The USA should adopt the German high school model

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP,
I get it. I think a lot of people posting don’t really understand how the German system works. It’s not as if you are doomed to some low-level, unimportant job if you fail to show success in 4th grade.

The school choices and offerings are robust and they make sense. No, not everybody should go to college. And it’s not just because of intellect/ability; society doesn’t need everybody to go to college.

German vocational programs are robust, and they lead to very important jobs that provide for stable living. Their on-the-job apprenticeships set students up for success in a way we don’t.

My issue with the German system is that the tracking decisions are made very early. One of things I love about America is that we keep the educational doors open and embrace reinvention.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP,
I get it. I think a lot of people posting don’t really understand how the German system works. It’s not as if you are doomed to some low-level, unimportant job if you fail to show success in 4th grade.

The school choices and offerings are robust and they make sense. No, not everybody should go to college. And it’s not just because of intellect/ability; society doesn’t need everybody to go to college.

German vocational programs are robust, and they lead to very important jobs that provide for stable living. Their on-the-job apprenticeships set students up for success in a way we don’t.

My issue with the German system is that the tracking decisions are made very early. One of things I love about America is that we keep the educational doors open and embrace reinvention.

+1

I think it has loosened some in the decades since I lived there, but once you were on a track--which at that time was pretty much determined when you were ten--it was extremely difficult to change. I think it is less rare now, but the idea is still in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP,
I get it. I think a lot of people posting don’t really understand how the German system works. It’s not as if you are doomed to some low-level, unimportant job if you fail to show success in 4th grade.

The school choices and offerings are robust and they make sense. No, not everybody should go to college. And it’s not just because of intellect/ability; society doesn’t need everybody to go to college.

German vocational programs are robust, and they lead to very important jobs that provide for stable living. Their on-the-job apprenticeships set students up for success in a way we don’t.

My issue with the German system is that the tracking decisions are made very early. One of things I love about America is that we keep the educational doors open and embrace reinvention.

+1

I think it has loosened some in the decades since I lived there, but once you were on a track--which at that time was pretty much determined when you were ten--it was extremely difficult to change. I think it is less rare now, but the idea is still in place.

Good friends who are in that system and it seemingly hasn’t changed much. I agree that it is strange and limiting to essentially caste kids at an early age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Different schools for those on a university path vs a vocational path. Of course that can’t happen here due to equity . But you have to admit German schools produce much better results .

Not necessarily. Dig below the surface and you’ll see a lot of kids in either track dealing with lifelong negative consequences of that system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Way back in the '70s I went to a comprehensive high school that had a wide variety of choices: college tracks, mechanics/ building trades etc, art and music and theater, hard sciences, etc.

The difference is the kids got to choose the track and were more successful because they picked what they were good at and motivated to do.

That's the model we should return to.

Restoring vocational-technical schools would be a step in the right direction.

Someone, or some group of people, in the 60’s and 70’s made a huge mistake in eliminating what was once a robust program in public education in the USA.

Even in the 1960s, it was a discriminatory program in many districts. Not only were minorities and poor whites shunted toward vocational rather than academic programs regardless of their grades in jr high, but in my dad’s vo tech HS, only white males got to enter the most lucrative paths like electrician and plumbing. White girls and minorities in vo tech were forced into the lower earning paths.

It stayed that way through the 1960s, until white flight flipped the district and then, it was largely defunded because more minorities could get seats in the academic high schools.

[Anonymous]

People in America have a difficult time knowing and accepting their roles. This would make it hard to create tracked education in the US although it would be beneficial in the long run.

[Anonymous]

I like the idea of tracking.
I don’t like the idea of tracking A group and B group.

I think employers should create pathway systems that lead to high school jobs, college jobs, and post-college jobs.

I think the system should be quite flexible so students can move between them as they want, experience as much as they want to

[Anonymous]

I 100% agree. The tracking model is beautiful and makes sure that the lower 50% isn't falling in the cracks. Currently so many students graduate and are aimless. They don't have career prospects.

[Anonymous]

I will never understand the assumption that being on a non-college track is necessarily worse than college track. We need to let go if this. You can have a rewarding, profitable career without college. Many vocational jobs pay well. Sales and business usually don't require college either, maybe some community college courses for finances and soft skills.

College should be for people who want/need to study something deeply in an academic way. There is nothing wrong if that's not you. This thing we gave now where college is for everyone is bad for everyone. It's clearly not!