General Forum

20-20 investigation by John Stossel entitled "Stupid in America" highlighting some of the flaws with the education system in the United States. The story started out when identical tests were given to high school students in New Jersey and in Belgium. The Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks. The Belgian kids called the American students "stupid", which gave the piece its name.

Source..
http://www.fundistraction.com/2007/03/2020-stupid-in-america.html

I've never been a big fan of John Stossel, but even with his cherry picked examples (he even admits to trying to find the worst public schools and the best private schools) there is a problem with the current system. The thing I would have to agree with there is to just give every kid a voucher and let them choose their school, let the free markets iron out the kinks that's slowing our schools down instead of our innefective government.

Nobel Laureates by Country
#1: USA 270
#2: UK 100
#13: Belgium 9

School system in North America is so damn easy.

Just wait till you get to a college in America...

You firstly have to be able to afford it. *cough*

First, post-secondary education should be 100% free, assuming one can keep reasonable grades and actually attends. Of course bullsh** degrees (search Mickey Mouse Degrees on Wikipedia) should not be covered.;) Those who don't/can't attend university should at least be sent to a trades school.

Second, teachers should be graded, but also paid more. I have not had the misfortune of encountering a really bad teacher, luckily, but I've had some who are deserving of a much better working environment and pay.

Third, there needs to be a much stronger emphasis on science, math, etc. This also means no BS ID or crap like that. Not a problem in Canada AFAIK (as far as I know), but I think everyone has heard about it in the American school system. Religion has a hugely negative effect on intelligence. Ok maybe I just hate religion lol.


The "gap" between American (and very likely, Canadian, since we don't like the idea of being different) and European/Asian students can be attributed to many things. I'd say it's most likely a combination of the following:
- Excuses like ADHD. I won't go so far as to say it's fake, but it is stupidly over-diagnosed. "Hey you have vADHDMR235 which explains why you're stupid" tells a person they are basically legally allowed to be stupid. BS! A handicap should never be a handicap. An obstacle is something that should be conquered, not surrendered to.
- Media. TV, movies, etc. geared towards kids and teenagers make stupid look almost cool or acceptable. Take MTV. Basically any show on there or any musician is too dumb to spell their own name. Of course half the retards in NA idolize or at the very least, like, these people, so that's a huge problem. Of course anybody guilty of this is already headed for a lifetime of flipping burgers, so this isn't really a valid point.
- Lots of courses are crap. One of the glaring examples is Social Studies, which is basically History + some sociology. It focuses almost entirely on Natives and how we so evilly destroyed their culture. Lets ignore how Christianity has destroyed thousands of other cultures and focus on Indians! Ok, anyway, I learned almost next to nothing about two vastly more important events: WW1 and 2. I feel an understanding of war is more important than being fed another BS politically correct thinly-veiled reason of why even a smidgen of being proud of your culture's history is bad because your ancestors did a bad bad thing!!1.
- Teachers aren't paid enough. Simple. Unfortunately our society has a massive hard-on for money, and now money = everything. So give them more of it and they'll do better! And give better equipment. Computers have proven to be a great educational tool, so let's give every student one. The f***ing third world is doing it, so there's no excuse here. Oh yeah, class sizes should have a cap. Textbooks should be up to date (and ideally electronic, since the environment actually does matter). I don't want to look in my physics text and see computers built before I was born, thanks. Even if the basic content doesn't change much, if at all, year to year, regular updates weed out errors and help improve the textbook.
Another important thing is to get problems out of the classes. Anybody remember the Simpsons episode where Bart's effect on the class is represented by a cone? This includes teachers.


Ok this turned more into a rant and took me like an hour to type, gg Lost distracting me. Rofl.

Pulk,
USA - 301,432,326
UK - 60,609,153 (July 2006 est.)
Belgium - 10,379,067 (July 2006 est.)

And how many highly educated people immigrate to the US and England compared to Belgium?

And dondon, I'm current a student in Canada, I've been blessed with great teachers and cursed with terrible ones (perverted boozie, pothead, in need of anger-management). We have a social studies class, i beleive it to be incredibly different from the US's it goes through ancient history up to modern times and covers canadian history and the happy little wars of 20th century. And i do beleive canada to be different from america and not wanting to be in the same boat. We have higher test scores, and our system isn't quite as bad.
I think that yes, the teachers should get more money and maybe the principles should get less. I honestly don't think they do enough to get paid as much as they do. also i beleive that maybe they could try to figure out a better way to spend their millions of dollars, say, up to date text books, windows that open? non-inept teachers

And the 20-20 guy really annoys me..

You only have to watch "Are you smarter than a 5th Grader" to realize how smart typical Americans are. Those questions are easy and yet everone has trouble with them.


/checks post for spelling and gramatical errors...

Its lame how there isnt a HUman Geography class until grade 12 =[
I had it at Brazil since grade... 5.

