Anonymous wrote:The top American students at both well-resourced public schools and the better private schools are doing just fine. In fact, I'd say they are way smarter and more disciplined than my generation. Calculus BC and multivariable are the norm for this group. In addition to the AP english, history, and science classes.

The problem is the average kid. Too often, they don't have parents that read to them when they were little. That alone is a very big deal. They failed to instill a love for reading and learning. Add in changes to the way reading is taught in the formative years. Throw in screens and smartphones and these semi-literate kids are derailed forever. They have the attention span of a gnat. Now add changes in discipline in classrooms. Far too often a poorly behaved student or two can derail the educational experience for a classroom for an entire year. It really is tragic. And the result is that are very few high school students these days that enjoy reading a book and learning about the world.

These average students become dopamine fiends. They need the stimulation of their phones and perpetual, immediate drama. Because there is no discipline in schools anymore, teachers can't reach them. The teachers are busy with the difficult students. And eventually, it leads to kids not reaching their potential. The Covid isolation didn't help either. Such a stupid move closing public schools for all that time. Every kid is behind because of that.

The strength of America is that it is freewheeling. This is the country for creativity and innovation. It's why the best and brightest come to America for university. But all that depends on having a baseline average that is solid. Our top ten percent of students are doing great. But that baseline average is sinking rapidly because of technology, changing social norms, and poor parenting.

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Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

I agree about not guaranteeing a HS diploma - we should force more kids to repeat grades as they do in France, for example.

But I am not convinced every HS grad needs calc. How about starting with the knowledge to pay taxes and killer arithmetic and algebra skills?

Why do people always put the responsibility of taxes on the school? That’s a parenting issue (and a reading skills issue, it is incredibly easy to file unless you’re obscenely wealthy or own a business). I do not think schools should be a ”Parental Failure 101” drop off. Also, at our local high school there are two personal finance classes, and the instructors emphasize that students say they want “life skills” until it comes time to actually do the work and learn. Many kids do not care.

+1, I guarantee you the students will not listen to Financial planning lectures.

DP. My kids did. They learned a lot from those classes, in addition to my spouse and I teaching them about personal finances.

You need to understand how many kids out there have parents who don't care about their kids' education. They send them to school and that's the end of their involvement. Many aren't even getting them to school (and that's an entirely different issue!). They aren't teaching their kids anything. That's the role of schools. I have many, many students with MIA parents. They could be incarcerated, dead, generally disinterested in their kids, living with relatives, addicted to drugs/alcohol, etc. Even the ones who aren't in these categories don't see themselves as educational role models for their kids as many never finished school. If nobody at home ever asks to see your report cards or asks about what you are learning at school, even the best student won't care about school by MS.

I agree, but not sure what this has to do with anything. All the more reason to offer these classes at school.

When your parents don't care, very few kids will care about school and learning. They are lost by MS. They don't give a crap about a financial literacy class. They often read far below grade level and don't hand in work. They don't attend school regularly because who would if your parents don't care and don't make you go.

So are you saying that because of these particular kids, classes like financial literacy shouldn't be offered? I'm sorry, but no. We don't pull everything down to meet the lowest possible standard. And I would also argue that a lot of the kids you describe find school to be a lifeline, without which they would NEVER be exposed to any educational concepts at all. Again - all the more reason to offer these classes at school.

I never said they shouldn't be offered but it won't do them any good. They are not in class, sleeping through class, on their phones/laptops, etc. My DH teaches these students and they mostly are done with school by MS. By HS, they are years behind in reading and math. Many of them have missed 50+ days of school beginning in kindergarten. It's no wonder why they are so far behind. I teach them in kindergarten and you can often see the trajectory at age 5/6. The LEAST number of days of school my kindergarteners have missed is 14 (I have 24 students). Nearly half of them were considered chronically absent (missing 18 or more days of school) by the end of the 1st quarter.

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Anonymous wrote:OP, your premise is completely wrong and poster after poster has presented articulate rebuttals.

