Overall quality of k-12 Education ...?

[Anonymous]

I am a mom of a kindergardener (so i'm a newbie and my kid's in a pretty good charter school), as well as a student getting a teaching certificate-- and for my class, today's essay question is this: "What is the overall quality of K-12 Education in the US?" So I thought I'd put it to the experts here at DCUM for some thoughts ? Thank you - Patty.

[Anonymous]

Okay, I'll bite!! I'll post the positive reply - flame away if you'd like!!

This is a HUGE question! And it varies tremdously.

As an educator who has taught in two other countries (developing countries, not European or other developed countries), I would say it is very good. In many other countries, parents MUST send their children to private schools because the public (government) schools are so dismal that they don't learn anything. One of the biggest problems that shocked me was that the teachers don't ever show up. They can go for MONTHS without a teacher ever showing up. They are political appointees, relatives, etc. who just collect paychecks and don't ever work.

Our public schools get knocked around a lot by politicians, media and parents, but compared to a lot of other places in the world, we're doing a pretty good job. Look at our literacy rates and percentage of kids who go on to college. Oh, and those studies that show that we lag behind everyone in scores, what you don't see is that the other countries are often submitting data derived from private schools. Hardly a fair comparison.

This is obviously just one small thing to compare, but it opened my eyes when I learned about what happens elsewhere.

Ready now for someone else to post the negatives. There certainly are many of those too!!!

[Anonymous]

I send my child to a nice private school, but I would agree with the first poster than US schools are really quite good. I don't even think it is necessary to compare our schools with the schools in developing nations to come to that conclusion. Look at the strength of our economy and our productivity as a nation over the past however many decades you choose ... our form of government, capitalism, and relatively free trade are important yes ... but none of the wealth creation would have been possible without our human capital. A large percentage of our poplulation is highly literate. We turn out high numbers of college grads, doctors, engineers, chemists, computer techs, and on and on. The American schools have by and large been extremely successful.

[Anonymous]

Why don't you look at some international comparisons like the PIRLS, TIMSS and PISA assessments? TIMSS found the US came 11th of 36 countries in math and 8th of 36 countries in science. PIRLS found that the US came 14th of 39 countries in reading literacy. And PISA found that the US average was below the OECD averages for science and math.

So, could do better ...

Just search those terms & you'll find the international reports.

[Anonymous]

OP here - I appreciate your learned input. I too see the media and stats shedding unfair negative light on our system. Examples we are shown are worst-of-the-worst. I think our education system is a neglected resource that we have taken for granted for many years. We get upset when the feds step in with mandates like NCLB but that attention wakes us up to the missed potential of our schools. Among many acknowledged negatives, a positive is that NCLB has mandated that all teachers must be certified in their field - no more spanish teachers filling in for a few sections of health class anymore - and no more "lateral entry." Thank you -

[Anonymous]

11;46 here. I seem to recall that the US has a comparatively low number of teaching & learning hours than many other countries.