February 13th, 2006

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Television
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20/20’s Stupid in America

While uploading that Sedin goal, I happened upon this recent 20/20 documentary, Stupid in America. It discusses the fundamental failures of the American public school system over the past 30 years. There are some pretty fascinating stories in the piece.

They do the usual comparison of students in the USA and abroad. In this case, it’s Belgium, where the kids (if you’ll forgive the pun) totally school the American kids on a test. What the program hasn’t pointed out thus far is how extraordinary the Belgians’ English skills are.

The most intriguing point, however, is that more money doesn’t equal better education. Adjusted for inflation, America has doubled per-pupil spending over the past thirty years, and yet schools show little or no improvement. This flies in the face of the standard BCTF outcry for more money for schools. This being a primetime news show, they don’t delve into the numbers enough, but the quoted expert has a book that no doubt does.

I’m not necessarily singling out the Americans here–I think we’ve got similar, if less dramatic issues in Canada’s school system.

Comments: 17 Responses so far

Stacey
February 13th, 2006
1:16 pm

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It like when I get into my hummer 3 in the morning

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Keep up the good work

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-j.
February 13th, 2006
1:59 pm

Funny, that’s what I was thinking. This blog is EXACTLY like that.

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Richard Akerman
February 13th, 2006
3:26 pm

Golly, I’m afraid I can’t top the relevance of the Hummer 3, but I will mention that I am somewhat skeptical of John Stossel.

Every Stossel story goes like this:
1. “common sense” scorn heaped upon position Stossel disagrees with
2. “obvious common sense” libertarian market-based solution to the problem

I particularly liked his piece on global warming. It went something like “I’m John Stossel and author Michael Crichton (who went to med school!) wrote that global warming is not true, so you shouldn’t believe it either. It’s just common sense.”

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Andrea
February 13th, 2006
5:14 pm

I like it when I get into my Hummer and it causes global warming. Jeez, I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets comment spam.

As for Stossel, I saw the original broadcast. Stossel fails to mention that he filmed the US school kids on the last day of the year, when they weren’t very interested in school. He also failed to look at funding by GDP — I think Belgium was 50% ahead.

None of the reports/criticisms I’ve seen have looked at the Belgian school. My concerns would be similar to my concerns about magnet schools. Is this a school where parental involvement is high, parents are professionals with the means and skills to lobby and effect change, a minimum grade is set to keep out students who struggle with school, etc? The principal may meet parents’ expectations, but the other 90% of schools may be made up of kids (and parents) who couldn’t get into this one. My cousins went to school in Belgium and I never got the feeling that their schooling was any better. It sounded like they had just as many drunken/stoned parties as we did here in Canada.

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Darren
February 13th, 2006
5:38 pm

Andrea: One note–Stossel does at one point say “it’s after finals” or something to that effect. I agree, though, that he doesn’t indicate what time of year various bits were shot.

I do think he makes a strong case that there isn’t necessarily a direct relationship between more money and better educated children.

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Andrea
February 13th, 2006
8:12 pm

The numbers in this report suggest that Belgium actually devotes more money to education.

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Darren
February 13th, 2006
8:25 pm

Andrea: If you go down the comment thread in that entry, you can find this retort, which indicates that the Americans spend more.

The blogger who wrote that entry doesn’t provide any links to the report he quotes. I’ve emailed him to ask for a link, so that I can check it out for myself.

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Jeff
February 13th, 2006
9:11 pm

Cough

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Andrea
February 13th, 2006
9:47 pm

Darren, I think it’s an older version of these OECD data. However, the report doesn’t split out expenditure by private and public sources, so I’d hesitate to use it. Not that I have something better to offer.

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Rocky
February 14th, 2006
4:53 am

Regardless…! A victim of the American public school system, and mother to a current victim, firsthand experience tells me that our system is in ruins. I send my child off to school for seven hours a day and then spend at least three hours a night of my own time teaching him what he should be taught.

Like everything else in this sell-out country, education has become a business, not a national priority. But all is not lost! Where education fails, we have our own leaders devoted to teaching our children in a hands-on way. For instance, that old addage, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people?” Our very own Vice President took the opportunity to demonstrate that principle to our children just this weekend. We couldn’t be more proud.

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Darren
February 14th, 2006
10:59 am

Andrea: The way I read the table on page four of that document is that Belgium spends 3.6% of its GDP on elementary and secondary education, while the US spends 3.9%.

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Andrea
February 14th, 2006
11:41 am

Yes, I see your point. But what would be helpful would be some numbers showing how much of the US money is actually going to private schools. From what I read in the report, the 3.9% includes private funding.

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double-plus-ungood
February 14th, 2006
1:59 pm

Andrea: The way I read the table on page four of that document is that Belgium spends 3.6% of its GDP on elementary and secondary education, while the US spends 3.9%.

That would mean that the US spends a greater proportion of its GDP, but not necesarily that it spends more money. That would depend on the number of children in the country.

Or did I miss something?

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'nee
February 14th, 2006
4:13 pm

Re: Canada, for example Ontario is doing away with highschool Calculus. They’re having trouble dealing with the abolition of Grade 13, and this is the answer. It’s possibly a mistake.

A recent article in Time Magazine talks about the problems with the US Science Curriculum, specifically the fact that they cover a tonne of stuff really breifly, and nothing in depth. What this leads to is teachers picking and choosing what parts of science to teach, which leads to unequal education that tends in the direction of the teacher’s tastes, preferences and skills. (and keep in mind they’re usually not science teachers, they’re general teachers doing science) Multiply that by all subjects, and I shudder to think. Money may be part of the problem, but …

Unfortunately it’s hard to test out a new curriculum/funding model without ruining a few kids in the process if it’s a failure.

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Andrea
February 14th, 2006
10:24 pm

Double-Plus Ungood, I looked up the population pyramids for the US and Belgium. 10% of the US population is school-aged, compared with 17% for Belgium.

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double-plus-ungood
February 15th, 2006
11:17 am

looked up the population pyramids for the US and Belgium. 10% of the US population is school-aged, compared with 17% for Belgium.

Wow, that’s quite a difference. FWIW, I just did the math, and it looks like the US spends $17,266.08 per child in school, and Belgium spends $6,410.20.

Of course, my math may be way off.

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Kate
February 15th, 2006
1:43 pm

Rocky’s comment:

Like everything else in this sell-out country, education has become a business, not a national priority

gets to the heart of this issue, regardless of money spent per child in school. And Canada is no better - public schools are seen as places where kids to to learn how to be useful in the workplace, not to learn to think or anything scary like that.

But that’s not the end of it, seemingly we still have to go back to school for everything here before employers will hire us, spending thousands of dollars on courses teaching things that are better learned on the job. Ever seen the ‘education’ section of the classifieds in Vancouver papers? Painful.

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