just how bad is education in the US?

[CaptHaddock]

Here's a map that identifies each US state with a country whose education is comparable based on high school graduation rates. While the New England states and Colorado compare with the Scandinavian countries, the rest of the country is looking pretty third-worldish. Doesn't surprise me a bit and goes a long way to explaining how the Republican candidates have got as far as they have. The article is interesting. Notice Michigan maps to Thailand.

[HooHaa]

Nonsense.

[kingalfred]

Compared to Thai education US ed is like "peefect"

[gk10002000]

sadly, the definition of education is far from on common ground these days. After my first several trips to Thailand I was in general impressed that most of the ladies could read and write and speak their own language and could do simple addition and subtraction which is more than I can say for a lot of the areas of the USA. As far as geography and world history? Thais were pretty bad in my opinion. Higher level education in the maths and sciences is a woeful minority in Thailand. So comparisons are tough.

[NeverSure]

Interesting. The US brought you the computer and the operating system and the internet and the hardware to run it. It brought you just about all of the big web sites that are booming. It is still the home of the internet which continues to expand and boom. It has brought you a multitude of medical breakthroughs including equipment. It put a man on the moon and could do it again.

There is no better place in the world to learn because the US is full of doers, not talkers.

Now, what was the topic again?

[CaptHaddock]

Here is a graph of the PISA scores for 2012. Can you find the "greatest nation in the world" on this list? Keep going on past the OECD average? How about Florida?

[NeverSure]

Here is a graph of the PISA scores for 2012. Can you find the "greatest nation in the world" on this list? Keep going on past the OECD average? How about Florida?

"Pizza" scores don't mean squat when it comes to doing. If those scores were important, China would be leading the world in innovation instead of providing cheap labor to make what was invented in the USA under the direction of Americans.

"Those who can, do. Those who can't do it, teach it. Those who can't do and who can't teach it work for the government."

Cheers.

[chuckd]

I must admit it is a rather innovative way to bash the US.

Not everybody would be so driven to look up these obscure maps and charts.

The only link provided was to Mother Jones and, it seems, they are describing their readership IQ as the second most ignorant in the world.

A real joke, this one.

[arunsakda]

The main problem with US education is based on how it is funded based on local tax base. In LA for example Beverly Hills High School is excellent and Compton High is a joke. Everything should be funded from the Federal level, like most normal countries. Mother Jones is a great mag. One reason many Americans are ignorant is because the propaganda and lies spewed by the right-wing media empire (FOX, etc.) constitutes their only source if information.

[bunnydrops]

Completely faulted. A dropout of one country could be a lot smarter than a grad from another. Here in Thailand I have met University grads that know little or nothing about anything not in their field of "expertise".

[Henryford]

There are some great videos on You tube with American high school leavers being asked some (basic) questions on geography and science. Some of the answers are hilarious, and alarming.

[bangmai]

California and Nevada aren't Republican states.....horrible public schools....Also, quality of schools can vary dramatically in 10 miles. TJ High School in Virginia is always near the top of national rankings, yet is less than Democrat controlled DC Public Schools, which are about as bad as it gets. In fact, any of the high tax, democrat controlled, big cities will have horrible schools....including San Francisco, LA, Detroit, Atlanta Chicago.

I'll let you find a list of the best universities in the world. It will be dominated by US institutions.

[CaptHaddock]

California and Nevada aren't Republican states.....horrible public schools....Also, quality of schools can vary dramatically in 10 miles. TJ High School in Virginia is always near the top of national rankings, yet is less than Democrat controlled DC Public Schools, which are about as bad as it gets. In fact, any of the high tax, democrat controlled, big cities will have horrible schools....including San Francisco, LA, Detroit, Atlanta Chicago.

I'll let you find a list of the best universities in the world. It will be dominated by US institutions.

California is not a Republican state these days, but it was the Republican "taxpayer revolt" of 1978 that passed Proposition 13 which capped property taxes, the funding source for schools in the US. In the ensuing generation as schools were gradually starved for increases to maintain quality, California's public schools declined from among the best in the nation to among the worst. This is a shocking performance. Basically the homeowners refused to support quality schools for their children.

