Is the education 'crisis' in the USA overblown?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm the PP you quoted, and population heterogeneity is not in question according to the data education scientists have amassed and analyzed. Even when they only focus on the wealthy white students in the most affluent school districts, the US STILL lags behind. We're not even talking about Anacostia schools here - because they would be on par with South Sudan, practically.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is surely that the average American doesn't even realize US standards have fallen so far behind, AND doesn't recognize where the problem lies. Please note that Education quality can change very quickly, in a decade, for example. America used to be on top, back in the day when Finland used to be a poor nation of uneducated people, in the 50s. Now Finland is on top of of the world, with any type of test you can throw at its students, AND they don't force their students to study for longer hours than the typical American child is awake for, like in South Korea.

We need to pull our head out of the sand and observe what other nations are doing, and humbly learn from them.

I did not realize that Finland, Poland, and South Korea were economic superpowers.
Perhaps you should not be so quick to listen to educational "experts" who compare school systems without factoring in the considerable differences between nations that make them what they are.

Don't be so quick to roll your eyes. Your attitude is exactly what's the problem here - you think that just because America is still a superpower, our children's education is good enough, and that things will stay the same. So, so wrong. I hope you've realized that the US is not the superpower it once was, and that emerging economic powers are poised to take away more of our skilled workers than ever before - a reverse brain drain, if you will. To get a satisfying job, our kids might have to work in Singapore or Heidelberg, not here. The best way to prepare them is to teach them flexiblity and adaptability in a changing world. Education quality today is a yardstick for the next generation's success, this should be obvious to you. There is no doubt we can get by for a few more generations by coasting on the USA's past grandeur, but every year we will slide back more if we don't invest some intelligent thought - not necessarily money - into our children's education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you have 100+ qualified applicants for job after job on LinkedIn, surely the whole BS about there being an education crisis in this country is overblown. The supply/demand doesn't reflect that.

How can you tell that on LinkedIn for every job there are 100+ qualified applicants? Did LinkedIN say that? There are so many metrics to education, and, the job market. Look at wage growth since 2007 - it is essentially flat. There are more people applying for jobs, because they lack jobs that they are capable of doing. I think that of the 100+ qualified, probably 30 or more are OVERQUALIFIED. And look at the push to workers working less than 30 hours a week. I think your argument about the 'crisis' depends on what you see and read as being a crisis.

[Anonymous]

How long are you going to be hiding behind that "homogenous population" excuse?
I also truly believe that you can take your advantaged white kids and they will not test as well as their counterparts abroad. I went to high school abroad and college here so I'm speaking from my experience.
Besides all millions national tests, I wish they'd drop the multiple choice for awhile. My kids moves right to left, up and down on the page and still misses to fill in some circles. Doesn't even read all of them, just runs through them. Can't retell a story coherently (2nd grade,WoTP great school), hasn't had to memorize a poem. What do they do in school for 6 hours?! 6 hours is a long time to learn nothing...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How long are you going to be hiding behind that "homogenous population" excuse?
I also truly believe that you can take your advantaged white kids and they will not test as well as their counterparts abroad. I went to high school abroad and college here so I'm speaking from my experience.
Besides all millions national tests, I wish they'd drop the multiple choice for awhile. My kids moves right to left, up and down on the page and still misses to fill in some circles. Doesn't even read all of them, just runs through them. Can't retell a story coherently (2nd grade,WoTP great school), hasn't had to memorize a poem. What do they do in school for 6 hours?! 6 hours is a long time to learn nothing...

I'm not hiding behind anything. We have challenges they don't have in Finland. If you can't see that or don't think it matters, then you are naive.

I'm not saying "advantaged white kids" test better than other groups. I'm saying, we have created an underclass here that doesn't exist in Finland. And changing that dynamic poses unique challenges.

Your last paragraph isn't even coherent, so I find it deeply ironic that you are blaming the education system for the reality that your kids can't retell a story coherently.

How does attending a high school abroad and college here make you an expert on all American white kids? It seems to me your education taught you to deal in large brush strokes and you have no sense of nuance, subtle dynamics, complex issues.

