Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Money is a BIG factor. Public schools are publicly funded and have a number of mandates they have to meet and have little control over. Universities, even the publicly funded ones like state university systems, have more control over their curriculum and very broad avenues to grubbing up money - particularly if they engage in research that can be monetized. That tends to create divisions between have and have-not departments, but they do help keep the lights on campus-wide.

Ahhhh, state schools! Did you know that in most states, the highest-paid state employees was a coach or athletic director?

Deadspin | Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

Deadspin | Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

deadspin.com

 

[Reynard]

The rich people pay a lot of money for their kids to have good schools. So private schools and some universities have bags of money. Football is also a money maker. The public schools are funded through local taxes, which people in the US hate more than anything, so almost always vote against. Selfishness and individualism are the twin north stars, so people without kids hate the idea paying taxes for someone else to benefit even more. Which is also one big reason why we don’t have nice things like a social safety net, i.e. universal healthcare etc. And of course capitalism. Unless you have money, you don’t matter. Everything is designed to make about 1000 billionaires richer. What the rest of us want doesn’t matter.

ironically, private schools in the US pay their teachers like peasants and their admin like kings, so while the schools look nice on a college application, the education is not particularly good. I have known many people that teach at private schools and they make significantly less than public school teachers, at least here in the north east.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

ironically, private schools in the US pay their teachers like peasants and their admin like kings, so while the schools look nice on a college application, the education is not particularly good. I have known many people that teach at private schools and they make significantly less than public school teachers, at least here in the north east.

That’s on a school-by-school basis. Some private school teachers are very well compensated indeed.

 

[Reynard]

That’s on a school-by-school basis. Some private school teachers are very well compensated indeed.

I am sure some do, but I don't know anyone who works at those schools, and I know a lot of teachers.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

American education is wildly uneven.

I was not a good student and when we got stationed at a different post (Dad was in the military) the DoD school suddenly wanted me to advance at least one grade, which was clearly nonsense, even to me. We ended up having to jump through hoops so I could go somewhere else where the standards weren't on the floor.

In contrast, my kids are going to a public school with an excellent and challenging curriculum.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Local control feels good but often doesn't produce good results. Local school boards around the country have gone crazy in the last few years and the stuff they're focused on isn't producing better results, for instance.

 

[Deset Gled]

1) Public schools’ curriculums and funding are controlled at the state and local levels, and the funding side is often driven by property values.

American education is wildly uneven.

There's an old joke that American isn't so much a country as it is a bunch of states in a trenchcoat pretending to be a country. Education is one of the areas where I feel this is most relevant.