Anonymous wrote:Maybe if the GOP stopped gutting our public education and our universities, including the schools of education that train our future teachers, were not castigated constantly, and perhaps if teachers were offered a decent wage and treated with more respect, we would have better outcomes.

U.S. spends more per pupil than many Asian countries. Unfortunately a lot of that money does not go to teacher salaries but to administrators, extra staff, and stupid spending on consultants and other BS.

We should be spending more to attract better teachers. I believe the quality has gone downhill because we used to have better teachers simply because intelligent women didn’t used to have many career options, but now they do.

We especially need more male teachers in the younger grades. Higher salaries would help this. Unfortunately a lot of the qualities that make teachers great might be considered subjective, and therefore we are stuck with the system that rewards teacher equally in spite of their abilities.

Also in Asian schools at least the one I taught at, the kids do jobs during the day like serving and cleaning up after lunch, and they clean the school. There is no janitor. Classes had between 30 and 40 kids each. Compared to schools in the US, the kids are actually engaged in non-academic activities quite a big percentage of the time. They have music and art through ninth grade and a lot of time is spent on breaks and structured social activities of various types. The kids are not automatons.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe if the GOP stopped gutting our public education and our universities, including the schools of education that train our future teachers, were not castigated constantly, and perhaps if teachers were offered a decent wage and treated with more respect, we would have better outcomes.

You know we just sent Ukraine an aid package that's about as large as our annual Department of Education budget? We also sent an aggressive genocidal state (Israel) an aid package that's the roughly the size of NASA's annual budget...

DP.. national security is important to our future, and yes, what goes on in Europe can be a national security concern.

Having stated that, the GOP do usually cut education budgets.

Education budgets need to be cut. The big problems with education are throwing so much money at it, that it causes laziness and bureaucracy.

Our education system has become a self-licking ice cream cone, just like the federal government has. Too many layers of management, too many meetings, too many rules, too little individual accountability and too much group think.

It's killed all agility, but made lawyers, bureaucrats and the generally useless very happy campers. Any boy can they camp. They make an art of it. We could lose half the federal work force and no one would mind. It's a shame what we're doing to ourselves through the nanny state.

Mark my words. Someday, people are going to look back on this time and say "What the hell were you thinking? You had it all in the palm of your hands and fumbled."

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Anonymous wrote:There is no creativity or artistic expression in China, just an emphasis on grades, test scores, and college rankings? Is that really what we want?

No but is it good to ho have most of the population here not be able to point to N Dakota on a map or to realize Oakland CA is not SF CA? Do you really want Americans who can’t spell or know basic arithmetic?

I don’t think one negates the other. Ideally, we can learn from Chinese methods of achieving academic excellence as they can learn from American ingenuity no?

One isn’t better or worse than the other but if we don’t have either well then we suck!

"Ideally, we can learn from Chinese methods of achieving academic excellence as they can learn from American ingenuity no?"

I think you're wrong. The issue is not knowing how to do it. We know how to do it already. The issue is the willpower to do it.

That's where democrats fall down. They think everything can be solved by throwing more money at it. I find them to be very shallow people.

People who live in the real world realize that dropping money on everything doesn't work and especially with behavioral problems.

Anonymous wrote:There is no creativity or artistic expression in China, just an emphasis on grades, test scores, and college rankings? Is that really what we want?

No but is it good to ho have most of the population here not be able to point to N Dakota on a map or to realize Oakland CA is not SF CA? Do you really want Americans who can’t spell or know basic arithmetic?

I don’t think one negates the other. Ideally, we can learn from Chinese methods of achieving academic excellence as they can learn from American ingenuity no?

One isn’t better or worse than the other but if we don’t have either well then we suck!

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Anonymous wrote:I recruit mostly now from European/Canadian grad schools for MBAs as do most of my friends recruiting at top levels for finance. London School of Econ will outshine a US degreed one nowadays. The state of American higher ed is not what it once was. Moreover, most of my non grad recruits are immigrants. Maybe 10% of STEM grads are actually American - most are US citizens but 1st/2nd gen immigrants. Only in Sales are most of my recruits American born and bred. Even my top MBAs are 50/50 US/foreign backgrounds.

Most immigrants, irrespective of race or what country they are from, will work hard. Most come here expecting to work hard to make it. That is the American Dream.



Those immigrant small business owners work long hours, and almost never take vacation, and rarely close for the holidays. You know what types of restaurants are open on Xmas day? Asian restaurants.

Unfortunately, after about 2 or 3 generations that hard work ethic disappears.