Where are you finding articulate rebuttals? Just butthurt humanities grads who have paranoia about math have posted.

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Anonymous wrote:I forgot this forum is majority upper middle class, so they don’t see the issues. On average, for the average, education is really poor in this country and not teaching the skills students need to get through college.

This is just not true.

Yeah, keep scrolling in your nice home in Fairfax and believing everything is fine.

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Anonymous wrote:More people should be failed out of high school and directed somewhere else. As someone not born in the US, calculus being treated as some ridiculously insane requirement for 17 year olds is a really embarrassing reflection of this country. Sports are treated more seriously than education in the US

Do all 17 yr olds in your country go to HS? In many countries, free schooling ends around age 13. HS is only for the top students.

My home country is like that, and it makes sense. I don’t really think you need to continue school if you don’t care about it nor find it tedious as many in this thread seem to. Plus, it’s not like it bars you from college. You still get a diploma and can go to university!

So, you're not from the U.S.? Many kids have no idea what they want to do at the age of 13. It's ridiculously short-sighted to group kids into two separate tracks at that age and I'm very glad we don't do that here. High school education is for everyone. The decision to go on to college or not is one that can be made after earning a high school degree.

And no one on this thread has said or even implied that school is "tedious." On the contrary, many of us advocating the humanities *love* school. You seem to think that only STEM has value.

So because I’m an immigrant, you’re just going to assume that my country doesn’t have the same kind of kids as yours with the same obliviousness? It’s the unwillingness to educate yourself and thoughtfully engage with ideas when your system clearly doesn’t work that blows my mind every time. Also, I’m a parent. I have high school and colleged age children. It’s not like I’m in this forum for nothing.

What?? Nothing you're saying makes sense. Also, since you're so critical of our education system here in the U.S., tell us what country you're from so we can critique it too.

Nothing I’m saying makes sense? Are you kidding?

1) you assert that in America has such system, because kids at 13 don’t know what they want to do- something that is true of all 13 year olds in the world.
2) you assert that America has such system because people can’t know that they want to go to college immediately after high school. Luckily, most western nations also work towards this issue
3) you assert that I only believe stem has value. No where have I said that. I do think students are underprepared in stem, which is corroborated by American institutions having retention issues across the country.

My home country is Germany. It doesn’t just kick you out of school at 13. If you look beyond the surface, you’ll discover it is a developed nation that addresses all your concerns while also tracking talent to improve our education system. Educating for the bottom doesn’t work and is endemic across the US.

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Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

I agree about not guaranteeing a HS diploma - we should force more kids to repeat grades as they do in France, for example.

But I am not convinced every HS grad needs calc. How about starting with the knowledge to pay taxes and killer arithmetic and algebra skills?

Why do people always put the responsibility of taxes on the school? That’s a parenting issue (and a reading skills issue, it is incredibly easy to file unless you’re obscenely wealthy or own a business). I do not think schools should be a ”Parental Failure 101” drop off. Also, at our local high school there are two personal finance classes, and the instructors emphasize that students say they want “life skills” until it comes time to actually do the work and learn. Many kids do not care.

+1, I guarantee you the students will not listen to Financial planning lectures.

DP. My kids did. They learned a lot from those classes, in addition to my spouse and I teaching them about personal finances.

You need to understand how many kids out there have parents who don't care about their kids' education. They send them to school and that's the end of their involvement. Many aren't even getting them to school (and that's an entirely different issue!). They aren't teaching their kids anything. That's the role of schools. I have many, many students with MIA parents. They could be incarcerated, dead, generally disinterested in their kids, living with relatives, addicted to drugs/alcohol, etc. Even the ones who aren't in these categories don't see themselves as educational role models for their kids as many never finished school. If nobody at home ever asks to see your report cards or asks about what you are learning at school, even the best student won't care about school by MS.

I agree, but not sure what this has to do with anything. All the more reason to offer these classes at school.

When your parents don't care, very few kids will care about school and learning. They are lost by MS. They don't give a crap about a financial literacy class. They often read far below grade level and don't hand in work. They don't attend school regularly because who would if your parents don't care and don't make you go.

