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I'm not from America, but I've heard a lot about how much the American public school system sucks, both from Americans and others.
However, this has always struck me as paradoxical, because America has the best universities in the world -- by far. Nearly all of the top ranked universities are American. No other country is even *remotely* close.
How is it possible for America to, allegedly, have such horribly bad and ineffective schools, while having the best universities in the world?
To add to this, countries like Singapore, China, Korea, and most Asian countries, are generally consider to have the best schools in the world, with the highest level of school achievements measured by standardized language, math, and science scores, yet none of these countries have a university worth a damn, I think none these even have a university ranked in the top 20.
Anyone want to shred some light on this seeming paradox?
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Some the University bit is prestige, but you also have to remember that the public school system is...public. The Universities are not, there curriculum, the people they hire and the resources at their disposal are entirely different.
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Universities are private. America has been the site of many, many scientific and academic discoveries in its history, far more than any other country. These people drive universities and make them exceptional.
Most high schools and below are public. It is well known that most anything the American government touches turns to shit, and public schooling is no exception.
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I like to think that since English is the standard international language, American colleges have more pull than in countries where english is not the primary (or rather, only) language spoken on a regular basis.
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Not who goes to American universities, come from american public schools or even America.
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Public universities in Norway are doing great though.
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For one you have not only be exceptionally good when applying to say Harvard, MIT, Stanford. You also pay ridiculous amounts of money. And where money is, there opportunities are. For better teaching, resources, buildings, experiments, equipment. This is only one tiny thing, there's more to it making it even better and better.
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I think more non-americans go to my college than americans. Kinda sucks.
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American Universities are really International Universities located in America. There are a ton of students from other countries.
My hall Freshman year had 9 kids including kids from Peru, Taiwan, Thailand and Pakistan.
In grad school the diversity only increases.
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On September 24 2011 01:48 giuocob wrote:
Universities are private. America has been the site of many, many scientific and academic discoveries in its history, far more than any other country. These people drive universities and make them exceptional.
Most high schools and below are public. It is well known that most anything the American government touches turns to shit, and public schooling is no exception.
that's not even close to true. A huge number of universities in america are public. Every single "____ State university" and "University of ______" is a public university.
I'm from north carolina, and UNC, NCSU, East Carolina, Western, App State, All of the UNC Affiliates etc (UNC C, UNC W, UNC G) are all public universities.
they get massive funding from the state and whatnot.
Private ones are schools like Duke, and the Ivy leagues (not to say that they are few in number, there's a LOT of them), but there's a TON of public universities in america.
As far as public primary schooling goes, i feel like a lot of the problem results from people wanting to send their kids to "good schools." Clearly you want what's best for your children, but there's little help that comes to the underprivileged schools to get them out of their rut.
If teachers make it into a good school, they pretty much set up camp forever, and try to not ever leave. There's little incentive for teachers in poor schools to stay (They could even be reprimanded for the poor performance of their classes), and so they try to get jobs in better systems, and basically move up the chain.
i feel like once under privileged schools get more of a boost, or rather, a better mixing system is implemented so you don't have as many clear lines on the map, the public system will get a lot better than it is.
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On September 24 2011 01:48 giuocob wrote:
Universities are private. America has been the site of many, many scientific and academic discoveries in its history, far more than any other country. These people drive universities and make them exceptional.
Most high schools and below are public. It is well known that most anything the American government touches turns to shit, and public schooling is no exception.
They aren't all, most aren't private... Stop spouting shit out your ass
UCLA,UC Berkley,University of Virginia,University of Michigan - Ann Arbor ;George Tech,UCSD,UC Davis,UCSB,UC Irvine,Penn state,Texas A&M,Virginia Tech, west point(which is as public as it gets)
I'm sure given time i could think up more.
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The answer is simply that everyone goes to school in America, whether they care to or not. There are far more slackers than serious students. The top universities that you speak of are largely populated by students who WANT to be there, and are very serious about learning so they can accellerate their career. That makes all the difference in the world.
I can't comment as much on the situation in other countries cause I dont have firsthand experience.
