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America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

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Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#111

Post by conceit »

roymurdock wrote: post #107
gregatragenet3 wrote: post #24

Of course the US does poorly in this survey. The survey measures life skills. We've spent the last decades changing our schools from teaching life skills to pure college prep. A terrible disservice to young people. Here's some sample questions http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/Education%20and%20Skills_onli... .

One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? Relative to who you meet, and what brand you get to slap on your resume at the end of the day? Do you remember anything you learned in AP Calc or APUSH all those years ago? I think it's important to learn how to think. But you can always do that in your 4 years at college, once you get into an ivy league, right? Who needs life skills when you can get…

before you care about that question, you should ask yourself, "should it?."

BTW: Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right?

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#112

Post by FireBeyond »

mdorazio wrote: post #76
tamana wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't pass the smell test all. Your school sent 10% of its students to elite colleges, that's clearly not common.

It doesn't have to be common. You can move to whatever school district you want to (if you have the money for housing there) and get that same level of education. No one's forcing you to send your kids to sub-par public schools.

It does have to be "common" if 'you' (as in the OP) is claiming that "many" schools are excellent, with implicitly comparable graduation rates and destinations.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#113

Post by mindcrime »

murjinsee wrote: post #106
squeaky-clean wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at a Walgreens a little while ago, and there was a lady buying some sort of cable for a camera. I remember her literally asking the store clerk, "Will this work with a laptop, or does it have to be a computer?" I bring up this anecdote whenever someone else asserts " is common sense, no one could be confused by it". Help your parents with tech support at least once a year (or your friends' parents if yours are…

Thanks for saying this! I work with phones and it's sad to hear people talk about the ever-widening gap technology places between them and their children. Too many people from younger generations make fun of their parents for being technically illiterate. I spend an hour a week at least bringing my mom up to speed on Google Photos, iOS content management, etc. It feels good seeing somebody learn how to do things for…

I work with phones and it's sad to hear people talk about the ever-widening gap technology places between them and their children.

Meh. It's not an age issue. Anybody who's the parent of a contemporary teenager is probably a gen X'er themselves and when we were teenagers people said the same shit. Except back then it was "parents can't program their VCR's but the teenagers can". It was bullocks then and it's bullocks now.

It's an attitude / interest / personality thing (or something like that) not age. Remember, the oldest generations still hanging around include people who built the first computers in existence, and slightly younger ones include the people who created UNIX, VMS, C, etc.

Some people are interested in technology and have a natural inclination to poke around and figure out how shit works, and some don't.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#114

Post by go2college »

tcdent wrote: post #63
esaym wrote: post #32

I don't expect the public school system to teach my children anything. Hence why they won't be attending. Most of the schools I attended growing up were completely useless. Filthy, full of drugs and gangs. Sadly I even listened to some of my teachers more than I did my own parents (indoctrination) which I now see lead me down the wrong path. I don't expect the public school to teach my kids any kind of career skills…

As a publicly educated kid who started working when he was 15-1/2 (the legal minimum age in CA for a work permit at the time), I'd encourage you to rethink the importance of child-like innocence. Not that I regret my choices, but that 13 is just a little too young to be career-oriented, and 16 is probably the bare minimum. I was into computers at that age, but if my decisions were based on profitability or profession…

I agree completely. The summer in college I spent working on an assembly line screwing the same four screws in for 8 hours a day for $8/hour taught me nothing about building software. However, it gave me a great perspective then and now on how lucky I am to get paid (well) to do something I actually love doing (write software).

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#115

Post by ars »

ryandrake wrote: post #104
moultano wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn't, by any measure, appear to be a consequence of the children's efforts. What basis do you have for saying that?

The best ranked public schools are consistently in the richest neighborhoods, and the worst ranked ones are consistently in the poorest neighborhoods. I don't think this can be disputed. So, what's more likely? 1. Rich neighborhoods result in well-funded schools with the resources to provide a superior education, better than the not-well-funded schools that are in poor neighborhoods. Or 2. A superior education comes…

Or 3. The humans who are smarter become richer and have children who are also smarter (and thus do better in school).

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#116

Post by mindcrime »

conceit wrote: post #111
roymurdock wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? Relative to who you meet, and what brand you get to slap on your resume at the end of the day? Do you remember anything you learned in AP Calc or APUSH all those years ago? I think it's important to learn how to think. But you can always do that in your 4 years at college, once you get into an ivy league, right? Who needs life skills when you can get…

before you care about that question, you should ask yourself, "should it?." BTW: Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right?

Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right?

Well, since the question part is quoted, I believe the '?' should go inside the quotation marks in this case. But I think most Americans would put the period outside of the quotes, or leave it off altogether in that case. It's one of those things where I doubt anybody (other than an English teacher) actually knows the formal rule for sure. If there even is a rule. :-)

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#117

Post by moultano »

ryandrake wrote: post #104
moultano wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn't, by any measure, appear to be a consequence of the children's efforts. What basis do you have for saying that?

The best ranked public schools are consistently in the richest neighborhoods, and the worst ranked ones are consistently in the poorest neighborhoods. I don't think this can be disputed. So, what's more likely? 1. Rich neighborhoods result in well-funded schools with the resources to provide a superior education, better than the not-well-funded schools that are in poor neighborhoods. Or 2. A superior education comes…

Why would you think that similar people living near each other is the result of a coincidence?

Abject poverty is likely to have way more impact on kids performance in school than any level of school funding. Whether you want to lump that in with "children's efforts" or not, it's certainly exogenous to the school.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#118

Post by Throwaway23412 »

naveen99 wrote: post #48
Mikeb85 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the top 1% in the US will look decent I think. The US had, at some point, decided they wanted the school system to be unequal when they associated funding with property taxes from each region, thereby ensuring rich neighborhoods have well funded school, and poor neighborhoods poor schools. This enshines inequality into the system, so the top will have comparatively more resources. And you're far too optimistic a…

Funding doesn't help enough by itself, and the poor school districts get supplemental funds from federal and state governments bringing their total funding on par or higher than richer school districts. I went through poor public schools and richer public schools. Resources were not very different. If anything less competition at poor schools gave me an extra edge.

"the poor school districts get supplemental funds from federal and state governments bringing their total funding on par or higher than richer school districts"

Citation needed.

Just a casual web search for your claim seems to be yielding the opposite conclusion.

My anecdotal experience from moving around a lot (over half a dozen public schools from kindergarten to 12th grade) also contradicts your claim. Competition at richer schools has definitely given me an extra edge. The phrase "competition at poor schools" is also oxymoronic. What competition? Competition in classmates ignoring teachers and fights constantly erupting?

The gulf between poor schools and rich schools is ridiculous. Some schools offer several Advanced Placement courses, several International Baccalaureate courses, and partnerships with multiple nearby colleges for college courses. Students at poorer schools don't even know what AP and IB courses are. You don't know competition until the top 10% of your graduating class are either all going to Ivy League and prestigious colleges or all already have credit for college courses before even applying to college.

And I was just talking about the insane competition from fellow students. School resources and personnel are another matter. State-of-the-art SMART Boards. Laptops. Tablets. Multiple fields for multiple sports. Paid field trips. Study abroad. A robust student exchange program. Multiple year foreign language programs in around half a dozen languages. Teachers with multiple/advanced degrees. Several guidance counselors. Multiple vice/assistant principals. Multiple coaches.

I am genuinely curious what edge you think a poor school gave you.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#119

Post by dj-wonk »

mindcrime wrote: post #116
conceit wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

before you care about that question, you should ask yourself, "should it?." BTW: Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right?

Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right? Well, since the question part is quoted, I believe the '?' should go inside the quotation marks in this case. But I think most Americans would put the period outside of the quotes, or leave it off altogether in that case. It's one of those things where I doubt anybody (other than an English teacher) actually knows the formal r…

http://djwonk.tumblr.com/post/29687578295/silly-punctuation-...

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#120

Post by bpyne »

conceit wrote: post #111
roymurdock wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? Relative to who you meet, and what brand you get to slap on your resume at the end of the day? Do you remember anything you learned in AP Calc or APUSH all those years ago? I think it's important to learn how to think. But you can always do that in your 4 years at college, once you get into an ivy league, right? Who needs life skills when you can get…

before you care about that question, you should ask yourself, "should it?." BTW: Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right?

Not quite. You need to capitalize the S and remove the period. We don't typically use double punctuation.

Frankly, the whole phrasing of that statement would be very bizarre from an American's standpoint. We would typically say something along the lines of "Is the question worth caring about?" It's more concise and doesn't emulate an inner dialog.

More to your larger point, the placement of punctuation within quotes, while grammatically correct, has the feel of leaving a sentence incomplete.

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