<p>In your opinion, which state gives the best public education for k-12?</p>
<p>I'll hazard a guess at Mass......because there are so many colleges, universities and academics concentrated in the state...</p>
<p>In my opinion, that is highly debatable. I am a homeschooling parent in part because I don't think any state of the United States does a GOOD job of K-12 education. But I have the impression that states of the upper Midwest (where I live) generally have better educated young people, whether through school or through family and community inputs, than some states in other regions. It might be easier to identify a small group of top school districts than a clear, indisputable top state.</p>
<p>dke:</p>
<p>Mass does have some terrific schools and school districts and it also has some horrendously underperforming schools, some of which have been threatened to be taken over by the state. Inner-city neighborhoods in Boston or Lowell are nothing like the affluent suburbs of Weston or Dover. I believe that on a state by state basis, Minnesota k-12 students outperform students from other states. Maybe tokenadult can verify. But in a depressing bit of news, today's papers report that an OECD study ranks US students in the lower half in both math and verbal skills among industrialized countries.</p>
<p>Yup, but that misses the true picture. If you take schools like those involved in the Williams v. California lawsuit - with 65 kids in a classroom with 30 chairs, no books, no running water, no regular teachers, heating systems not working, no ventilation, etc., the U.S. would rank last out of 28 (actually, internationally, in the last Third International Math and Science Study, just a little above Tunisia, and a little below Slovenia). If you take the schools where they have their own climbing walls in middle school, the U.S. ranks second or third.</p>
<p>The point is there IS no single public education system in America.</p>
<p>it's hard to judge something like that.. because for example a states with large cities will be brought down by innercity schools and whatnot... that doesn't mean the rest of the schools in the state or horrible, but the states overall "score" would be lowered...</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>Even the best French schools (including the prestigious private lycee from which my niece graduated last year) has 40+ students per class. My niece's school had no cafeteria. The students ate in class, in the stairways, or went to the Jardin du Luxembourg to sit on the benches. I wonder what's the situation in Tunisian schools.</p>
<p>I doubt your niece's school shared many similarities to these:</p>
<p>... in 2000, a class action suit (Williams v. California) filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 100 public school parents from 46 schools, argued that students the overwhelming majority of whom were racial and ethnic minorities (or, it should be said, majorities) -- were educationally disadvantaged when they were confined to schools with rat, mouse, and ****roach infestations. Schools with leaky roofs and broken and boarded-up windows, and peeling lead-based paints. Schools where the windows cant be opened at all, and the temperatures often hit 120 degrees, or where heating systems dont work and students wear coats, hats, and gloves throughout the entire school day to fight off the chill. Schools with defective and dangerous electrical systems. Schools with toilets that dont work, with floors wet and sticky and smelling of human waste, and with unsafe drinking water, or without any drinking water at all. Schools without textbooks, or with three or four students per book, or where several classes share textbooks so that students can alternate doing homework. Schools where some classes have no formal, long-term teacher for the entire year, only a series of substitutes, some for as little as a single day. Schools so overcrowded that theyve adopted multi-track schedules in which teachers and students take turns using two sets of classrooms, cutting the school year short by nearly four weeks of instruction. Schools where classrooms have 30 desks and 65 students, leaving students to perch on counters or simply stand in the back of the room, or rotate their seating.</p>
<p>The Governor and the State Superintendent of Schools did not contest the conditions, the evidence being so overwhelming, though they did try to ascribe blame elsewhere, by filing counter claims against local school districts (quickly dismissed). But the main elements of their defense were that students suffer no educational disadvantages as a result, for other schools were equally bad. That argument failing, they brought in expert after expert, 13 in all, some dubbed among the nations leading educational authorities (and surely paid accordingly), offering testimony essentially that ameliorating these conditions wouldnt have mattered: the kids would have failed anyway. </p>
<p>This is the narrative that the largest state in the country has written for minority (majority) children in public schools. It doesnt really make any difference, they are going to fail anyway, so they might as well be resigned to their fate. And one other thing can be said with some measure of certainty: regardless of where they live, and even if they attend public schools, the children of these 13 leading experts (all white, by the way) attend institutions that look, smell, feel, and operate nothing like those involved in Williams v. California. The narrative that accompanies the educational experts children to school everyday does not have them failing. "</p>
<p>Wlliams v. California has now been settled for $1 billion - it would have taken roughly $20 billion to simply "equalize" the schools, but that will be the next lawsuit.</p>
<p>The website on Williams v. California is a real eye-opener: <a href="http://www.decentschools.org/court_papers.php%5B/url%5D">www.decentschools.org/court_papers.php</a></p>
