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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (237953)	11/16/2013 9:34:11 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543184

I wouldn't trust the data out of Russia. Many of the other nations, against whom we are compared, do not test all their students- and some of them manipulate their data. We in the US have a mandate to test just about everyone- even special ed. It's rare for countries to do that. We also have longer high school than many countries- so we often have more students enrolled (including many students who don't want to be there.) Our "kids" really aren't failing. Do you have any yourself? Are they failing? Mine went to public schools and did well. I don't think I know anyone whose kids haven't done well. My students do well. Who is failing? Well, people who write misleading articles are failing... This article is pretty informative: epi.org We have huge populations of very disadvantaged students, and more immigrate here every day. Unlike many countries which have negative birth rates, we have positive population increases because of our Hispanic immigrants, who come to use often very educationally disadvantaged. The good news is that we are learning how to help these children effectively, and they are constantly doing better. That bad news is that most people won't ever drill down to figure out that these international comparisons mean next to nothing.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (237953)	11/16/2013 7:24:58 PM
From: koan	Respond to of 543184

We can improve by having free public pre school for all kids, with a hot meals and many more public community colleges and affordable colleges for everyone that can make the grades. We should tax the rich to get them. I can assure you that will solve the problem. <<Every time there is a suggestion that the education system is failing our kids there are shrill counterarguments that all is good with the education system. The blame is always placed on others. When even Russia is beating us - it might be better to be more honest and figure out where/what we can improve.