As for comparing American students with their counterparts abroad, those discussions aren't useful. For some countries, like Scandinavian countries, their socioeconomic makeup is vastly different from ours. For others, like less developed countries, there are huge swaths of poor kids who aren't included in their test results because those kids don't even go to school.

The U.S. is a very large (geographically) and very diverse country. So comparing us as a block to much smaller, much less diverse countries does not yield any useful insight or solutions to the unique challenges we face.

If you all want to continue that ridiculous approach, then we'll continue to go nowhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you have 100+ qualified applicants for job after job on LinkedIn, surely the whole BS about there being an education crisis in this country is overblown. The supply/demand doesn't reflect that.

What does the amount of people applying for a handful of jobs have anything to do with the state of education in the US?

[Anonymous]

PP, it doesn't have anything at all to do w the state of education. But to get this topic really rolling, the OP, and the rest of us, need to make the leap that it does!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sort of agree.

I actually think that there are plenty of educated Americans, but there aren't enough Americans trained in trades (hard skills). And that is where we are going to see a deficit. I also think there aren't enough engineers, but the surprising thing is that engineering jobs don't seem to pay a salary that reflects that.

I think there is a disconnect. The salaries don't match the value of the skill. There are bloated salaries for amorphous, undefined management-esque jobs. But the salaries for actual hard skills are very low.

For example, I know a skilled electrician who works in DC at a place that has some prestige. He makes under 40k. He has to live out in the exurbs. And yet he tells me that they complained the last time they tried to hire a new electrician because they had trouble finding someone who was skilled and experienced and reliable. But they were unwilling to set the salary higher, even though they employ lots of white-collar employees who do a lot of paper pushing for significantly higher salaries. But they are stuck in the mindset that electrician is blue collar/labor.

My view is there is a disconnect. It isn't even just salary, but level of respect. So lots of people flock to certain fields (think law or even policy), and then there are hundreds of applicants for each position.

I actually think that focusing too much on traditional 4-year college education is the wrong approach as a country. We should actually be doing more to bring back apprenticeships and training in trades. And beyond that, we should change how we view those fields so that it isn't seen as "well, Johnny isn't smart enough for college, so he's going to go to trade school." That's the wrong outlook.

Spot on - what drove and is driving lots of kids to college over trades is the growing delta between the top white collar work and trades.

If you don't go to college, you don't even get a chance to 'compete' for the former jobs. If the delta between say management consulting and electrician were only 1.2-1.50x difference instead of a 3-4x difference, then trust me - tons of kids would stop going to college.

Lower income and wealth inequality would definitely help put people on alternative career paths because there wouldn't be as much of a stigma and or income difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you have 100+ qualified applicants for job after job on LinkedIn, surely the whole BS about there being an education crisis in this country is overblown. The supply/demand doesn't reflect that.

What does the amount of people applying for a handful of jobs have anything to do with the state of education in the US?

Because if the education system was 'totally broken' like some claim to be, there wouldn't be tons of qualified applicants for job openings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. It's not overblown.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the vast majority of our children lack critical thinking and problem solving skills. This is what happens when principals, teachers, and students are all judged primarily on test scores.

+1

[Anonymous]

Teaching is no longer a respectable profession - frankly, I think people put it on par with waiting tables, as something to do until you get your "real" job. My grandfather was a teacher and was both very strict and used a lot of creativity in the way he taught (he taught drama and French) - I don't think his style or expectations would be allowable in today's schools. Furthermore, he wouldn't be able to support a family of six children now, as he was able to do then, on a teacher's salary.

When we start valuing teachers, and trusting them, maybe the system will improve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teaching is no longer a respectable profession - frankly, I think people put it on par with waiting tables, as something to do until you get your "real" job. My grandfather was a teacher and was both very strict and used a lot of creativity in the way he taught (he taught drama and French) - I don't think his style or expectations would be allowable in today's schools. Furthermore, he wouldn't be able to support a family of six children now, as he was able to do then, on a teacher's salary.