<p>I agree that the conditions described are horrendous. My point is that if one of the most prestigious lycee in Paris has 40+ students per class and a pass rate at the baccalaureat of 100%, what can be said of the conditions in less prestigious public schools in countries of Eastern Europe or in Tunisia? I don't know. But blaming the poor performance of US students, not all of whom attend schools such as those described above, on the conditions of schools alone is not necessarily the way to go. I have had a chance to look at my niece's math curriculum--the national math curriculum for her stream--, and it is far tougher than what is expected of students in the US who, like her, do not intend to major in math/science. </p>
<p>See article below. </p>
<p>"But blaming the poor performance of US students, not all of whom attend schools such as those described above, on the conditions of schools alone is not necessarily the way to go."</p>
<p>But the point is, when you factor out those schools (as the Third International Math and Science Study actually did), the U.S. finishes close or at the top. You don't have to go any further for an explanation, because the simplest one (good ol' Occam) works. </p>
<p>In other words, there isn't ONE public education system.</p>
<p>I am sure it depends on which school system you are in within the state. I will annoy some with a list of places I would look for a decent education:
Massachussettes, California, New York, Iowa.</p>
<p>Within these states there are many school systems I wouldn't want my kids attending, but many that I think are excellent. If you tossed in the college and University system,the first three names would remain.</p>
<p>To get back to the question I have heard really good things about the MINN school system. Additionally friends in Lexington MA are very happy with their schools and are bemused that it isn't like that everywhere!</p>
<p>To make things even more difficult, the quality can also vary widely within a single district or even in a single school. The elementary school I went to is one of five in our district, and the smallest by far. Most of us have now agreed that we had a very "private school" atmosphere in this school because of its small size. None of the other elementary schools had after school language classes starting in second grade, classes of about fifteen students, numerous nationally successful OM teams, etc. Upon entering middle school it was a shock to hear about kids who had not had similar experiences. Admittedly, this is not a normal public school district, but I'm sure the disparities are the same in just about any district with multiple schools.</p>
<p>I too have lived abroad, as has Marite, and I can verify that the United States schools, in various school districts in various states, offer exceptionally poor value per public dollar spent on them. There are very few schools at all in the United States that are at a truly top international level. There are a lot of schools in the United States, including some in the wealthy western suburbs of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, that are pretty much at a middling level by international comparisons, despite much higher levels of public spending on them and much lower class sizes. Where my wife grew up, 60 pupils in each classroom was the norm, and an amazingly small class might have only 50 pupils in it. And ****roaches are EVERYWHERE in that country. None of the usual excuses (including 90 percent of all school pupils attending school in a second language, because the official language of instruction was not their native language) kept the pupils from learning better on average than Americans in the same generation.</p>
<p>i'm gonna go ahead and back up my state NJ --> rutgers university is awesome for a public school...</p>
<p>Virginia, especially Northern Virginia, although I suspect it has much to do with the general wealth of the area.</p>
<p>Yes, but I am also going to hazard a guess that European schools are not required to provide special education. When you look at per pupil costs, you have to understand that in US schools, where we are required to educate ALL students costs for special education students can be anywhere from 2 to 10 times what it costs to educate a regular education student. If you are going to compare schools, you need to compare apples to apples. Most European high schools have already siphoned off the non-college bound kids and sent them to learn a trade. Therefore, when we compare test scores internationally, we are often comparing the whole of the US population with the select few of the international set. Most other countries don't include special needs students in their testing pool, while the US does. Not making excuses, just saying that you need to compare similar populations if you want to make valid conclusions.</p>
<p>That being said, those students in the upper midwest - MN, WI, ND, SD and IA test as well as kids just about anywhere in the world even with special education populations included.</p>
<p>We lived in London when my children were small. The schools in affluent areas there exceeded by far anything we have seen in the States. California was on someone's list which surprises me no end. We should be wholly horrified here! Affluent school districts with great parent support can't compare to school districts in the MW where we lived.</p>
<p>Can't you just look at the NMS scores per state. Some states have higher qualification scores than others. It seems like Mass was the highest.</p>
<p>I guess that could be skewed by private schools however.</p>
<p>There are many schools in Alaska where there are less than 30 kids in the whole school. That is K-12. They are having an extremely hard time with the "no child left behind act" which says that every teacher must be "highly qualified". Can you imagine a 2 teacher school where the teachers must be highly qualified in every subject.</p>
<p>In general, those schools do not test well.</p>
<p>OTOH...I believe that distance education is going to help if it is used correctly. Motivated students will be able to pipe in the best teachers in the country via the internet.</p>
<p>EK:</p>
<p>Lexington, MA is one of the top school districts in MA and in the country. Full of Harvard, MIT, BU, etc... profs' kids and kids of similarly educated professionals. Totally unlike Roxbury (Boston) or Lowell.</p>