Among the best 25 universities in the world, the US is usually accounted with 18 or so, which is a superb achievement. But that's the very top tier of American universities. When comparing the average universities, the US doesn't do so well particularly by comparison with a country like Germany where universities are mostly state-supported, not private, and where there is much less variance in the quality of education among institutions as a result.

[HauptmannUK]

Having worked in high-tech (including space technology) most of my adult life, and being British (but have lived and worked and the UK, US, Germany and France) I would say that the US is very good at the 'high end' of education. For example, some years ago I worked at Harvard and that is obviously an excellent institution with many outstanding staff and students. The snag is that the US does not deliver a good education for those of AVERAGE ability. Universities that are middle-ranking in the US are actually very poor by international standards. And the weaker US universities are dreadful by the standards of the developed world. I guest lectured at one US 'state university' and was shocked by the poor ability of their students and the generally poor teaching. These university 'graduates' seemed little more able than a British or German high-school graduate.

Incidentally, lest any Americans get over-enthusiastic about the attainments of their country I would like to remind then that much modern technology originates from Great Britain. You might like to ponder....

1. Foundations of electrical engineering and communications technology (Sir Michael Faraday) and John Ambrose Flemming (concept of amplification and the vacuum-tube).

2. Steam Engine, Railways (James Watt, Stephenson et al)

3. Electric Light bulb - Joseph Swann (world's first light bulb factory was in Benwell, UK).

4. Radio (OK, Marconi was Irish-Italian but did all his work in UK).

5. Television (John Logie Baird)

6. Jet Engine - Sir Frank Whittle

7. Radar

8. Computer (Univ. of Manchester - the Americans were so interested in this development that the US government sent a team of 80 academics and scientists to check it out).

9. Computer operating system and office application (Univ. of Manchester and Lyons company).

10. Computer networking (proposed in 1950's by Univ. of Manchester and Univ of Cambridge).

11. Laser

12. LCD

I could add more, those are just a few off the top of my head.. For a small island, its not a bad start. And I have not even included British emigrants to the US, such at Alexander Graham Bell...

[CaptHaddock]

Having worked in high-tech (including space technology) most of my adult life, and being British (but have lived and worked and the UK, US, Germany and France) I would say that the US is very good at the 'high end' of education. For example, some years ago I worked at Harvard and that is obviously an excellent institution with many outstanding staff and students. The snag is that the US does not deliver a good education for those of AVERAGE ability. Universities that are middle-ranking in the US are actually very poor by international standards. And the weaker US universities are dreadful by the standards of the developed world. I guest lectured at one US 'state university' and was shocked by the poor ability of their students and the generally poor teaching. These university 'graduates' seemed little more able than a British or German high-school graduate.

Further evidence of the poor quality of high school education in the US is the vast community college system. These institutions are basically remedial education to prepare American high school grads to enter a "real" university, although they also function partly as vocational eduction. No other rich country has such a community college system nor needs one.

[arunsakda]

Having worked in high-tech (including space technology) most of my adult life, and being British (but have lived and worked and the UK, US, Germany and France) I would say that the US is very good at the 'high end' of education. For example, some years ago I worked at Harvard and that is obviously an excellent institution with many outstanding staff and students. The snag is that the US does not deliver a good education for those of AVERAGE ability. Universities that are middle-ranking in the US are actually very poor by international standards. And the weaker US universities are dreadful by the standards of the developed world. I guest lectured at one US 'state university' and was shocked by the poor ability of their students and the generally poor teaching. These university 'graduates' seemed little more able than a British or German high-school graduate.

Incidentally, lest any Americans get over-enthusiastic about the attainments of their country I would like to remind then that much modern technology originates from Great Britain. You might like to ponder....

1. Foundations of electrical engineering and communications technology (Sir Michael Faraday) and John Ambrose Flemming (concept of amplification and the vacuum-tube).

2. Steam Engine, Railways (James Watt, Stephenson et al)

3. Electric Light bulb - Joseph Swann (world's first light bulb factory was in Benwell, UK).

4. Radio (OK, Marconi was Irish-Italian but did all his work in UK).

5. Television (John Logie Baird)

6. Jet Engine - Sir Frank Whittle

7. Radar

8. Computer (Univ. of Manchester - the Americans were so interested in this development that the US government sent a team of 80 academics and scientists to check it out).

