Why are our universities world renowned but our high school system is not?

Parents Forum
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Since we have 50 states, and 50 State Board of Education, there is that diversity. Then there are public school districts that have the benefit of higher property taxes, better funding, better prepared students. When a student gets support in reading, math, educational activities at home. States are finding out how beneficial preschool is so now we have K4 programs that are publicly funded. If a parent is helping over-see a student’s progress and difficulties.

When a student is in with a higher achieving pool of peers, the teaching level can be higher all along through the K - 12 years. Some schools have gifted programs. For a student that doesn’t want to put in the effort in elementary school, will fall behind the achievers in middle school. By high school you have a range of ‘diplomas’. That produces a gap for those that can go on to a 4 year college and do well, and those that may need to go to community college and take pre-college or remedial classes.

Parents who are educated and who value education look at what education is available for their children and decide where to live and if they put their children in private or public schools through HS. Those that realize what it takes for various college opportunities will help steer their children to the correct preparations in HS.

If a child does not have the advantages of being in a supportive household for education, and there are other disadvantages, they may have less educational opportunities and the student may also put less personal effort into their own education.

Then we have ‘common core’ and other types of programs. Some people have thrown some real junk into that program. However, since federal dollars are behind some of it, even though some of it is ‘junk’, it may get incorporated. So there are politics involved too.

One thing I could have done as a parent is check out audiotape children’s books in a second language because the early years of dual language, a child learns language differently in the early years than the later years. I didn’t feel strong enough in the second language to do this, but that would have benefited my children with a second language early. Learning it later was more difficult.

Some kids can assess their strengths and weaknesses and direct their energies accordingly, while some students just give up.

In the US, we have educational opportunities beyond other countries. You are not assessed on a track early on, if you are going to University or to trade school. We have opportunities for adults to continue their education. We have Pell Grant and other financial aid. So if someone did not have the advantages through HS, they may be able to ‘catch up’ as adults.

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@shawbridge:

My comments clearly specified that I was using a population adjusted assessment (USA 316 million, UK 64 million, a five-fold difference. Your own data supports exactly what I said. US 8 in top 10, UK 2; US 16 in top 20, UK 3; US 32 in top 50, UK 5. All as expected.

Students come from all over the world to get a PhD in the UK too. Most UK universities offer a PhD, not a DPhil (which is mainly at Oxford). Although in the UK a DPhil and PhD are the same and there is no sense in trying to pick out DPhil as you have. You can argue as you like about the extra year or two of course work in the US, or the extra year or so research in the UK. But universities in the UK and US happily hire PhD (and "lite"Oxford DPhils) from the other country, judging the specific candidate.

And from objective data on research publication output and quality, on a population adjusted basis, the UK is definitely not worse than the US.

Heck, on a population adjusted basis, the UK even gets more Olympic medals than the US!

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Right @sorghum. I agree that the UK has strong universities. I responded in part to your assertion that the US couldn’t fully match the UK on a per capita basis. It seems to me to the US fully matches or slightly more. Moreover, the US university system on an absolute basis dominates the rest of the world combined by a lot. Finally, the US Leads the world in patents, innovation generally and innovative companies. (Here is some basic patent data: http://www.cityam.). Kudos on the medals.

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Ability grouping! Colleges are highly stratified by ability.

We would never dream of placing remedial science students in a biology class with second-year med students, but elementary and middle schools routinely have classes with a five to 10-year ability gap. As a practical matter, bright American students are not allowed to learn anything until they get into high school, and sometimes not even then.

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Well, I only referred to Oxford and Cambridge in that regard. I don’t believe at all that the US has 10 universities as strong as Oxford and Cambridge, to match the population ratio.

I am not British, or American.

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And here is the Global Innovation Index for 2014

https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/content.aspx?page=data-analysis

UK #2, US #6.

Here is an example of a research impact study, in this case physics:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/feb/21/uk-overtakes-us-in-research-impact

US is definitely #1 in the field of “making sleek objects seem very desirable”, even if an i-phone is functionally no better than a Samsung.

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"It is expected that China will overtake the US in terms of the quantity of research output in physics in the next couple of years.

@sorghum, thanks for the above. I was struck by the China comment (but not shocked.) US drive for dominance in science in the 2nd half of the 20th century was fueled by the cold war. Now, we as a society are beginning to simply not care much about any research that doesn’t ring big in someone’s – whether the gov’t or private sector – cash register.