When we start valuing teachers, and trusting them, maybe the system will improve.

I wouldn't go so far as to compare it to waiting tables, teachers do have college degrees, but it is not an impressive job. Having volunteered in my child's school, I do wonder what would posses a person to teach, it's such a crappy, demanding job. I think some just really love children and want to make a difference and others chose teaching because they aren't bright enough or motivated enough to complete a more challenging degree.

[Anonymous]

Our culture is in crisis. We don't value or respect teachers or the teaching profession. Some teachers unions are to blame for this perception. If you are doing your job, you should not mind some metric of your performance. Perhaps students should be expected to improve at least one grade level to where they started when they entered the teacher's classroom. However, teachers unions wouldn't agree to any metric of their performance tied to student academic achievement. In some urban schools, teaching, school boards, transportation, lunch programs, etc. became a jobs program for Democrats and their voters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teaching is no longer a respectable profession - frankly, I think people put it on par with waiting tables, as something to do until you get your "real" job. My grandfather was a teacher and was both very strict and used a lot of creativity in the way he taught (he taught drama and French) - I don't think his style or expectations would be allowable in today's schools. Furthermore, he wouldn't be able to support a family of six children now, as he was able to do then, on a teacher's salary.

When we start valuing teachers, and trusting them, maybe the system will improve.

I wouldn't go so far as to compare it to waiting tables, teachers do have college degrees, but it is not an impressive job. Having volunteered in my child's school, I do wonder what would posses a person to teach, it's such a crappy, demanding job. I think some just really love children and want to make a difference and others chose teaching because they aren't bright enough or motivated enough to complete a more challenging degree.

Until these attitudes go away, how can we expect education to improve?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teaching is no longer a respectable profession - frankly, I think people put it on par with waiting tables, as something to do until you get your "real" job. My grandfather was a teacher and was both very strict and used a lot of creativity in the way he taught (he taught drama and French) - I don't think his style or expectations would be allowable in today's schools. Furthermore, he wouldn't be able to support a family of six children now, as he was able to do then, on a teacher's salary.

When we start valuing teachers, and trusting them, maybe the system will improve.

I wouldn't go so far as to compare it to waiting tables, teachers do have college degrees, but it is not an impressive job. Having volunteered in my child's school, I do wonder what would posses a person to teach, it's such a crappy, demanding job. I think some just really love children and want to make a difference and others chose teaching because they aren't bright enough or motivated enough to complete a more challenging degree.

Until these attitudes go away, how can we expect education to improve?

Keep in mind there is some truth to this. Women who were teachers prior to the Department of Education forming, had no other job opportunities. Those women who would be teachers became doctors, lawyers, businesswomen, engineers, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sort of agree.

I actually think that there are plenty of educated Americans, but there aren't enough Americans trained in trades (hard skills). And that is where we are going to see a deficit. I also think there aren't enough engineers, but the surprising thing is that engineering jobs don't seem to pay a salary that reflects that.

I think there is a disconnect. The salaries don't match the value of the skill. There are bloated salaries for amorphous, undefined management-esque jobs. But the salaries for actual hard skills are very low.

For example, I know a skilled electrician who works in DC at a place that has some prestige. He makes under 40k. He has to live out in the exurbs. And yet he tells me that they complained the last time they tried to hire a new electrician because they had trouble finding someone who was skilled and experienced and reliable. But they were unwilling to set the salary higher, even though they employ lots of white-collar employees who do a lot of paper pushing for significantly higher salaries. But they are stuck in the mindset that electrician is blue collar/labor.

My view is there is a disconnect. It isn't even just salary, but level of respect. So lots of people flock to certain fields (think law or even policy), and then there are hundreds of applicants for each position.

I actually think that focusing too much on traditional 4-year college education is the wrong approach as a country. We should actually be doing more to bring back apprenticeships and training in trades. And beyond that, we should change how we view those fields so that it isn't seen as "well, Johnny isn't smart enough for college, so he's going to go to trade school." That's the wrong outlook.

Blue collars are replaced by immigrants who actually will work a full 8 hour day.