Reply to Is our education system broken beyond repair?

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[quote=Anonymous]What I’m seeing in the original post is that part of the complaint is that, compared to other developed countries, the United States spends a lot to achieve a lackluster outcome.

While I too have worried about the quality of our education, there are a few things that make this an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Many of the services the US provides through schools would not be accounted for or provided as school-based services in other countries. As an example, we feed a great number of children breakfast and lunch in our schools. Other countries feed fewer children and account for it differently on a national budgeting basis. In countries with national healthcare, they may incur lower in-school costs for diagnosis and treatment of learning disabilities. They may also account differently or provide differently for the services that we give through in-school social workers.

Then there are quirks that are unique to culture that we can’t yet explain. As one example, native English speakers are much more likely to have dyslexia than speakers of other languages. We don’t know why, but we do know that this can add to education costs and explain testing outcomes. As well, the US has a fairly high number of emotionally traumatized children, as compared to other developed countries. These children have fewer cognitive resources available for learning, as their attention often shifts to their emotional needs, so they are likely to have lower test scores and consume more resources.

Additionally, we have structural costs that are different than other countries. Our education costs include teacher healthcare, disability, and retirement benefits. These are nationalized in many other developed nations, so they are not costs of the education system. [/quote]

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