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| 49376 |
The American educational system.
I would like some information about American educational system. It is regularly said that, except universities, it achieves poor results. Is ti true? What does a high school student learn? How many hours does he spend at school? Is it true that sport is very important?
Are these ideas mere clichés or realities?
I do know that states fund schools and this is a problem because in under-priviledged areas, where taxes do not collect much money, opportunities are not the same as in wealthy areas due to a gap between the means available.
I really wonder if there is a lot of violence in establishments because in most films that deal with schools we see teachers injured by pupils and students fighting.
Have there been some evolution throughout the different governements?
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Language pair: French; English
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| 49401 |
Re:The American educational system.
It depends which school you go to. And which state. The West has very good schools, and the north. Rhode Island (where I'm from) has awful schools. But I don't go to public school. I go to a Catholic school, which as higher educational status. We are required much more classes, I go to school for 8 hours a day, and I have about 2 hours of homework a night. Yes, sports are important, but in the USA, if you fail a class, you can't be on a sports team. And no, there isn't a lot of violence at schools, at least not as much as the movies say. The movies are just for entertainment. But like, there is violence in some schools, but there is violence everywhere in the world, not matter where you go.
~*Toni*~
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 49376
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| 49469 |
American Educational System Part I of IV
Schools. Wow, there's a big subject I could talk about for days. My state of California is an interesting case, because when I was growing up, we had among the finest public schools in the country. In the 70's, when I was in Junior High school, (The Los Angeles School system has a special school for grades 7-9 which we call Jr. High. Other districts have "middle Schools," which work a little differently – I'm not sure which grades – Perhaps our friend Toni from Rhode Island was in a Middle School and can tell us.) there was a taxpayer's rebellion, and the "Jarvis-Gann" amendment was added to our state constitution. This measure drastically cut property taxes and limited the legislature's ability to raise property taxes without the voter's approval by referendum. This was the beginning of my career as a political activist. At fifteen years old, I was going door-to-door begging people to save my education and vote down Proposition thirteen. But the initiative passed, and the state budget for public services was cut by more than half. And guess what? The California schools have gone from number one in the country to number 46. This makes me crazy. It makes me wonder if Democracy is such a good idea. If there were anything on the planet that worked better….
So my brother, thirteen years younger than I, really got ripped off. Charley is this amazing, bright, personable kid. He had his earlier education in Houston TX, which was pretty terrible, I understand. Then, when he was in Middle School, he and our Mom moved back here to California, and he finished his education in the San Francisco Bay area.
In TX, Charley had gotten some attention from his teachers about being very good at math. This so shamed him before his classmates and embarrassed him that he resolved never again to let a teacher know that he was smart.
When he got to California, he was sorted into a curriculum designed for students who will grow up to be laborers. When he graduated from high school, he had only the most rudimentary skills in math and language. I was just appalled.
As to most of your questions, my information is dated. But as a general rule it is safe to assume that my experience was generally a lot better than what students see in the same schools today.
I was an honor student, so I was sorted into the College track, and I took a lot of very interesting classes, such as Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Drama, Computer science, and so on. I was fortunate, in Jr. High, to be able to take Spanish for two years, and that was an invaluable experience I'm convinced every student should be offered. I took seven courses per day, each "hour"' lasting about 50 minutes. We had a fifteen minute recess and a half hour for lunch, so the school day worked out to be about eight hours.
Continued: See Part II of IV
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Language pair: English; English
This is a reply to message # 49376
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| 49470 |
American Educational System Part II of IV
I'm afraid. We had a very diverse class of students. I went to school in North Hollywood, which, as you might suspect from its name, actually had actors' kids attending. There were a couple of interesting students in my classes now and then. Nobody you'd be likely to know of, but your parents may have seen a couple of their parents in a movie or TV show now and again. And we did have some kids on campus who were kind of dangerous. We had some gang-bangers, some druggies, and some people who just didn't know how to be civilized. We had fights from time to time, but I only ever saw fist fights. I guess they were very careful to do all of the really heavy stuff off campus. I mean, if you're wondering how many Columbines we've got in our country, the answer is probably no more than you've heard about. Naturally, when it happens, it gets a lot of publicity. Of course, once is way too many, and I can think of three off of the top of my head. But it's not something that's happening every day, or happening in every school. Airplane crashes happen far more frequently. Lightening strikes a whole lot more often.
As far as the gang-banger stuff, I heard a few stories, but I never knew if they were true or not. We did have drugs on campus. I saw marijuana, amphetamines, barbiturates, sometimes psychedelic mushrooms. That last, I saw off campus, not on campus. My Jr. and Sr. years, I got in with a crowd that wasn't really the best for me. Not gang-bangers or anything, just a lot more interested in sex and drugs than in studying for exams.
