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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (373255)	3/9/2008 1:53:17 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571929

... I don't see why we can't have both top-notch grade schools and top-notch universities." We can. But we need a different approach. If you look at the OECD countries that do better than we do, some things jump out. Take two examples, New Zealand and Finland. New Zealand is in the top 10, Finland is at the top. Finland has a German model where they separate the students into vocational and college bound after 9th grade. New Zealand doesn't. So that isn't the key. New Zealand, in fact, is inching towards a model where there really aren't distinct grade levels. Finland has a more traditional division between grade levels. Finland doesn't have sports teams or much extra-curricular stuff, the Kiwis are nuts about sports. Finns don't do much homework, the Kiwis do. None of these things seem to make the difference. So, what is the same? Well, in both countries schools are a national concern. There is a uniform curriculum and uniform funding. Problem or disruptive children are not kept in the same classrooms, or even the same schools as the others. This is made easier by the fact that they don't have the huge schools that we do. There isn't the huge burden of administrative stuff that we have. Teachers teach instead. And more of the money spent goes into teaching rather than administrative stuff, which is one of the factors that drives large schools here. The students don't spend a lot of time taking standardized tests, attending pep rallies, etc. They spend their time in school on getting an education. Now, these two countries have a big advantage. Most of the students speak the national language. New Zealand does have the problem of the Maori, some of whom view education as a symbol of white culture. But, you cannot immigrate there without a command of English and illegal immigration isn't very easy. So that is a challenge.