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    Joined: Mar 2013
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    Proof that the US education system broke 30 or so years ago...

    Preaching to the choir I am sure but here is the link

    link here


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    Originally Posted by article
    More surprisingly, even middle-aged Americans — who, on paper, are among the best-educated people of their generation anywhere in the world — are barely better than middle of the pack in skills.
    Some may say this reflects a society more focused on degree credentials and less concerned with being lifelong learners.

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    Quote
    “The first question these kinds of studies raise is, ‘If we’re so dumb, why are we so rich?’ ” said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “Our economic advantage has been having high skill levels at the top, being big, being more flexible than the other economies, and being able to attract other countries’ most skilled labor. But that advantage is slipping.”

    The funny thing is, he's right, but he's drawing the wrong conclusions.

    Yes, the US' economic advantage has always been, in corrected order:

    1) We're big (lots of resources, human and material).
    2) Being flexible.
    3) High skill levels AT THE TOP.
    4) Attractive to the skilled labor of other countries.

    And the study showed that we still have high skill levels at the top, but we've hollowed out the middle:

    Quote
    In several ways, the American results were among the most polarized between high achievement and low. Compared with other countries with similar average scores, the United States, in all three assessments, usually had more people in the highest proficiency levels, and more in the lowest. The country also had an unusually wide gap in skills between the employed and the unemployed.

    This tracks with the economic transition over the same 30+ years, with more people becoming richer, more people becoming poorer, and the middle-class hollowing out. The relationship between SES and educational attainment is well-established.

    And if you look at the top scorers, they all enjoy high standards of living, fueled in large part by rich social programs. They're not rich in the global economic sense because they're not big, and because for various reasons they're not attracting skilled labor from other countries.

    So in other words, this is less a report card on the American education system than it is on the American society in general.

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    So in other words, this is less a report card on the American education system than it is on the American society in general.

    Personally, I see society's economic polarization as the product of a crappy education system - people that are educable and have the right skills are having a less arduous time finding gainful employment.

    The number of H1 visas issued every year provides a stark illustration of the rabbit hole that public educational policy has taken itself down for the past 30 or so years. Foreign born skilled labour is pouring into the skills vacuum created by inadequate rigour here in the US nowadays.

    Don't call me Dr Pangloss, though, on employment because I am acutely aware that H1 visas are also being used as a safety valve on wage pressure to ensure that the uber-rich do not have to pay the unwashed masses too much for skilled work as well. The Silicon Valley 'gentleman's agreements' between companies
    show that even the skilled are under artificial pressures holding their wages down too.

    I don't know how to turn this particular oil tanker around but for the sake of our chidren, particularly gifted ones and for the sake of our country staying globally competitive and a place where companies want to hire people we are going to have to shake the current (failed) system up.

    Worshiping at the fetish of Standardised Testing (TM) isn't the way to do this either...

    Last edited by madeinuk; 05/09/15 05:52 AM.

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