Why is education so poor?

But public education is not invented for the benefit of the public. It is invented for the benefit of those businesses that can drive propaganda.

By the way, historically, the idea of public education was constructed in post-revolutionary France, for the single purpose of assimilating everyone to the single Parisian thinking, marketing, language, and way of life. Nothing to do with literacy. At least in the Dark Ages you had a soul, albeit illiterate, but not murdered in assimilation.

If you live in Spain, why is it important that you learn Spanish literature and history at school instead of the American one? If your point was correct, then all Spanish schools should instruct in English only and teach American literature and history only.

 

What about our education system that brainwashes students to believe that the U.S. behaves like an angel in world affairs and that Democracies are the best form of government?

 

The problem with essay tests is that the teachers grade them objectively, and they are almost always scored lower than multiple choice tests. If a teacher perceives a student as smart, and that person turns in the exact same paper of one who isn't as smart, a teacher will grade the smarter one better. Also, with a lot of essay tests, if you miss one thing or a minor detail, they count double off. So even though you understand the general concept very well and most of the details, the highest score you can get is in the B+ range if you are an A student usually. I think the solution to this is to have essay tests, but grade them easier or if the teacher thinks they missed something in the essay, give the student a chance to add to their essay through oral questioning or something like that. I think schools focus too much on grades instead of actually teaching students. I think this type of solution is better because it gives students the opportunity to think while writing essays while not getting them discouraged because they will get worse grades.

 

LOL. Yeah create more ignorant people. Yeah, nice thinking.

Well, and usually when some one does it, I give them a nice answer, this one:

Per què collons m'he d'esforçar a aprendre la teva llengua? Més quan al teu pais no hi ha llengua oficial, així que tothom pot parlar la llengua que li surti d'allà baix. I ara a cascar-la.

 

When you miss something on an essay question, a lot of times teachers say the answer is too vague. Maybe that is because the question is too vague. Since you were a horrible student in high school, do you think you would have done better if they paid more attention to you? Or do you think you wouldn't have tried no matter how much extra help you got? There's a lot of students like that now, and it is not necessarily a bad thing. However, I think we need a better way to deal with these types of students than what we currently are doing.

 

Have I talked about what shoud be taught in school? No. Just I've said that education is really important. And you must have educated the poblation.

And your message is imperialist. Why I should learn about a foreign culture that don't says me anything? I should learn what affects me more. Or you learn Chinese literature and Chinese history? So. That is nonsense, that I should be only taught in English.

And more, I am from a region where we learn in other language, Catalan, not only Spanish.

And I am a defender of a reform of the educative system and make it more participative. Where the studends from really low ages can decide and take their own decissions in the matter of their education. But if you want to have a society well educated you need to make that education is universal and free. And the only way to do that in today social/economic systems is by the public education.

 

No, there are not enough jobs for engineers and scientists. The education system should be producing a lot more of them instead of doctors and lawyers. Doctors and lawyers aren't near as important to society. I do agree that a university degree is useless for a lot of jobs even though those jobs require or reccomend it. Education is the key to the future, but right now it is not focused in the right areas.

 

Someone may be well educated, but it doesn't mean they are any smarter than someone who is not.

 

Actually your incorrect. Charlemagne was the first to bring about public education not post-revolutionary France.

 

All people were the same in the Dark Ages as well, but the church along with a combination of other things was murdering the soul in assimilation instead of the education system.

 

I've never said that. I've met many people that have a lot of careers and is really stupid. And people that does not have almost any formal studies and is smart.

But a well educated person(and I not mean with today education, because have many carencies, and one of them is education in free thinking) is always better than one than is not, mainly because the well educated probably will think more by his own than one who is not educated.

 

How would that create more ignorant people? Instead of learning something you will never use, you can learn something that will actually benefit you.

 

In previous years I've read the OECD PISA reports that various countries have put out.

Australia's and Canada's make it sound like it's crisis time and something must be done to fix various things that are seen as going wrong in the education in those countries. The US's reports that I've read read as brag reports. We beat this country. We're so awesome. We beat Mexico. Man we're awesome. Nothing wrong here, we're awesome.

Australia and Canada consistently place in about the top 5. The US, bottom half.

There's the problem I think, attitude. The US has this whole American exceptionalism thing so obviously nothing is ever wrong.

 

You have formative and summative assessment. Formative is used to see how students are progressing whereas summative assessment is used to grade. All assessment is formative but not all is summative. Standardises testing is best used for formative, however, due to various governments in the US all forcing their own standardises tests on schools many schools in the US apparently use those tests for their summative assessment as well as they don't have enough time to do the standardises tests and their own.

There does appear to be a link between standardised testing and falling levels of achievement.

 

American exceptionalism is a great thing, but we seem to use the concept to guise societal flaws, which is wrong.

 

I think you're definitely on to something.

 

People who learn a foreign language are more literate in their own.

 

Education is of a poor quality because the poor have the most kids.

 

In the top ranked nation for education, South Korea, they take the opposite approach. There is rigorous coursework, and more standardized testing. You are essentially taught from your initiative immersion into the education system on to prepare for tests, and only tests.

 

I haven't got that vibe at all. Most everybody here thinks that our education is crap, maybe excepting the government.

 

Especially the romance languages. However, it is no longer important to speak and understand these languages. Mandarin and Arabic should be taught in schools.

 

What does that mean?

 

Exactly that. That someone that knows more languages is more lliterate. And is easier for them understand things. Than some one that only talks one language. And today only know one language is of ignorants and illiterates.

 

I heard the other day that some US state has removed tens of millions of dollars from education and given tens of millions of dollars worth of tax breaks to a creationist theme park.

Creationism hurts science education in the US. Science education is the key to tomorrow and that includes the economy.

Texas is the largest purchaser of text books in the US and it mandates which text books schools are allowed to buy. Because of this text book publishers tend to write their books geared towards the Texas market. The problem is that Texas doesn't like "antiGod" science, you know, evolution, the big bang, all the really important stuff, so those areas of science tend to be either removed entirely or whitewashed so that it won't offend Texans.

Then everyone buys them and teachers who don't know much about science then use those books and their students miss out on actually learning real science.