Originally Posted by Val
A child who completed elementary school in a school run by a third nation (a third language).

So... double checked your posted history, since that rang a bell (and IIRC we are/were also fairly close geographically). I am 99% sure that nation is my home country, where I had all of my own schooling. I have nephews/nieces back there. My kids are US educated.

Here are my 2c.

1) You cannot compare an entire country's public school system to the US based private schools offering its national curriculum to children of expat execs for 30k$/yearly tuition.

2) Comparing schooling offered 30+ years ago, when generalized access to higher education was much less common, to here and now in the US is tricky. In the specific case of that country it is especially misleading to compare the average public US high school, which educates all students in the catchment area under a single roof, with what was then a specialized high school which only admitted about 50% of an age class with an accepted/acceptable 20% graduation failure before entry into university programs (which themselves had a 50% drop out rate over the first 2 years). Things have changed some since then, but your average "general" public high school there is still *not* comparable to a local US public high school.

3) Also subject to worldwide schooling inflation, but, similarly, not all students reach A levels in the UK...

I mean, I have my moments with American anti intellectualism. Also, multiple choice questions as the standard grading mechanism?!?

But your post reminded me why *that* parenting book by that woman who spent a few years in my country of origin gave me hives. I mean, you only have to check the strangely similar headlines in different countries when PISA scores come out to know that moaning about the degenerescence of education in one's own country is fairly universal, but... Americans often sell themselves short on the strengths of their own educational system (also their parenting skills -- see above).

Meanwhile I try to find a balance between the best features of both systems for my own kids.