Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Toe Knee Nose]

I worked with a woman that went to school both in Mexico and the US. She said she felt the schools in Mexico were better. After transitioning to a US school she said they were covering stuff she had already learned.

It's always been strange to me that while US public schooling is generally seen as pretty sub-par, US post secondary schools - universities and the like - are the most highly ranked in the world. The majority of the top 100 uni's in the world are all in the States. If US public schooling is so bad, how come their uni's are so good? Something doesn't seem to add up.

Canada's in the same boat really. Canadian public schools are not terribly well regarded, but, everyone and their mother wants to go to uni in the US or Canada.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's always been strange to me that while US public schooling is generally seen as pretty sub-par, US post secondary schools - universities and the like - are the most highly ranked in the world. The majority of the top 100 uni's in the world are all in the States. If US public schooling is so bad, how come their uni's are so good? Something doesn't seem to add up.

Spoiler: Context

I’m an army brat who has been to public schools in 5 states and 2 countries, and I have a small collection of degrees. My grandmothers taught 1st & 2nd grade; my maternal grandfather taught in college; my paternal grandfather taught HS & college and was also a principal. Mom taught music in HS.

Keeping the politics to a minimum, here’s some key factors I’ve seen in the different levels of the American education system:

1) Public schools’ curriculums and funding are controlled at the state and local levels, and the funding side is often driven by property values. For a long time, that meant schools in poorer communities were extremely underfunded and had outdated supplies and decaying infrastructure. (No joke, I attended one school with history books that ended with speculation about if & when men would reach the moon- an event that happened 2 years after my birth.) Some states are only a few decades into the process of making school funding more equalized.

The localized school boards have also resulted in an extremely politicized book & curriculum approval process. It’s a constant battle in some regions to teach actual science and history.

2) Money, money, money: the universities are in a global competition for it, in all of its forms. Colleges & Universities that get too visibly entangled in American culture wars lose international students, investments from foreign & domestic businesses & governments, and so forth. And the feedback loop between those income streams and the quality of recruits & graduates- and the statewide economies- is very strong.

3) our public schools are structured to maintain the status quo. Our institutions of higher learning are about upward mobility.

 

[Ryujin]

Man. I spent about four hours Monday shoveling; 3 in the morning to clear mine and my wife's car so I could get to work, and one when I got home so I could park somewhere. Here it is a day and a half later and I still hurt everywhere. When I was thirty-five, it would go away probably after a day. When I was in my twenties, it would go away in half a day. I'm in my late fifties, and it is really lingering.

Getting old sucks, but it sure beats the alternative.

Yes, to both. I slipped on ice that was concealed by snow when I was going into work, on January 15th. Went down hard on my right shoulder and, somehow, right heel. Both still hurt today. As little as 20 years ago I'd have walked it off in an hour.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Looking out my back door, most of the stuff on our porch and driveway has melted, but the downhill alley we’d immediately transition to upon exiting our property would be GREAT for luge or skeleton racing.

I know what this is. However, I got a visceral mental image of everyone throwing their (potentially oversized) Halloween decorations down a hill and seeing whose made it to the bottom first, and that is much more entertaining of a definition so that's what I'm sticking with from now on.

 

[The Firebird]

It's always been strange to me that while US public schooling is generally seen as pretty sub-par, US post secondary schools - universities and the like - are the most highly ranked in the world. The majority of the top 100 uni's in the world are all in the States. If US public schooling is so bad, how come their uni's are so good? Something doesn't seem to add up.

Canada's in the same boat really. Canadian public schools are not terribly well regarded, but, everyone and their mother wants to go to uni in the US or Canada.

The US has great schools but you have to pay for them. The worst public schools are really bad. The best ones are strong, and there are private schools that are strong. But you typically have to be able to afford high property taxes or high tuition or both. There are some exceptions.

The universities then select for the students with stronger backgrounds.

 

[trappedslider]

 

[MoonSong]

2) Money, money, money: the universities are in a global competition for it, in all of its forms. Colleges & Universities that get too visibly entangled in American culture wars lose international students, investments from foreign & domestic businesses & governments, and so forth. And the feedback loop between those income streams and the quality of recruits & graduates- and the statewide economies- is very strong.

Going after this tangent -and from an outside perspective-, top colleges get pick of the litter for students. The admission process is basically an audition for access to upper middle class. It is biased towards richer students but that is part of the appeal. The value of a top college degree isn't so much in the education but in access to trust fund kids with contacts that can enhance your future workjng life. (Yes literally the friends you make along the way)

In my home country, the top public college has a more lax process, but it is biased towards upper class in subtle ways. Most of my college friends come from relatively richer families while my friends from high school are from backgrounds more similar to mine.

 

[RealAlHazred]

In American public schools, it comes down to the tax base.

I live in New Jersey, and my in-laws from the South marvel at my high taxes -- I pay about four times as much in property taxes as I would pay in South Carolina. Those property taxes pay for all sorts of social services, some of which I don't use, including schools.

New Jersey is routinely in the top ten states in the country when it comes to schools. Not too long ago, IIRC, it was #2. And my township routinely rates in the top half of the state in metrics, sometimes higher, sometimes lower.

South Carolina is routinely in the bottom ten states in the country when it comes to schools. They eliminated the closest public school to my mother-in-law, and class sizes in the school neighbors now have to go to sometimes exceed 30 students; I don't know that they're going to place higher in the educational statistics.

But that's the thing: I'm willing to pay so that I can live in a neighborhood I like to live in, with educated people with some sort of support system, because it eliminates some sources of desperation; desperate people make really stupid mistakes.