So are you saying that because of these particular kids, classes like financial literacy shouldn't be offered? I'm sorry, but no. We don't pull everything down to meet the lowest possible standard. And I would also argue that a lot of the kids you describe find school to be a lifeline, without which they would NEVER be exposed to any educational concepts at all. Again - all the more reason to offer these classes at school.

Anonymous wrote:OP, your premise is completely wrong and poster after poster has presented articulate rebuttals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I forgot this forum is majority upper middle class, so they don’t see the issues. On average, for the average, education is really poor in this country and not teaching the skills students need to get through college.

This is just not true.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

I agree about not guaranteeing a HS diploma - we should force more kids to repeat grades as they do in France, for example.

But I am not convinced every HS grad needs calc. How about starting with the knowledge to pay taxes and killer arithmetic and algebra skills?

[/b]Why do people always put the responsibility of taxes on the school? That’s a parenting issue (and a reading skills issue, it is incredibly easy to file unless you’re obscenely wealthy or own a business). I do not think schools should be a ”Parental Failure 101” drop off. Also, at our local high school there are two personal finance classes, and the instructors emphasize that students say they want “life skills” until it comes time to [b]actually do the work and learn. Many kids do not care.

Anonymous wrote:I forgot this forum is majority upper middle class, so they don’t see the issues. On average, for the average, education is really poor in this country and not teaching the skills students need to get through college.

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Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

I agree about not guaranteeing a HS diploma - we should force more kids to repeat grades as they do in France, for example.

But I am not convinced every HS grad needs calc. How about starting with the knowledge to pay taxes and killer arithmetic and algebra skills?

Why do people always put the responsibility of taxes on the school? That’s a parenting issue (and a reading skills issue, it is incredibly easy to file unless you’re obscenely wealthy or own a business). I do not think schools should be a ”Parental Failure 101” drop off. Also, at our local high school there are two personal finance classes, and the instructors emphasize that students say they want “life skills” until it comes time to actually do the work and learn. Many kids do not care.

+1, I guarantee you the students will not listen to Financial planning lectures.

DP. My kids did. They learned a lot from those classes, in addition to my spouse and I teaching them about personal finances.

You need to understand how many kids out there have parents who don't care about their kids' education. They send them to school and that's the end of their involvement. Many aren't even getting them to school (and that's an entirely different issue!). They aren't teaching their kids anything. That's the role of schools. I have many, many students with MIA parents. They could be incarcerated, dead, generally disinterested in their kids, living with relatives, addicted to drugs/alcohol, etc. Even the ones who aren't in these categories don't see themselves as educational role models for their kids as many never finished school. If nobody at home ever asks to see your report cards or asks about what you are learning at school, even the best student won't care about school by MS.

I agree, but not sure what this has to do with anything. All the more reason to offer these classes at school.

When your parents don't care, very few kids will care about school and learning. They are lost by MS. They don't give a crap about a financial literacy class. They often read far below grade level and don't hand in work. They don't attend school regularly because who would if your parents don't care and don't make you go.

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Anonymous wrote:As much as we talk about the difficulty of college admissions, American high school students are not learning enough content to compete in a global market. The SAT is not rigorous and barely tests at a pre-calculus level. Our students are dropping out of STEM programs like flies, and students aren’t graduating with the skills needed to compete in the entry level market. What reforms should we make?

Huh? US grads at the vast majority f T75schools and especially T15are highly competitive in a global market, majority compete quite well with international students often better. T15 stem programs have 97% retention in engineering, my kid’s ivy has 99%. The average starting salary in stem is over 100k for the best of these elites, 65k plus for the majority of the T75 in stem. That is an excellent starting salary and very much a living wage, and 100k is obviously an amazing starting salary. USA’s best and brightest are doing very well and the above average ones do fine too. Find a different problem to worry about

The American institutions that make it many times more difficult for international students are…majority American? You don’t say.

I'm curious: why should American institutions make it *easier* for international students? Don't you have your own institutions?