Opinions on school?

[icesyckel]

It is impossible to make accurate, intelligent generalizations re the US school system as a whole because there aren't even consistent curricula, governing laws, or standards. While there are federal funds funneled into schools at s nationwide level, additional funding comes from state and county or even municipal governments.

A few national laws aside, most state-level departments of education have a wide degree of control over programming, the curriculum, and teacher-student-ratios.

I lived in a rural school that had radically fewer resources than did a school just 40 minutes away in a wealthier part of town, but I still got a much better education than some of the inner-city schools, where no amount of funding can overcome the distraction of behavioral problems, gang pressures, etc.

That said, US schools are surely better as a whole than certain third-world countries. That isn't a very useful metric for analysis, though.

TL;DR - there are too many variable to allow for a meaningful critique of US Schools at the national level. Statistics are available, but they are averages based on a widely varied sample pool and, therefore, not representative of anything analytically significant.

 

[James K Trefethen]

My problem with the American school system is this: Every kid gets asked what he wants to do when he/she "grows up." Well, the problem is that we just don't know. No testing is done to determine what you are good at or what type of occupation might suit you. Instead, you get to guess. Not everybody can be an architect, lawyer, engineer or doctor; there are a lot of people who have just plain average jobs.

Shooting for an average job or just finding something that you can do is much more important than going to college or finding a prestigious job. Knowing what you are good at or what you like is not enough. People with autism need to know that they need jobs where they can be “off in their own world” and should not try for a job as a salesman or the next world leader.

Furthermore, I now people with autism would do a lot better to have someone say to them, “You’d make a good software tester. You like rules and nobody bothering you. This is would be the perfect job for you,” and someone just give them the job. Most people with autism are not good at interviews and hate the process of trying to get a job. Why torture us with a bunch of crap we don’t need just to get us a job?!

In the United States, companies hate training anybody. They say there is some sort of skills gap. What’s the skills gap if they want “two years experience?” The real gap is that nobody wants to train. It costs money to train somebody and poaching one’s competition for employees is a lot easier.

Now back to autism. If you lack people skills, how are you going to convince an employer to train you? Remember, employers are loathe to train anybody but why would they bother with someone who lacks people skills?

I imagine everybody would like some sort of say as to what their occupation is, so I am saying everybody should be a software tester. I am just saying that transitioning into a job is very difficult for people who have autism. Why not somehow make it a smoother transition?

I believe there are a lot of people with autism who could work (and produce very good work) if the right resources were put in place. We thrive in structure, without interruptions and can handle some work that other people find just plain boring.

 

[Mr Allen]

I'm in the UK, we have a different schooling system here, we start off in Nursery, then what you'd call Elementary, which we call Junior school, and then Secondary, which I guess you could call High school.

I don't usually like to talk about my school days, the secondary days in particular bring up a LOT of not very nice memories for me.

 

[Astroganga]

Interestingly in some parts of the UK, particularly in parts of the East of England, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk-they still have a middle school system just as parts of the US do. So they attend an infant school, then some or all of the junior school years and first few years of secondary school up to year 8 or 9 are spent in the middle school. Then GCSEs and A levels are done at high school. A few schools exist that cover the ages of 2-18. They are gradually scrapping the middle school system though and in many areas it has already been scrapped. A shame really as I think a change to 'big school' at 13 or 14 or 15 is a far better idea than it being at the age of 11.

 

[DesertRose]

It's totally screwed up. I have not heard of a child "failing", or "held back", in years, and if it weren't for cash registers telling them how much change to give back, they couldn't work. The local newspapers, and some bigger ones consistently have mispelled words, goofy non relevant headlines, etc. That tells me the education system is failing basics. And science? Please. A study on how toddlers are more agressive eating meat off the bone?! For crap sake, really? No, educate yourself. All the kids in university needing special trauma care because someone mentioned a Republicans name?? Seriously? No, we are in a serious educational state of crisis and especially maturity in the US. I refuse to put mine in that mess.

 

[Mr Allen]

Interestingly in some parts of the UK, particularly in parts of the East of England, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk-they still have a middle school system just as parts of the US do. So they attend an infant school, then some or all of the junior school years and first few years of secondary school up to year 8 or 9 are spent in the middle school. Then GCSEs and A levels are done at high school. A few schools exist that cover the ages of 2-18. They are gradually scrapping the middle school system though and in many areas it has already been scrapped. A shame really as I think a change to 'big school' at 13 or 14 or 15 is a far better idea than it being at the age of 11.

Yeah, not sure but I think my 10 year old nephew went to "big school" last month, either that or he'll go next year when he's 11.

 

[tlc]

Schools just vary so much. My daughter is in one of Michigan's larger cities downstate, and she gets an amazing education. Friendly staff, more opportunities than I could have dreamed of. They still even use books and paper. I'm going down for her teacher conferences later this week. However I've seen documentaries on other large city schools that used to really be something, are now a complete joke with run down facilities, staff that doesn't care, drugs and violence, etc.

I went to a school in a small town. I hated it. Half the kids were related to school staff and got special treatment. All the teachers were spread thin and knew a little of everything and not much about anything. One regularly hit on the girls but due to tenure nothing happened. I took all the classes I could, and by the end I was teaching the teachers a few things. My senior year I had 3 study halls because there was nothing left to do, and we were not allowed to leave to do college prep or work study or anything. You either played basketball or nothing. Grades K-6 were a single room divided by wheeled chalkboards, no isolation, but you had to often switch grade rooms anyway. Preschool or middle school didn't exist. You could almost never use the library because nobody was there to run it. Same for Home Ec. The lunchroom was in the library. Our sex ed was a couple of jocks trying to get us turned on by swimsuit models, of course in Mr Perv's room.

Nowadays the town is the same size, if not smaller as most of the businesses have closed up, and property values have gone down for what still exists. But they have ball fields, track, volleyball, real walls in the elementary, a real lunchroom, new blood running the place with much more diversity, college prep classes. My cousin would have been valedictorian with a solid 4.0 had she not died in a car crash a few years ago. She's how I knew what the school is like now.

I think one thing that's changed things is the freedom of choice that we now have in Michigan, if not elsewhere. Used to be schools were mostly or fully funded by local property taxes, and you had to stay in your district or pay tuition, so people rarely did. Now you can go wherever you want. Schools get funded per student by the state, so the students go to a better school, and the increased funding helps further better the school if the school wants to invest in itself, etc. So good desirable schools get rewarded. Property taxes only go to the school if it's not your primary home. The town I work in has lots of million dollar vacation homes, so they should get tons of funding, yet the school is still losing students like crazy. Maybe because I hear from a lot of coworkers that it's just like my old school used to be, only a little bit bigger.

But it also works to help balance the equation. The town I work (not live) is full of million dollar vacation homes, but that's also part of the problem. It drives property values up to the point that the only people who can afford to live here are the wealthy retirees who are of course childless and live here 3 months out of the year. People can rarely make enough money working here to live here. So they end up living in smaller cheaper towns and going to school there, which in turn helps those schools.

 

[Aeolienne]

I imagine everybody would like some sort of say as to what their occupation is, so I am saying everybody should be a software tester. I am just saying that transitioning into a job is very difficult for people who have autism.

Are you missing a "not" somewhere?