Reply to Are We Crazy for Questioning a $250k US Degree and looking abroad?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, your high school system is a disaster. That is not my opinion; it is an objective, globally recognized fact. To place an average American high schooler in a room with a student from a Swiss Gymnasium is not a comparison; it is a cruelty.[/quote]

My son was a good but not spectacular student in wildly uneven honors high school.

He now has two degrees from two EU universities that outrank ETH in his field. His classmates were supposed to come in with a gymnasium education or the equivalent.

My son never has any trouble with competing with the EU-educated students, and he never felt that they had an advantage because they came in with a better education.

Gymnasium students may be a lot better prepared than average U.S. high school students, but gymnasium schools are more directly comparable to Thomas Jefferson and Stuyvesant. Good U.S. test school students are roughly as well-educated test school students elsewhere in the world. [/quote]

Your son has done exceptionally well despite his circumstances. I think he is still a data point of 1. If the education system is better in Europe then MORE people achieve great things. That's the equation.

[b]I'm afraid that the US educational system (schools) is considered one of the worst in the world, with the lowest levels of literacy and math skills. It's not an insult to note this, just a fact. [/b]

I'm from the UK but I had a mostly US high school education and all my children were raised in the US. What it gives you is confidence. The US is not a nation of people side stepping to avoid their own opportunities, or constantly apologizing "to be polite", its a nation of people forging forward, to make the best of themselves in the belief they can do so. And there's nothing wrong with that other than the fact that many of them really aren't up to the task. Confidence is 80% of the battle. [/quote]

This is just blatantly untrue.  The UK students perform better than US students on international tests, but we rank ahead of Germany, France, Norway, Netherlands, Austria and other European countries.

We rank 18th out of 74 countries.  We should be higher, but by no means are we one of the worst or even considered one of the worst.
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