What's so bad about U.S. public education?

Question

I really don't understand. What are teachers supposed to do? Why do people say Europe and Japan have better education? Are the schools to blame or are kids too spoiled? I'm a product of U.S. education; I knew a lot of smart people. Is "no child left behind" at fault? (I'm asking because lots of people from different countries go to R&S section.)

Answer 1

Our system is bad because we spend more money on it than any of the other developed countries, yet we perform worse on just about any test you give (Except our fourth graders read well... whoop-dee-doo). Teachers, their unions, and friends think that the only logical way to solve this problem of poor performance is to throw more money at the situation. But since when has throwing money at anything solved a problem by itsself. We don't take education seriously, as parents, enough to get involved. Kids take a cue from parents and figure its not that important. Teachers think the important thing is really getting kids to college, since a high school diploma is worthless in the workplace these days, so everyone passes, no one fails, there is no incentive to work/improve for anyone. Ous system encourages mediocrity.

Answer 2

Well it does seem that unlike others you can speak a sentence without saying "me and ---", and you use full sentences and spell all the words out, so maybe there is hope. But I bet that you are over 30. The schools here are a lot different than when I went to school. Today an Associates degree is about the same as a High School diploma used to be. And I have seen kids with a BA who don't know crap. I blame the teachers. Some of them are just so.. well .. slow. I don't know what made it all go downhill, but it has!

And to the person above me who says it is all about money. BS. My father went to a one room school house in the early 1900's and his education was better than mine in the 50's. He use to say "what are they teaching you in that school!" And it is even worse today. We are not teaching the basics. We let kids do whatever and maybe it is those stupid tables. They should each have their own desk and stay in their seat. Shut up and listen. And all of this 'everyone wins' when there are games. That is why no one wants to try better. They see that it doesn't matter. We need to be competitive, it helps kids excel.

I have these arguements with teacher about Prof. Snape's (Harry Potter) teaching style. Well let me tell you, we need more Snapes around. He takes no crap from any student. Today teachers lets the kids run all over them. ... Enough...

Answer 3

I think one reason that Japan is so successful is they go to school year round and up until recently they even went on Saturdays. Education is a priority there. Yes our kids are spoiled for sure. I'm from Kentucky and public education sucks here. We have got to do whatever it takes to make it better. It has to become a priority here. Our future depends on it. It would help I think if we had smaller classes and year round schooling. I believe teachers are doing the best they can with the resources they have available.

Answer 4

The problem with US education is that standards are far too low. In early American history, people knew Greek and Latin by age eight. People were going to Harvard at age twelve and graduating at age fifteen or sixteen. The quality of the teachers is low and the expectations are miniature.

Answer 5

US public education is extremely insular and works on the premise that US is best in everything. In some areas US IS best. But in many others it's not.

Education should not simply be about communicating information, it should be about teaching people to learn. An education system founded on a premise of a refusal to learn from outside sources is doomed to being a failure and to producing failures.

Answer 6

The biggest problem with public education in the United States is the huge discrepancy in the quality of education available to children of upper and middle-class parents vs. that available to children from poor families. It is the tax structure of the United States that perpetuates this problem, because the wealthy communities have large tax bases and can afford to allocate greater resources for their children's schools, say $15,000/per pupil, vs. $7,000/per pupil in a poorer community. This difference means one school will have beautiful facilities, better teachers, computers, the latest equipment in their science labs, and tons of extra-curriculars. In the poorer communities they will barely have books. This is to say nothing of the extraordinary cost of higher education in the United States, which has put college simply out of reach for all but the middle and upper classes.
There is more uniformity in education in Europe and Japan, I believe; that is, more national systems of education than the district systems currently in place in the United States. This means that a child in a public school in one section of Japan or one country of Europe will have a more equal education to another child in the same country, so the children of both poor and rich families will have more of an equal playing field than is currently in place in the United States.
I worked for a year in an urban elementary school, and we are definitely leaving children behind. For every success story that you know of, there are many more children who will never have the opportunities available to others, simply because of the financial status of their parents. This is a complete disgrace in a country supposed to be built on meritocracy.
There are absolutely amazing, break-taking, award-winning books by the author Jonathan Kozol on this very subject. I would highly suggest you read them, particularly the aptly named "Savage Inequalities." It has been said that every American should read this book. And definitely anyone who cares at all about the future of our nation and its children. Its great that you are interested in this question, there are many things that citizens can do, like volunteering at the local public school, and lobbying your representatives for greater resources for urban schools.

Answer 7

In this day and age, and again, this is a matter of heredity, and again, the answers are in Oahspe, the Japanese have something to teach the rest of the world...Their heredity, their culture, is better than is American. Poor Americans were DELIBERATELY bred down, deliberately had cannibal ancestors thrown into the works by falsegods about the time Columbus was on his way over to America....Look around you at American youth today..it lacks discipline and respect ..Nothing is static.....it can go one way or another...

Answer 8

True basic education has been put on the back burner in our public schools in the USA and a political left agenda has been put to the front of our education system. Teachers are not trained to teach anymore! My wife just got her MA in reading and in spending $15,000 for her education for it, we found it to be 95% political training and only about 5% anything she could use in class...and she got fired for actually teaching in class...she was presenting both side of the question and teaching children to use their brains!

Our learning institutions have become brainwashing places instead of places of learning...what a shame.

A teacher's job is to give a student the tools they need to use to become worthwhile independent adults...now they teach them that they have the right to depend on the government for their life...Soooooooooooooo sad.

Answer 9

How lots worse has Public preparation gotten on account that Jimmy Carter created the U. S. branch of preparation? It has progressively long gone down hill ever on account that. How every person can inspect the numbers and not think of that we would desire to continuously do away with the dep. of preparation is previous me. Is the dep. of preparation info that when you throw billions of tax money, and military's of unionized government workers, at a situation, the topic continuously gets worse? distinctly lots.

Answer 10

I would say it is the problem of not having competition in the education arena. In a country where its main motivator is to compete and make money, it makes little to no sense to have a socialist form of education.