: the underfunding of education as a whole (how many billions of $ is NCLB underfunded?), but the MOST FRUSTRATING thing is that it has become so politicized. This, in my opinion, is what is currently hamstringing the educational system more than anything else.

Regarding China and India: they're are 10 times the number of people (minimally) in each of those cultures than there are in the U.S. They'll produce 10 times the engineers just based on the statistics of demographics alone.

Can the U.S. educational system improve? ABSOLUTELY! I think we all know that inner city schools are struggling and some states undervalue education. Is it a totally broken mess? No way!

My 2¢
Jim in Iowa

P.S. I love my Prius. I'm thrilled with what Toyota has accomplished and disgusted that Detroit didn't learn a d**n thing after the oil embargo of the '70s (which I remember vividly). I guess the big 3 are going to have to choke on their SUVs until they figure out. Likewise the American public who can't "manage" without their Hummer!

 

Good topic - but no easy answers. First, my wife used to teach 3rd grade. One day, one of her students, a Korean boy, was crying before a spelling test. She talked to him and found out if he came home with less than 100% his dad beat him. So, remember that though some cultures may do better in education on some measures, we may not like the means by which they get there. Same with the cramming and endless testing and putting kids on a track by very early ages, as they do in countries like Japan.

IMHO one of the biggest issues is the complete monopolistic stranglehold on education by government and teacher's unions in this country.

Would any of us really want a car designed and built by government bureaucrats? No - I doubt it - we let the free market build the cars, then WE get to choose which ones we want. The best providers rise to the top, others (GM, for instance) fall to the wayside.

But when it comes to something much more important than cars (education), we seem content to sit by and let others dictate our choices, rather than demanding a system whereby WE can choose the best options. Truly bizarre to me. Anybody for having the government own, control, and run all of the universities in this country? So why do we allow it for education at the lower grades. School choice is no panacea, but it certainly offers options not present in the current system.

 

BTW, to correct a mistatement, the US does not underfund education - on a relative basis we spend more than any other country (here):
http://thebluesite.com/ustopseducationspend.htm

or here, we are ranked 2nd:
http://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/econo...aryspending.htm

I contend we are getting less return for our dollars due to the educational monopoly. Remember, monopolies drive up prices and lower quality and innovation. Why do we as a country think the education industry is immune from this basic premise of economics?

 

Well you couldn't easily have a privatized school system. One of the mandates of the primary school system in the U.S. is to provide every student with the same educational opportunities. In reality, we know this isn't exactly the case (inner city schools for example are not as good as their suburban counterparts), but we do a much better job than countries like Japan where, as was previously mentioned, if you're a slow starter you're earmarked for mediocrity.

If you did have a private school system, everything would be about the bottom line. It's bad enough that schools are starting to have to enter into 'partnerships' with companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola in return for financial incentives, but I certainly wouldn't want my children learning about American History sponsored by FOX News (and I'm not trying to make a political statement here, just making a point). There are certain things that need to be government controlled, and the primary education system is one such institution.

 

Not to hijack a thread, but I do so love Jonnycat26's avatar. It makes me smile every time I see it.

By the way folks... it's never a good idea to go on a rant about the educational system if your posts are littered with incorrect spellings, punctuation, and grammatical errors!

'nuff sed.

 

Why not? It helps illustrate the point.

 

do you really believe what you write? America can only copy high tech? What are you talking about?
Could the US do somethings better? Of course. I wonder if you were the author of Jimmy Carter's American malaise speech? Attitude is always 80% of the equation and yours stinks.

GM and Ford will get through this, and when the worm turns you will hear all of the 'great' companies in China and Japan squeal like pigs. Your arguements about Americans as lazy and playboys etc have been around for decades and look who when it all said and done is the worlds only superpower and the economic engine of the world.
The US will wake up to the 'raping' it is receiving at the ports in the very near future and when it does, companies like toyota will be exposed for what they are doing to the US economy.

 

yet we (especially the current goverment) are the one to pus a global market...

 

My teenagers attend a well funded public school, that leads the state in standardized testing. Well, they actually attend a school within a school, because the honors and gifted classes amount to segregation.

We have a household understanding:
'A' is acceptable
'Honors' is average.

This is the legacy of that moronic bit of legislation "no child left behind", and a culture that supports the notion that every person is special, deserves to be heard, has an opinion equal to that of every other person ...

Americans confuse respect with hegemony based on a least common denominator.

And an amusing anecdote: Next week we attend an awards ceremony for special achievements. This is the first time my son will not receive a 4.0 gpa award, because of a 'B' in math. We had a talk, and his tests are back up in the high 90's again. The curiousity, however, is that he takes a math class four years senior to his grade, but that is not taken into account in determining 'academic excellence'.

 

I fault every administration over the last 25 years for what is going on right now. Free Trade is a dream at this point, in many cases what is really going on resembles dumping more than trade.

 

Correct. Maybe we should do something about it and now vote a goverment in that supports different ideas?

Don't blame toyota fo playing by rules set up by our goverment. This is what we as voters agreed to.

that said if we want more security be prepared to pay higher taxes and have a slower growing economy

 

Nothing new here.

I came across a very interesting rant from a right-winger who - among other things - not only decries the state of American education, but claims the "true" unemployment is on par with the EU countries.

http://mwhodges.home.att.net

The section on education:

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/education.htm

The section on employment and the "true" unemployment:

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/statistic-wizardry.htm

The section on family debt:

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/family_a.htm#saving

 

The only candidate in my lifetime who really understood economics was Ross Perot and he got my vote. He was a little nuttly but he sure would have shook up the ol' apple cart.

 

Two words: Bull and S***

Not as long as the boob toob is flickering in the face of every family, that it's getting easier and easier to get easy credit (And almost impossible to get out of it), and the "fact" that those flag waving companies are closing facilities in North America and opening new ones in India and China, should all disprove what you have said.