<p>^^ Very well said, JHS.</p>
<p>JHS, than you for the added explanation: "What I meant was that we had more experience with the various ways of getting it wrong, something I think the European countries are just beginning to deal with."</p>
<p>One could always hope that the European countries look at this side of the Atlantic for lessons about what not to do. For what it is worth, they may be puzzled by our willingness to allow incompetents, thieves, and ignorants to set the tone in our education debates. At the time when antagonistic and counter-productive labor unions are slowly becoming a thing of the past in Europe, we are going the other direction. At the time when Europeans decry the "ecoles-poubelles" we don't mind looking the other way, as long as they do not adorn the landscape of our precious suburbans utopian communities. </p>
<p>The biggest chasm remains between our perception of our education system and the reality of what it truly is. There is only a small difference between being hopelessly optimistic and blindly naive.</p>
<p>Despite the transformations wrought by the civil rights movement, many schools today remain just as segregated as they were three decades ago. According to studies, 69 percent of African Americans attended predominantly minority schools in 1997, a 5-point increase since 1973. For Hispanics, the increase was even steeper—from 57 percent to 75 percent.</p>
<p>While American policymakers continue to see education as a primary tool to promote
and protect the concept of equal opportunity, our education’s historical contribution to equal opportunity has been ambiguous at best. Although education for students between the ages of six and sixteen is now virtually universal, its quality varies markedly. The very woof of America’s social fabric, being liberty, equality, education, remains unfinished, especially the last one!</p>
<p>Where is the proof that any race needs the presence of other races in public schools to be successful? And the opportunity to go to well funded integrated schools has not meant much more success for the minority students attending them--unless they are Asian/Indian. There are many all white schools that are very good and some that are not. I am sure there are now some mostly Asian schools with similar rates of success and some failures. Hispanics and AA's have been tougher nuts to crack for a myriad of reasons and funding does not seem to make much difference. Even in some of the best funded districts they do poorly relative to other white/asian students in the same or nearby districts with similar funding.</p>
<p>Actually xiggi, tangential to formal education offerings, I believe the rest of the world would benefit enormously from the Teaching Tolerance programs which have been implemented in primary and secondary schools across America. The rest of the world is behind the US in teaching tolerance. Way behind.</p>
<p>Those programs have had a big impact on American society. Americans should be very grateful to the SPC . <a href="http://www.splcenter.org%5B/url%5D">www.splcenter.org</a></p>
<p>Cheers, did you post that link for me to read, "The ABCs of School Integration"?</p>
<p>School integration is among the great symbols of our nation's racial progress. </p>
<p>In 1954, when nine white Supreme Court justices mustered the moral courage to declare in Brown v. Board of Education that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," they challenged a nation and its people to confront and undo centuries of white supremacy. It was, as Justice Breyer recently commented, the "Court's finest hour."
In 1988, school integration reached its modest peak, with 45 percent of our nation's black children having access to majority white schools and to the social and financial assets tied up in them. In the 90s, however, the Court began eroding enforcement of its own Brown decision, and, by 2003, researchers confirmed that schools not only were resegregating but also were more segregated than they had been decades earlier. At the dawn of the 21st century, one in six black children attended what researchers call "apartheid schools."</p>
<p>And then, this summer, a new Supreme Court flush with right-wing appointees wrote what NAACP Chair Julian Bond calls, "Brown's final epitaph," declaring unconstitutional the modest means many districts have used to create and maintain integrated schools. In Bond's words, the Court has "turned its back on millions of Black and Latino children leaving them to hang on the ropes of racial and economic disenfranchisement."
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<p>Fwiw, I don't see how anyone could be opposed to a program named "Teaching Tolerance" or couldn't learn from it. In the meantime, we might have to disagree that our country has much to teach about tolerance in education, especially at a time when the attacks on non-secular schools are growing in intensity and malice. </p>
<p>Wouldn't tolerance in education start by offering TRUE school choice and school freedom to all?</p>
<p>None should care what that desiccated old race warrior Bond thinks. He and the NAACP are anachronisms. The average family income of the NAACP member is 100,000 they no longer represent poor blacks,they would have affirmative action quotas for middle class blacks. Bond and his ilk are racists, do not think for a moment they are not, and very anti Semitic.</p>
<p>While children of color come form Asia poor as church mice, but with a culture of respect and hard work prosper. Latinos and blacks still fail, and will continue to fail until they adopt different values. Many kids of Euro descent are likewise devoid of a good Anglo Saxon/or Confucian work ethic or a sense of anything but pop culture. You a cant help them unless they adopt the values of their ancestors,which are so despised and ridiculed in Academia.</p>
<p>Everyone is afraid of the facts in education for instance a person of European descent(so called whites) is over eighty times more likely to be assaulted by a black person than vice versa. If it is black on Asian the ratio is about 250 to one.A cuture of thugery does not produce scholars be it in Northern Irelands Republican and Loyalists enclave or the Ghetto.</p>
<p>Likewise the ratio of Latin crime is eight to ten times that of whites and about twenty times that of Asians. Diversity is sold like it is inherently positive,,of course it is not, nor is it negative it is neutral. Social engineering just dumbs down education and nothing else.</p>
<p>Colonialism was a disaster and so is reverse colonialism,there has never been a society in the world that survived that invited in large number of people who did not share their core values. Poor Black people self segregate, we all know few black people associate with whites outside of work.</p>
<p>Only European cultures tolerate foreign populations emigrating in numbers,Japan does not ,nor does China,the middle east forget it.</p>
