I heard about that. Both my grandparents watched it, and afterwards were only that much happier that our family homeschools! Today, many teenagers go to school just for socialization- not learning. It's sad to see how far our standards in education have fallen.
Lindsey Wagstaffe | Homepage | 01.18.06 - 8:37 pm | #

Well, this is like when I moved from South Africa to the US. I skipped half a year of school and still jumped a grade. And even when I was in the next grade I was sitting and twiddling my thumbs. I had been in the American school system for a year when my parents took me out (two weeks ago) and I hadn't really learned anything new from when I left South Africa. :-)
Kaitlin | Homepage | 01.19.06 - 5:36 am | #

yup. while i was in france i saw a synopis of the BAC (equivalent to the SAT), and it was so far beyond what we are required to learn in high school it's not even funny. i did feel a bit lacking in my education (except for history, for some wierd reason). :-(
jacqui | Homepage | 01.19.06 - 7:19 am | #

And to think it bothered me that a 700 out of 800 on the Critical Reading section of the SAT placed me at the 95th percentile. That would place most of the students in other countries far above the 100th percentile, would it not?
Hannah | Homepage | 01.19.06 - 9:22 am | #

Haha, yeah. I watched that, I even did my comic strip the following day based on it, check it out on my blog
Seth | Homepage | 01.19.06 - 10:30 am | #

Hey fellas, like your blog.

I'm just starting my student teaching semester in a poor puerto rican neighborhood in Philadelphia. Being in an education program I've heard and read a lot about how bad American schools are. E.D. Hirsch has a great book called the schools we need and why we don't have them that does well in talking comparisons. But theres a couple things missing in these conversations. One is simply that America has the best Universities in the world. It just does. I've had foreign professors, lived in England and Italy and can attest to this. You don't know what a lazy student is until you've gone to an italian university (I'm not saying thats always bad--within that culture theres more to say). You have to talk about how good American universities are in the world.

Second, the problem is deeper than comparative test scores. Those kinds of results don't open us to be able to make a broader criticism of US schools. America has a lot of schools like mine that have poor immigrants that need more than the higher standards and threats of take-over and shake up of no child left behind. We need to define success more widely than test scores. A lot of the sixteen year olds read like nine year olds. There are different causes--the student's choice to not read, abusive parents/living on their own, a community that doesn't value education. This simply means that to be successful is to take a lot of work with each particular student and be patient with their lack of desire to work in certain cases. Christianity is in many ways a religion of valuing lost causes (Jesus came while we were still sinners) and so even if I'm not successful in helping the 11th graders get out of the bottom percentile of national scores, I'll still plug on with the learning because I know that teaching is about serving them personally.

I realize that you are trying to help, and we must never lower standards. But discussions like this tend to be simplistic and will fall on deaf ears of the teachers because they've heard it before, often from people who don't know what its like to do what they do, and it sounds condemning.

I feel okay saying this to you guys because you are very thoughtful and don't like to sit on the sidelines. You advocate homeschooling which I like, but I think that there is more you could do and say to help public schools.
Thanks for a great blog, bill
billmelone | 01.19.06 - 12:48 pm | #

I agree with the news clip, it is not the kids but the schools. The school board of my hometown always claimed to "not have enough money" when a request for an educational advancement (better funding for education and fine arts programs) was presented to them. However, they could afford to build an entire new gymnasium and athletic center worth about 5 million dollars. Sometimes, its not the teachers or the students, but the people who controlled the budget.

Many kids in my school showed awesome potential, but the lack of care shown for us only made us have a lack of care for our work. Really, what we had was homeschooling because if parents wanted their child to do well, the parents would have to work with and push the child themselves.



A little sad, don't you think?
cait | Homepage | 01.19.06 - 4:12 pm | #

I dont think foreign kids can call us stupid by the looks of some test score when the majority of what we learn is out of school. It is sad that our school systems are so bad but I would still rather live hear even if we are fricken stupid.
Austin | 01.23.06 - 12:30 pm | #

I agree with austin, it really ticked me off when that kid called us stupid. I'm ready for a smack down. For real, who wants to spend like 13 hours a day in school. Have some respect for your country.
Alex | 01.23.06 - 3:05 pm | #