Another book that Instapundit has coming in the mail that I have not yet read. I looked at it on Amazon and it appears to be another collection of public school horror stories, and that got me thinking - how bad are America's schools really?
Is there some sort of subjective measure that would tell me? I'm curious given that I am a product of public schools and while I am not a soooopar-genius I am fairly well educated.
I know that there is a lot of nonsense in schools now, but I also know that there is pushback against it. One example would be that dreaded federal intrusion No Child Left Behind, and states such as California and Washington have decided to increase math and science requirements for high school graduation.
So where exactly do we place in the world as far as education goes? I always see reports on how the US is placing 27th on this math test behind Finland and Poland, or 161st on this geography test, but do those tests compare apples to apples? My guess is no. For one thing as far as I know the US is the only industrialized nation that mandates mainstreaming children with learning disabilities and discipline problems. For another, most of the countries the US is being measured against are culturally and linguistically homogenous. The US isn't, we also don't have a national curriculum so if you move from district to district or maybe even school to school what you are being taught as well as it's emphasis will change.
This isn't to say that there aren't problems in public schools. God knows there are, but are they as damaging as books like this make out? They may be - I don't know, but I would like to see something definitive to answer the question.
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