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On September 24 2011 01:49 [Agony]x90 wrote:
I like to think that since English is the standard international language, American colleges have more pull than in countries where english is not the primary (or rather, only) language spoken on a regular basis.
This and getting the English academic tradition through culture heritage isnt bad either. Being the worlds only Superpower sure helps termendously as well. I would imagine that in the future many European universites will catch up to the top level American universites due to English being so widespread. China surely has potential as well but the language barrier is most likely still a bit to severe. That being said a lot of the American hightech universitys researchers and the researchers in silicon valley are Asian.
On September 24 2011 01:56 Apocalyptic wrote:
The answer is simply that everyone goes to school in America, whether they care to or not. There are far more slackers than serious students. The top universities that you speak of are largely populated by students who WANT to be there, and are very serious about learning so they can accellerate their career. That makes all the difference in the world.
And you think this is not the case in the rest of the developed world ? I dont follow.
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On September 24 2011 01:48 giuocob wrote:
Universities are private. America has been the site of many, many scientific and academic discoveries in its history, far more than any other country. These people drive universities and make them exceptional.
Most high schools and below are public. It is well known that most anything the American government touches turns to shit, and public schooling is no exception.
Well the US does have public universities, of which some are very highly ranked, like UCLA. The best university in Australia, ANU is also public.
Although "public" is a bit of a misnomer since the operation of the university isn't decided by government, but it's still funded by government.
However, if the school system is so bad, surely that would have an effect on the level of education of the students at start of university, and it seems this should have a flow on effect. I'm not convinced this can explain bad universities in Asian countries with good schools.
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On September 24 2011 01:56 Robinsa wrote:
And you think this is not the case in the rest of the developed world ? I dont follow.
I don't know about other countries, but I have been to both school and a good university in America and I am certain this is a large percentage of why the schools suck but some unis are good.
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There is a positive feedback loop, as well. The best and brightest go to a university like MIT. He goes on to make a great discovery. Thus adding to the prestige of the university. Which makes the university more attractive to the next generation of the best and brightest. And so it goes on.
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On September 24 2011 01:54 meadbert wrote:
American Universities are really International Universities located in America. There are a ton of students from other countries.
My hall Freshman year had 9 kids including kids from Peru, Taiwan, Thailand and Pakistan.
In grad school the diversity only increases.
That's an interesting note.
I didn't know there were so many international students.
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Lower education is criticized for its quality, and higher education is criticized for its cost. In reality, higher education in the US is good quality, and that is why it is ranked so highly. However, it is very expensive, and that ushers in an entirely different set of issues and problems to address. Certain universities being public does not mean they are run the same as high schools that are public. I don't think it makes much sense to talk about the quality of education in general. You've got to separate the lower and higher levels of education, and then you can look at the shortcomings and good parts of each.
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On September 24 2011 01:54 reneg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2011 01:48 giuocob wrote:
Universities are private. America has been the site of many, many scientific and academic discoveries in its history, far more than any other country. These people drive universities and make them exceptional.
Most high schools and below are public. It is well known that most anything the American government touches turns to shit, and public schooling is no exception. that's not even close to true. A huge number of universities in america are public. Every single "____ State university" and "University of ______" is a public university.
So University of Southern California is Private.
A big difference has to do with who pays and choice. Students can go whereever they get in and in most cases students and parents are paying a considerable amount of money even in states like NC where it is heavily subsidized. This promotes competition amongst the universities and ensures that the students that are there want to be there.
With the high schools, there is little to no choice from the students and parents and it costs basicaly nothing to go. This leaves schools with students who do not want to be there.
Also, unlike many European highschool systems there is very little segregation by scholastic ability/achievement. All the kids are thrown into one school. This is much different than Germany's Gymnasium system which separates the top students.
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This is my guess, but I'm not American:
It has to do with what it means for schools to be "bad". It doesn't mean that all schools are bad, just the majority. A minority of people with a lot of money go to the minority of very good schools and then have better chances of getting to (and affording) Ivy League colleges . If you don't have a lot of money, I think it's hard to get a good education.
EDIT: I may be wrong about expensive private schools. But I think that the better schools are often in more affluent areas, which would have the same effect.
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EPT
