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<p>It depends on the college. It happens that those kids aim for the very top American colleges. And there’s a big difference between the rarefied world of elite (and perhaps semi-elite) colleges and the average Joe.</p>
<p>Well, from a college student’s perspective, I <em>wish</em> we’d stop running our education system like a competition and actually allowed people to learn and work without the stress of earning a letter grade that <em>really</em> shouldn’t (and doesn’t) mean anything in the real world.</p>
<p>The fact is that students aren’t concerned with solving the world’s problems with a newfound love of chemistry. They can’t be, because they’re too busy memorizing polyatomic ions for the final and then being turned off to anything related to chemistry afterwards.</p>
<p>The university or school system that <em>guarantees</em> (yes, guarantees) you some form of employment upon being accepted into it will see the motivation of its students increase tenfold.</p>
<p>I’m with you, Wiscongene. It feels like the fundamental purpose of learning is being distorted into a competitive race for a “good” job rather applying class material or even just enjoyment of what we learn in class. :/</p>
<p>Not surprising since a large part of our culture is centered around the media, movies, television, xbox, video games, etc. </p>
<p>I also think it’s interesting to see how our brightest and ‘top tier’ students compare with those of other countries and IMO they’re not lagging behind, if not ahead of those of other country’s. It’s the bulk that is lagging.</p>
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<p>Because of the prestige and level of education and resources that come with certain U.S universities.</p>
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<p>That and the application process is much less cutthroat and stressful than the national college entrance exams their respective countries use. </p>
<p>In the 2007 administration of the mainland Chinese national college entrance exam, less than half the applicants gained admission to ANY university…much less the top ones like Peking U or Tsinghua. </p>
<p>In the ROC(Taiwan), there’s still a 1/3 chance you won’t gain admission to ANY college despite the great increase of colleges in the last few decades. And that was a lot better than in my parents’ generation in the early-mid '50s when there were only 3 universities with places for a few hundred students each and tens of thousands of applicants applying…including some who have completed a few years of college on the mainland before the Chinese Civil War interrupted their studies at Mainland colleges like Tsinghua. </p>
<p>Consequently, if one gained admission to NTU or the other two universities in the 50’s, it was a major accomplishment in itself most would feel its achiever should feel justly proud. Especially if he/she were taking it straight from high school like mom’s two older sisters(NTU '54 & '57) or moreso if one gained admission despite not having attended school since the mid-end of middle school because of the war…like my dad. </p>
<p>Adding tuition scholarships and room/board stipends on top of it like my dad did was another level of achievement on top of that. Granted, like many students nowadays, he ended up only getting a full tuition scholarship without the room/board stipend from NTU so he ended up going to one of the other colleges that existed then.</p>
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<p>While it is cutthroat at times at the top levels here in the US, it’s nothing compared to what students in many other countries, especially in East Asia have to undergo to get into college. </p>
<p>Especially when you consider the grueling process to prepare for the national college entrance exams and the fact that for those outside the top-levels like many here on cc, US K-12 education from what I’ve seen and heard from educational professionals is that it’s more “nobody can fail”, “it’s always the teacher’s fault”, and “it’s never the student’s fault…even if he/she can’t be bothered to even put forth a halfassed effort” rather than “too competitive”.</p>
<p>Let’s not confuse John Holt with the Finnish educational model. The Finns would not say they’re “unschooling.” Their teachers are highly trained and, by national standards, handsomely compensated professionals who see their job as teaching, and who put enormous effort and creativity into it, with attention to each child.</p>
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<p>Seems like MD medical schools in the US.</p>
<p>Thanks for pointing that out, Clinton. Next thing, we might read about Finland’s connection to the infamous Bill Ayers.</p>
<p>There’s plenty of room between John Holt and Finland (I’m not an unschooler).</p>
<p>But poor reading, while tragic for the individual and sometimes for a community, is, from a larger societal perspective, a success, if it leads to lowered job expectations, lower health care expectations, lower nutritional expectations, and gullible spending habits. </p>