What’s your point? That’s culture. American culture that breeds living the privileged life of being in a rich country. This is not to do with the emphasis of education and discipline to acquire knowledge and critical thinking. Culturally, we are almost at the place of not needing any of this. Not saying that’s good nor bad but reality. You can get by on mediocrity in this country as you can in any country but esp when our schools suck it’s worse.

There is no creativity or artistic expression in China, just an emphasis on grades, test scores, and college rankings? Is that really what we want?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe if the GOP stopped gutting our public education and our universities, including the schools of education that train our future teachers, were not castigated constantly, and perhaps if teachers were offered a decent wage and treated with more respect, we would have better outcomes.

You know we just sent Ukraine an aid package that's about as large as our annual Department of Education budget? We also sent an aggressive genocidal state (Israel) an aid package that's the roughly the size of NASA's annual budget...

DP.. national security is important to our future, and yes, what goes on in Europe can be a national security concern.

Having stated that, the GOP do usually cut education budgets.

Anonymous wrote:I recruit mostly now from European/Canadian grad schools for MBAs as do most of my friends recruiting at top levels for finance. London School of Econ will outshine a US degreed one nowadays. The state of American higher ed is not what it once was. Moreover, most of my non grad recruits are immigrants. Maybe 10% of STEM grads are actually American - most are US citizens but 1st/2nd gen immigrants. Only in Sales are most of my recruits American born and bred. Even my top MBAs are 50/50 US/foreign backgrounds.

Most immigrants, irrespective of race or what country they are from, will work hard. Most come here expecting to work hard to make it. That is the American Dream.

Those immigrant small business owners work long hours, and almost never take vacation, and rarely close for the holidays. You know what types of restaurants are open on Xmas day? Asian restaurants.

Unfortunately, after about 2 or 3 generations that hard work ethic disappears.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe if the GOP stopped gutting our public education and our universities, including the schools of education that train our future teachers, were not castigated constantly, and perhaps if teachers were offered a decent wage and treated with more respect, we would have better outcomes.

You know we just sent Ukraine an aid package that's about as large as our annual Department of Education budget? We also sent an aggressive genocidal state (Israel) an aid package that's the roughly the size of NASA's annual budget...

I recruit mostly now from European/Canadian grad schools for MBAs as do most of my friends recruiting at top levels for finance. London School of Econ will outshine a US degreed one nowadays. The state of American higher ed is not what it once was. Moreover, most of my non grad recruits are immigrants. Maybe 10% of STEM grads are actually American - most are US citizens but 1st/2nd gen immigrants. Only in Sales are most of my recruits American born and bred. Even my top MBAs are 50/50 US/foreign backgrounds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So why do we attract scientists from all over the world to our research institutions? Why don't they go to China instead?

np.. because we have more money for research.

Have you seen how many Americans vs Asian scientists are getting PhDs?

I don't necessarily agree with the Asians style of educating (I'm Asian American), but I also think the US system treats kids as delicate flowers who have no grit.

When faced with an achievement gap, the answer is to dumb it down more and more until that gap can be closed even just a tiny bit. Too focused on DEI, and not enough on actual teaching basic skills. The way to get kids out of poverty is education, real education, basic math and reading/writing skills. I get that some American kids don't want to learn, and it's not always the fault of the teachers, but certainly dumbing down everything isn't helping these kids.

I don't have a problem with the schools focusing on mental health; I think that's a good thing, but dumbing things down for the sake of not making kids feel badly about themselves is not the solution. You know what feels bad? Being poor.

I came to the US as a baby, and my parents do not speak English. We were lower income, and I knew that the way out of poverty was through education and hard work.

NP and I agree with PP as an American born Chinese woman. I think that western style of education is the right approach - drive has to come independently it just cannot be managed or force. However, there are basics and unfortunately, esp public schools in the US are failing kids. There is too much equality based programs and too much of the trying to make everyone happy going on. On some level, you have to appreciate hard work and homework. You have to do the work. There's such a thing as discipline and expectations and while I don't know I agree you have to start at age 6 or even 10, you do have to start a bit young to get into the habit of excellence. Not everyone will buy into this but some will and that's enough. I think often the mentality and focus is to ensure everyone's buy in and acceptance and I don't think that's the right approach but that's what's going on in the US. Asia and many parts of the world don't subscribe to this practice - esp Asia. There's a right and wrong, black and white to education and often times, you just have to grind. Sometimes it works better than other times but for the most part, it does work

[quoAnonymous wrote:


Our greatest strength is not racial diversity, it is ethic and cultural diversity (which immigration vastly improves). We might get more racial diversity as a result of that, but race itself is not a strength in and of itself. The fact that we are getting new ideas coming into the country is the strength.

Let's be real.. we've had the benefit of importing a lot of brain power from all over the world, including from China.]