John:
> I thought we were not talking about university- and
> college-level education, but about the high school system. I
> get the point that there's plenty of variation in the US, but
> that's a political point in and of itself, isn't it? The
> incredibly two-tiered system even of publicly-funded
> education in the US. I don't know enough about Western Europe
> to know whether it's better there, though . . .
Two points.
First, the difference in public high school can be as day and night even within one city. I could observe that in Baltimore where my son went to hs. He started in the regular "zoned" school where, as he described, the day was considered a success if it went by without violence. Then I transferred him to another public "magnet" school (BCC) whose standards were way above most high schools - even those in suburban areas. This was not even the race issue, because BCC was predominantly black - just like any other school in Baltimore. What made the difference I suppose was self-selection - those who (or whose parents) cared enough to secure placement in BCC, and those who did not give a flying fuck what school they went to, if any.
I also had a chance to observe the education of my wife's kids who went to hs in suburban PA (Harrisburg). The academic quality of instruction was quite mediocre, not as good as that at BCC, but way above the 'zoned' school where my son originally started. The attitudes of the kids (predominantly white) was not much different to that in the zoned hs of Baltimore - anything "educational" sucks. The anti-intellectualism of this society is truly mind boggling.
The second point is that educational systems in the US and Europe are not quite comparable. In Europe, for example, vocational training is completed mainly at the secondary level (equivalent to hs) whereas here that function is often performed at the tertiary level, especially community colleges. The latter serve multiple functions - from college-level education (first two years) to vocational training to basket weaving courses for retired housewives - which in Europe are preformed by different institutions. So we are comparing a bit of apples and oranges here.
But what I want to stress is that the US educational system at any level, hs, cc or 4 year college, when it is good it is far superior in terms of universal access (no age limits) and the quality of resources and programs than anything you can find in Europe. This is not just my opinion - I have for example some German friends who are saying the same thing. Of course, there are certain aspects of the US system that really sucks - for example the extensive use of multiple choice tests which are not as common in Europe (which btw saved me at my college entrance exam - I solved the problem right but made a computational error so the final answer was wrong; but looking at the interim steps I took, the evaluator accepted it - if it were a multiple choice test, however, I'd be out). OTOH, when I was teaching I quickly discovered that there must be an easier way of grading the students than going through pages of incomprehensible bullshit produced to meet the required number of words - and the multiple choice did not seem to be a bad solution.
Wojtek