Stupid in America: Why your kids are probably dumber than Belgians

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• I believe it. Americans are just retards especially that asshole Bush!

• Perhaps if the system would not speak in absolute terms (you're doing bad, you're automatically going to get budget cuts for your resources; you're doing bad, you automatically get more resources to abuse), but rather take things into context.

  Many inner-city schools can barely afford new books. Is this because they have hired incompetent teachers or administrators? Not necessarily. We can't chalk it up to one thing or another. Perhaps there is a more deep-seated reason that the schools I've mentioned are failing.

  Over-crowded areas, lower tax-rates, more people on welfare, not enough jobs? Who knows. We should investigate rather than make universal assumptions. Reform begins when we know what caused the problem or how to solve it, not blindly swinging around policies that only benefit the majority and fail to take things into context.

• But giving the same amount of support to all schools and teachers, regardless of their performance, *is* very much like giving Cs to students no matter how hard they try.

  I'm all for reform, but there are some schools and some teachers that do perform better than others. Let's ensure that they get the credit they deserve, and that everyone else be encouraged to learn from the example of what works.

  I agree that bad schools need reorganization. Stossel is pointing to flaws in the whole American educational system. Again, he's hyping his facts in order to get people talking about his report, but he's pointing to a systematic problem in the American public education system.

  According to Stossel's report: "We tolerate mediocrity," said Klein, because "people get paid the same, whether they're outstanding, average, or way below average."

  I don't have the answers that will solve the problem with a wave of a magic wand, but it seems to me my "C- to C+" example is more generous than what Klein said, since Klein says even the sexual predator was taking home a salary.

  Another quote from the same story:

  Klein employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what they call "rubber rooms." This year he will spend twenty million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms.

  The problem, then, isn't that the school system doesn't have enough money. If Klein is telling the truth, and the school system is paying that much money to keep its incompetent teachers from contacting students, then the system needs more than just reorganization.

• Being uncompetitive in terms of budget is not exactly as if you'd be giving the same kind of grade to all the pupils regardless of their achievements. It is like giving different amounts of food to pupils, depending on their achievements, while neglecting their grades.

  If teachers do not do a good job, the solution will not consist in making their job even harder by diverting resources from them. Bad schools need reorganization etc, not cuts in funding.

• It's perfectly legal for parents to send their kids to private schools or to home-school, so I think Stossel is exaggerating when he refers to a government monopoly. As I noted, I dislike the tabloid-style hype.

  It does takes time and money to choose alternatives to the public school system. Asking for tuition waivers (to make those choices more available to a greater range of society), or pointing out ways that the existing school system can be improved, is hardly the same thing as "removing the public schools".

  I'm not sure whose point your're taking issue with, Gruber. I agree that the American system has a lot to learn from other organizations.

  I'm not sure how anyone is served if those schools and teachers who are *not* good at education continue to get the same amount of money as those who *are* good at it.

  That's like giving only C- through C+ to all students, and wondering why it is that the worst students contine to squeak by with passing grades, and the best students become bitter, burn out, and drop out.

  If you had two schools on the same street, and one offered only C- through C+ grades, and the other offered the whole range -- F through A -- what kind of student would prefer to stay in a system that only offered C grades, and what kind of student would prefer a system that gave the whole range of grades?

• How do you get to the conclusion that a government monopoly would be the root of all evil behind the bad education of American pupils?

  Don't you forget that in all countries scoring above America, the vast majority of pupils attends public schools with a government-sanctioned curriculum. If the Americans do a bad job at organizing their school system and fixing their curricula, removing the public schools is not likely to improve the situation for the majority.

  Nationwide competition in education is not necessarily a good thing. Usually it means that funds are diverted from those offering bad education and given to those that are better at it - which tends to widen the gap. As a result, you end up with very few good institutions that are attended by the gifted and the rich, and a lot of underfunded and hopeless crap-schools fot the rest of us - just like the American university system.
  This does not mean that you do not need evaluation and improvement. But if you look around in international education, you will find that it is not those countries doing best that offer competition and treat pupils as "customers", like Puerto Rico, but those that make sure that no-one is left behind, like Japan, Finland and Switzerland.

• That's a very complex issue. Obviously, you can't measure 12 years worth of education in one test. While I don't like the government pouring vast amounts of money into schools and regulate them at the national level, I think he oversimplifies the issue. I also think that his methodology is skewed.

  So, in my opinion the problem is not so much the money, but what the money does. With NCLB, the federal government takes a bigger step in local education systems. That's fine, but what's not fine to me is standardizing education. Like you mentioned, Dr. Jerz, what is an average? What measures a good education? Being better than another person?

  I can't see the benefit of administering one test to measure so much learning. (one of the reasons I abhor the SATs) But, I guess it makes sense, in a society that upholds hierarchal value and binary thinking (ie: you passed or failed, you did well or you sucked at the exam).

  Of course, in response to the Onion articles, is it always the student's fault for failure? I would like to think all teachers can teach (especially in high school), but the sad fact is some let struggling students fall through the cracks.

  If I go to put away a slippery soap bar and it falls, is it the soap's fault for being slippery? I feel that teachers have an obligation to teach, meaning they should not abusidly hide behind the excuse of "entitlement issues."
  -But- at the same time, students should not abuse entitlement, meaning the student must put forth equal effort to achieve education.

  Education is a process and dynamic. It is neither the student struggling to rise to the surface of knowledge, nor the teacher handing learning on a silver platter.

  That being said, how do you quantify a very personal and subjective process?