<p>The Finns have a tiny retail, and relatively small service sector. They have different needs from their educational system than we do. They actively seek to narrow socio-economic gaps in education, nutrition, and health care, and have greater need for a higher percentage of the population to be part of their technocratic class. And there aren’t that many Finns! So they’ve designed an education system to meet those requirements.</p>
<p>Ours does just fine, too, given what the BLS tells us we need, and 80% of Americans are happy with their local school systems as well. We have a need to shrink our technocratic class. We’ve exquisitely designed our educational system to produce large numbers of low-wage workers who won’t rebel, take what they are given, and find their life satisfaction in the production and, more usually, consumption of cheap, low-grade material goods, food, and entertainment. It’s working just fine. And there’s really no need to produce much here when it can be done more cheaply in a factory in Bangladesh, provided there are enough workers here to unpack the boxes, and man the checkout lines, especially if they’ll work at minimum wage for less than 30 hours a week.</p>
<p>We do, however, produce way more science and math graduates than we need, depressing wages (which is considered desirable by some), and leaving excellent biology graduates competing for jobs at Starbucks. (They should have gone into nursing, except many of those programs are extremely difficult to get in.)</p>
<p>As I’ve already suggested, plans to change this are really a form of radical social engineering. I don’t particularly mind, but my goals for a redesign would be substantially different than producing more math and science graduates.</p>
<p>How much more competitive would a country be if the bulk of its population was well-educated, as opposed to mostly its technocrats?</p>
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<p>Look at a place like Singapore which was part of a third-world country half-a-century ago with no real natural resources. Today they have the highest percentage of their citizens as millionaires in the world. They did a lot of that with education and under an intense competitive environment with other Asian countries.</p>
<p>If you look in the US, you have the state of MA which has a highly educated population. The economy is doing better than average, people are healthy, home prices are doing well. But there’s a big problem with political corruption. Maybe that comes with the territory?</p>
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<p>Well, I have to disagree with you. Education is about becoming a productive member of society. There is also nothing that says you can’t enjoy your education while being competitive for a good job. They don’t have to be exclusive and I think most kids DO enjoy school–even though they say otherwise. There is a definite goal in K-12 schools of getting kids literate enough in many areas to allow them to go on to college and be productive in the workforce. The problems lie when we apply the “everyone wins” attitude and have to water down everything so no one gets their feelings hurt. All kids suffer from that “educational model”.</p>
<p>BCEagle91–not sure what the political corruption is but you have MN on par with MA, exceeding MA actually, and no real reports of any political corruption. It doesn’t come with the territory. I’m sure in MA there are SOME corrupt politicians but are they ALL?</p>
<p>I suppose a word of ‘thanks’ is due to Boston College for providng this annual reality check on our educational failings through the research it conducts for TIMSS and PIRLS. It certainly is causing much consternation and hand-wringing…</p>
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<p>Check out the previous three Speakers.</p>
<p>For starters, students in the rest of the US can move to Massachusetts, as students from MA were near the top, when their scores were separated out from the US in general. </p>
<p>All joking aside, this just shows that it’s best to let states regulate their own education systems. States that are doing poorly can copy what the other states are doing right, but if the federal government gets involved, as it did with NCLB, heaven help us.</p>
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<p>Are you high? 50% of recent college graduates are out of work. Unless by ‘schools’ you meant high schools, and if you think that training future Walmart greeters is a success story then I have lost all hope in the future of this country.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you have lost hope in the future of this country. (I haven’t.) And yes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that in the next decade, we will need more Walmart greeters (and etc.) than anything else. What would be your alternative plan to get them? The current plan works pretty well.</p>
<p>What I don’t get is that many of you keep referring to the American “system” of public education. In my view, there is no such system. Instead, there are thousands of systems that vary tremendously in how they deliver public education. It doesn’t surprise me that this doesn’t look so good when compared to countries that actually HAVE a system. When you add to this signifiant variations in the students that these systems have to teach, it’s even worse.</p>