9. Computer operating system and office application (Univ. of Manchester and Lyons company).

10. Computer networking (proposed in 1950's by Univ. of Manchester and Univ of Cambridge).

11. Laser

12. LCD

I could add more, those are just a few off the top of my head.. For a small island, its not a bad start. And I have not even included British emigrants to the US, such at Alexander Graham Bell...

Some good points here.

My first expat posting in Japan had a mix of foreigners working. Once in the toilets there was a bit of graffiti pointing to the bog roll "US College Degrees"

Intellectual powerhouse Sarah Palin herself graduated High School in 1982. Transferred schools 4 or 5 times (including a stint at Matanuska Sustina Community College) and 5 years later had a "degree" in communications from University of Idaho. She later was elected Governor of Alaska and was on the 2008 Republican presidential ticket.

[sunnyjim5]

Interesting. The US brought you the computer and the operating system and the internet and the hardware to run it. It brought you just about all of the big web sites that are booming. It is still the home of the internet which continues to expand and boom. It has brought you a multitude of medical breakthroughs including equipment. It put a man on the moon and could do it again.

There is no better place in the world to learn because the US is full of doers, not talkers.

Now, what was the topic again?

lol, typical yank, check your history brother. Computing and the internet (well the WWW, the bit that counts) are both English entities. There is no home to the internet. The man on the moon came by way of German ingenuity (Braun et al), the atom bomb through Einstein, Hinton (English). One thing the US is good at, though, is throwing heaps of money at foreigners that really know things. Carry on

Careful! The first computer was ENIAC which was designed and built in the US during the 1940's(?)

[Lowriesuzanne]

I taught in California for 20+ years. Most of the high school students read at the 4th grade level. Why? Because the California schools stop teaching reading after 4th grade. Insanity!!! Reading labs can boost reading scores by 3 grade levels in one or two semesters. Easy fix? Anyone below grade level in reading should report to the reading lab. Starting in 5th grade. Then most kids will be able to read the texts in high school. I taught AP. What a joke! A college level class for 4th grade reading skills. Solution? Anyone with high reading scores gets put in AP, like it or not. Low reading scores? To the lab. In California private schools cost a lot. So kids should report to after school tutorials. $40 an hour. 8 hours per week. Too much money? Read to your kids. Have them read to you. Throw out the television and games until the kids read at grade level. Don't want to? Don't have kids or give yours away to homes that promise to do a better job than you.

[HauptmannUK]

Interesting. The US brought you the computer and the operating system and the internet and the hardware to run it. It brought you just about all of the big web sites that are booming. It is still the home of the internet which continues to expand and boom. It has brought you a multitude of medical breakthroughs including equipment. It put a man on the moon and could do it again.

There is no better place in the world to learn because the US is full of doers, not talkers.

Now, what was the topic again?

lol, typical yank, check your history brother. Computing and the internet (well the WWW, the bit that counts) are both English entities. There is no home to the internet. The man on the moon came by way of German ingenuity (Braun et al), the atom bomb through Einstein, Hinton (English). One thing the US is good at, though, is throwing heaps of money at foreigners that really know things. Carry on

Careful! The first computer was ENIAC which was designed and built in the US during the 1940's(?)

Yes, the world's first computer BUILT IN THE US was ENIAC, and that is probably good enough for most Americans. But that is not quite that same as the first computer - check out the Colossus (December 1943) which was used at Bletchley Park in England. The first stored-program computer was built at the University of Manchester, England.

What one really must give credit to the Americans for is creating an environment where these inventions can be commercialised and monetised. Britain is very bad at that. We still do lead the world in many areas of computing though - virtually all popular mobile computing platforms (phones, tablets) rely on IPR from ARM, a very successful British company. Mobile device graphics processing also invariably uses IPR from Imagination Technologies, another UK company that a lot of people have probably never heard but is hugely successful.

[seedy]

one Rant post - and quoted replies - hidden

[derator01]

This topic is turning into a thread that violates forum rules. Per forum rules:

Posting Content & General Conduct

11) You will not post slurs, degrading or overly negative comments directed towards Thailand, specific locations, Thai institutions such as the judicial or law enforcement system, Thai culture, Thai people or any other group on the basis of race, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

Best we close this before some members get themselves into trouble. Topic Closed.