I actually know very little about sports, not having participated much. But I do know that sports programs are a very important investment for schools. A solid sports program means students can get athletic scholarships and get into college, and a huge part of a school's reputation is based on the percentage of its graduates who go to college afterwards, as well as on which schools their graduates are getting into. As a result, sports programs will often get money that really needs to go to computer equipment, to sports programs for women (they never get nearly as much support as the men's sports programs do, and of course, programs like U.S. football and basketball always have far better funding than programs like fencing or volleyball, which are less popular among the public. So there is a lot of political baloney around HS sports programs.
Continued: See Part III of IV
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Language pair: English; English
This is a reply to message # 49376
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| 49471 |
American Educational System Part III of IV
The school funding is a little more complex than you have it, but your facts are dead on. School budgets receive some matching dollars from the Federal and State governments, but they depend mostly on dollars collected in property taxes within the school's service area. That is, all houses within the zone whose students are served by a school will pay property taxes to support that school (regardless of whether any children live in the house.) As you observe, this means that a school district like Palo Alto, serving families who earn hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars each year, have schools which provide the most outstanding teachers, programs, resources, equipment, curricula, where every student on campus need only show up and do the work in order to be assured of getting into college.
But if you walk to the east end of town and walk across the pedestrian overpass across the freeway into East Palo Alto, you find a very different neighborhood—a very poor neighborhood with lots of drug traffic, gun violence, and gang activity. A high percentage of the residents are drawing welfare and not working, and property taxes don't even cover the basic necessities of educating the students. Facilities are in desperate need of repair, students are using old, beaten, out of date textbooks – if they even have textbooks, etc. It's unbelievable. Of course, it's obviously fair to use some of the great excess of funds available down in Palo Alto to bring the EPA schools up to standards. But if you bring this up, the PA folk start screaming about communism and free market economy, and profit motive. You'll never get the rich folks to sit still for it, and they're the ones sitting on the planning boards and city councils anyway. So what are you going to do?
Continued: See Part IV of IV
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Language pair: English; English
This is a reply to message # 49376
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| 49472 |
American Educational System Part IV of IV
American Educational System Part IV of IV
Well, I hope that answers some of your questions about US Schools – or at least what I, in my limited experience, happen to know about them. Obviously Toni and I have very different stories, as would my brother and I. His school experience was very different from mine. He went to school with a much rougher bunch of kids. I remember my shock and amazement when my brother came home at sixteen having gotten his ears and eyebrows pierced, and a friend of his had tattooed my brother's name on his shoulder in block letters. To me, it was just unimaginable to do something so permanent so young. I have nothing against tattoos, but I'm 41, and I still haven't seen anything I like so much I'll still enjoy looking at it when I'm 80.
Today, my brother is a very daunting fellow. Tall and skinny with his head shaved. He has large discs in his earlobes, about an inch in diameter, I think. He has collected a number of tattoos I can no longer count. He keeps his head shaved and wears baggy pants and t-shirts. When people see him, the just assume he's a gang-banger or a skin-head and steer clear. It's really funny, though because he is the sweetest, most gentle guy you could ever hope to meet. He's married now and has a little girl and he is an amazing, attentive, gentle, loving dad. He's an incredible guy.
Anyway, let me know if there's anything you'd like me to clarify for your studies of American schools. Hopefully, more other people will respond to this too, and you'll be able to get some more diverse feedback on the topic.
I'll talk to you soon!
Mark
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 49376
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| 49510 |
Re:American Educational System Part I of IV
Yeah, I can answer the middle school thing. I never went to middle school. In Catholic schools, it goes from pre-school to grade eight, and then high school. Some school in Rhode Island have middle school be 6,7,8 grade and others just 7 and 8, depending on how many students are attending the school. Since Rhode Island has a lot of poor sections, the school's aren't good. That's why my parents have to pay close to $10,000 for me to get a good education. I took Spanish since third grade, but I am in Italian now. As soon as I get my art credit and my computer credit it done, I'm taking Spanish again, so I'll be in two langauges. At my school, you can't graduate until you have 4 math credits (one has to be calculus), and 4 science credits. I take 4 classes a day, each about an hour and a half long, then on the next day, I have another 4 classes. 4 classes for odd days, 4 classes for even days. Then my schedule rotates.
e.g.
Odd Day #1
Geometry
Literature
Health/PE
Study
Even Day #1
World Civilzation
Theology (it's a relgion course, I'm at a Catholic school)
Biology
Italian
Odd day #2
Literature
Health/PE
Study
Geometry
And so on. I like this way a lot better, because you're not always doing the same thing day after day.
There are good schools in the US, and there are bad schools, usually depending on the area. Unforunately, RI has like the 5th worst schools in the country I think...
~*Toni*~
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Language pair: English; English
This is a reply to message # 49469
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