Say what you will about the American Education system of the US. I mean I've heard tons of people bash it and the truth of the matter is the resuls speak louder than the words of people. I mean I know for a fact people from countries complain of our application processes for college compared to theirs that are based on difficult tests. But in the US being an all around student is of great importance as well. For example, you aren't going to get into a top university in the US such as Harvard, Columbia, Yale, unless you play sports, do research/some type of apprenticeship, lead a couple of school clubs, and have amazing grades. Colleges are the same way here in the courses a person has got to take. For example, I'm a double major in Biochemistry and Political Science, but I stil have to take courses on eastern cultures, literature, philosophy, etc.

Btw Vodka, about the expenses of American colleges I agree with you to an extent. You should always check out scholarships and public universities as well. They aren't as bad as the private schools.

Pfft.

America might have slightly bad primary education, but our Colleges are awesome.

And as far as shows like are you smarter then a 5h grader...its not hard to pick idiots to go on a tv show.

Asians are considered the "Smartest" but i bet if you into china and pick out a 67 year old rice farmer he wont know what the 7th moon of the 7th planet from the sun is either. ;]

Surverys and statistics, and yes..even tv shows (OMG!) are easily manueverable to show what you want it to show.

I disagree guilda, American colleges are not better than many other countries, the only difference is the names of the schools. Harvard Law dosn't necessarily give a better education than a community college in Ontario.

and it's surprising what some people don't know, and how they are still able to operate in the world.

SIMPLY put!!!!...PUT GOD back into OUR schools, the REST will WORK itself OUT in TIME!...:)

Who would have thought, our beligerent WARBEAST is at heart a loving Christian.

"Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" is so fake. First, during the credits, it says that the kids are given workbooks that "may" contain information relating to the questions being asked. Second, the kids are obviously not camera shy at all, which means they are probably actors, who have to be trained in what the show involves (at least I read that somewhere). Third, lots of the questions asked are not something that an adult necessarily needs to know.
But that's no excuse for the contestants not to be able to at least fumble their way through. The questions are ridiculous, even if they're unnecessary IRL. I am at a stalemate in regards to my opinion of the show. True, the kids have been prepped for the material, but the contestants must have difficulty breathing they are so inept at bluffing their way through. "What ship did the Pilgrims take?" Come on, everybody has heard of the Mayflower. In case it isn't clear: an education system is NOT responsible for retards who couldn't find their way out of a wet paper bag or hax0rs who have studied the exact questions that will be asked.



I would say Canadian and American universities/colleges are more or less the same in "goodness." Unfortunately, Canada has fewer, meaning some degrees aren't offered. Like what I want to take. Gotta go to either UoT or an American univ.:( I may be ridiculously off base, but I do not think an employer cares what univ a potential employee has as long as they have an applicable degree.



God back in the curriculum? Maybe once all you religious folk agree on something, you can start finding some evidence. Is the Earth 6,000 years old or 10,000, or did that bastard Xenu bomb it again? Hey, there can only be one true religion, right? Are those billions of Hindus off base? What about the Vikings? Oh, those were just myths. Sorry, it gets kinda confusing here.:(
Until then, fairy tales do not bolster an education system.

I think you're off base on whether the employers cares about where the degree came from, seriously, imagine if you owned a business and had 2 seemingly equal applicants, one from Harvard and one from some Vancouver Community College. Who would you hire?

AD I think your off based in saying that the school name is the only difference. If you look at a school such as Harvard Law the professors will be more distinguished, having higher position and being published in more journals. Also the facilities will be significantly better. I mean if your comparing community school to community school that is fine, but you can't compare an Ivy to community schools.

Duh Harvard is better, but I am talking about, say, UVic vs UBC, or UBC vs Camosun. I probably should have said "a degree, regardless of its school of origin, as long as it is applicable to the job at hand, is better than no degree." And for 95% of schools, UoX is not better than UoY.

As for your applicant proposition:
Look at grades. If the Harvard guy had a GPA of like 1.2 vs. the community college guy's GPA of 4.0, it's obviously who actually gave a s*** about their education. Of course a slightly lower GPA at a prestigious university doesn't mean that person is slightly less competent at the subject, if grades are all that matter. Harvard's course load is probably much more demanding and the material much tougher than the community college's.
Also consider Harvard Guy (let's ignore GPAs for now) would probably demand more money just because he is from Harvard. True, there is the off chance he might be worth the extra money, but he probably isn't.
One might also want to look at other factors:
Is Harvard Guy a spoiled kid who got his education paid for? If so, he's probably a lot less motivated than Community College Guy who, maybe due to lack of funds, had to attend a less prestigious institute. Not everybody gets a scholar ship.

Of course that's all theoretical, and I'd probably take the Harvard Guy because he came all this way to work for MY company.:D Oh, wait, this isn't real. I got no company.:(