Why Is American Teaching So Bad?

i did not read the article, just quickly scanned through. but the answer to my best knowledge is:

1) it isn't always that bad, if you pay the premium for private education you can get some of the best education available in the world 2) the people who pay for private schools also pay a significantly larger share of the taxes 3) those taxes pay for the public schools

thus: public teaching is bad because the ones that proportionally pay more for it, don't make use of it.

i live in a country (NL) where public schools are the norm, we all pay for what we (almost) all consume.

I'm not following the cause and effect of your logic. Are you missing a point or two? Perhaps "The ones who are paying for it are paying less than they need to"? or maybe "The ones who apportion those taxes have no financial incentive to apportion them wisely"?

Even in those cases, there should be enough distance between those paying the tax (in whatever portions) and those spending the tax to ensure that the government runs without interference and can provide the best service at that price point. If the service isn't good enough, then increase the price point. If you don't want to increase the price point, then reduce the quality of your service.

Either way, I think the argument falls into the category of "Wealth redistribution is a broken concept", and that's a whole 'nother ball game that any discussion on schools just isn't big enough for.

Yes. Services used only or mainly by the poor, tend to be poor.

I also enjoyed an education from public schools in The Netherlands (NL) but I feel this article is more about the teacher than the system. Besides, the NL system is also district-based and we recently started "grading" schools according to standardized tests and then publishing the results. This will probably (and already has to a certain degree) result in parents wanting their children to go to the schools that score highest, in turn, those schools request more "bijdrage" (extra cost, for supposed 'school trips' and 'books'), in turn making those schools less diverse (i.e. more "white") and in turn making schools that used to perform nominally, worse.

The teacher is what makes the student, and unfortunately I have also witnessed PABO students barely able to pass basic spelling/math tests. Those students will probably only go on to teach toddlers/basic grades, but due to teacher shortages it is conceivable that they will eventually move on to teach higher grades as well.

In my opinion, there is no easy short-term solution to the problem of adequate teacher-levels due to regulation/unions etc. We parents should try our best to partially circumvent the entire issue by avoiding "permanent damage" is done by staying up to date with what the child learns and focus on rote-skills that are hard for teachers to supervise in large class-rooms but immensely important when those kids grow up: maths and writing.

Perhaps this will get easier as teaching/assignments are increasingly interactive, allowing the parent to gain a better view of the child's performance and problems. Here's me hoping this e-learning thing takes off as soon as possible, with teachers perhaps evolving to simply guiding their pupils with extra support (if necessary), social interaction (digital age might not be all thats cracked up to be with encouraging social skills), learning techniques, and job planning as kids these days have no idea what they realistically are going to do for work later.

EDIT: Added some perhaps off-topic personal vision of what a teacher should do in the future when MOOCS/e-learning takes off.

I went through a period of time where I thought I wanted to teach. I took it as far as completing a 1 year education program that would allow me to be seek certification at the end.

The article has a paragraph that describes my experience perfectly:

"American education schools are often derided as overly theoretical, inscribing an arcane vocabulary about education and few real skills for delivering it. But these institutions actually teach a hollow and decidedly anti-intellectual brand of theory, as many critiques of education schools have concluded. Future teachers receive a warmed-over set of homilies about preparing “the whole child” and “student-centered learning” (with the requisite homage to philosopher and education theorist John Dewey) instead of a serious intellectual initiation into the subjects in which teachers will have to instruct students."