<p>This is why Bond is full of nonsense as usual,poor Black people segregate themselves so trying to desegregate them is a waste of time and resources until they change. They only make up about 20 percent of black people, the others have assimilated and are middle class. The ones that remain can not be helped, they must accept responsibility for their own culture and stop blaming Whitey for everything. They do that and Old Julian is out of Business.</p>
<p>I think that we need to lower the temperature of this discussion a little bit.</p>
<p>First, while I believe that the Court's decisions last term were wrong, it is manifestly unfair to accuse the majority of abandoning Brown. Brown itself was based on the theory that the Constitution is color-blind. Indeed, the most extreme remedy that was even considered by the Court in that case was the immediate assignment of pupils to school without regard to race. Now, the justices in Brown clearly underestimated the complexity of the problem of race in America; nonetheless, it is important to recognize that they did not hold that the Constitution affirmatively required racial balance in school.</p>
<p>Second, while equalizing funding is right in itself, it is unlikely to have anything other than a marginal impact on the actual achievement rates of inner city blacks. It has been tried without much impact in a number of desegregation cases. The problem is more broadly cultural; for reasons too complex to discuss here, we have created a culture of failure in inner city communities, and the schools simply reflect that culture. We can (and should) give a small number of students a better chance for success by moving them to schools where the culture is different. However, the real question is, how do you help the rest of the children? Moving a small number of affluent students into their schools will not do the job. Unless and until you figure out a way to reconstruct the existing inner city culture along very different lines, your efforts will be doomed to failure.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I want to emphasize that I am NOT blaming the victims. Whoever is responsible for the current mess (and there is plenty of blame to go around) it is not the children. I just think that we need to be wary of simplistic solutions.</p>
<p>End of lecture.</p>
<p>I agree 100% EMM1. The schools are the least of the problem.</p>
<p><a href="marite:">quote</a></p>
<p>I am not so sure. It is true that the k-12 curriculum in the US is not as complete or challenging as what is available to French or German or British students. Hence the 4-year instead of 3-year college program in the US, with a core curriculum designed to provide the knowledge that European (and other) students receive in k-12. But I do not think that there is much of a difference after the first degree in levels of preparation.
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<p>In science doctoral programs, Americans tend to require a couple of years to catch up to their non-US colleagues (at least those from some countries). In many cases they don't catch up in all areas, but in enough to specialize successfully.</p>
<p>siserune, by "Americans" do you mean American k-12 students in an American science doctoral program vs. non-US k-12 students in a US science doctoral program, or vs. non-US k-12 students in a non-US science doctoral program? Thanks.</p>
<p>Siserune:</p>
<p>Interesting. Is is across the board in terms of disciplines? Does it apply to all graduate programs? What about the pool of international applicants? Are we comparing top applicants from top universities from countries with the best higher education systems with a more mixed pool of American applicants?</p>
<p>I'm somewhat familiar with the levels of preparation of applicants from a few countries. But already these are a hugely self-selected pool. For example, in some disciplines that involve a lot of reading and writing, you don't get many French students, probably because French students do not learn to speak English very well, compared to students from Germany or The Netherlands and some other countries. From China, again, one may get top applicants from some top schools who are very well prepared in the sciences but not in the humanities or social sciences. It's not just the English language. It is even about the history of their own country and about some fairly standard texts in the social sciences.</p>
<p>I'd be interested to learn more about your experiences.</p>
<p>
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In science doctoral programs, Americans tend to require a couple of years to catch up to their non-US colleagues (at least those from some countries).
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<p>From what I know I think this is probably due to the different structures of the undergraduate programs. For example I know a guy who got his BS and MS in math from Cambridge. He told me that he studied math and nothing but math for the 4 years he was there (BS takes only 3 years there). On the other hand my friend who majored in Math at Stanford took many classes that were not math related.</p>
<p>Exactly, while in the US some extol the virtues of "liberal education" in most leading European schools you study your major.</p>
<p>But let's calculate.</p>
<p>Harvard has a semester schedule allowing for 32 semester courses, though some students may want to take more (5 courses per semester). The Core curriculum requires 7 courses. There's also a mandatory Expository Writing requirement. There's also a one-year foreign language requirement that many students can place out of. So a student majoring in math could spend 24 semesters doing only math, in other words the equivalent of a 3-year BA or BS program in the UK. Additionally, a student on Advanced Standing (the equivalent of A-levels) could do a 4 year BA/MA in math. And even without taking this route, students who've taken Math 25 or Math 55 take graduate level classes. beginning in their sophomore or junior year. Some of these classes are described as preparing students for the Ph.D. generals. </p>
<p>The range of preparation available to American undergraduates, not to mention the selectivity of graduate programs require us to be specific in comparing undergraduate education in this country against what we know of the very best programs in other countries.</p>
<p>Just saw this article.</p>
<p>Nicolas Sarkozy wants to shake up France's schools</p>
<p>Thanks, bomgeedad. Redoublement (retention) is such an established fact of life in France that there is little shame attached to it. Even the top lyc</p>
<p>I believe it is worth pointing out that the Bologna Process in Europe represents an attempt to harmonize the entire tertiary system for all countries. One component is that the path to obtain a Master's degree is still FIVE years. While the US follows a 4+1, Europe does have a 3+2. Further, the three years of undergraduate are based on successfully obtaining 180 credits --a number that is quite comparable to the required credits obtained in four years in the US. </p>
<p>There are many details about this process on the European Eurydice website. <a href="http://www.eurydice.org/portal/page/portal/Eurydice%5B/url%5D">http://www.eurydice.org/portal/page/portal/Eurydice</a></p>