Report: US is #1 in School Spending

[Bosh]

The report cited Australia, Finland, Ireland, Korea and the United Kingdom as examples of OECD nations that have moderate spending on primary and lower secondary education but high levels of performance by 15-year-olds in key subject areas.

Well at the least in the case of korea this doesn't mean much since the poor students get so burned out that they learn nothing in college, where the workload tends to be a good bit less than at good american colleges, so they don't come out any more knowledgable at the end.

And yes, I can't resist any opportunity to draw attention to the fact that I'm a freaky freaky ex-pat. I'm sad like that.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Boshko
And yes, I can't resist any opportunity to draw attention to the fact that I'm a freaky freaky ex-pat. I'm sad like that.

So does that mean you'll need a work or tourist visa before they'll let you back in the country?

[Bosh]

got a multiple-entry one year visa. need to leave the country and come back if I want to stay more than a year.

[Drake Tungsten]

And yes, I can't resist any opportunity to draw attention to the fact that I'm a freaky freaky ex-pat. I'm sad like that.

A kindred spirit!

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MrFun
It's common knowledge that teachers are under-paid.

Maybe in some states but not in mine.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Oerdin: so you want more money spent on students, but you want teacher salaries cut?

No, I want to cut the salaries and/or positions of the people who have no contact with the students. That's the bureacracy.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Coming in late to the discussion, but here's another spin:

I have to wonder who goes into teaching in these other countries. One thing about the US is there is a prejudice against teaching as a profession that is older than the country itself (see Richard Hofstadter's classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life for a discussion of this), and it is not thought of as a career for middle- or upper-middle class young people. The net result I suspect is that really bright, ambitious people rarely become teachers, especially in the public schools. Anecdotally: I'm a graduate of an Ivy League university, and I can tell you that not one single person I knew at that school aspired to teach (at non-university level); this was not about money, since people I knew aspired to do things that paid even less well (non-profit work; playing folk music professionally; teaching at universities [like myself]) but instead was about the fact that teaching public school was something people of our intelligence and education simply didn't do. I know of two who have subsequently become teachers "accidently" (one to support herself in grad school, the other to support himself while writing screenplays), and both are at toney private schools.

Culturally, if we could make teaching as desireable an occupation as, say, advertising, we might finally get schools as good as our ads.

So I have to wonder if other countries simple have better teachers because there's less shame in becoming a teacher to begin with.

[Drake Tungsten]

Great post, Rufus.

I think you're dead on. Over here in Japan, the teachers get paid about the same as their American counterparts do, even though they work longer hours and are expected to take part in extracurricular activities (for little or no pay) that American teachers would never be expected to participate in. Despite this, the quality of teachers here seems much higher than back in the States. I think this is due to the high standing teachers are given in society here, just as you said. Teaching is a respected and therefore desirable profession over here.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'm not surprised, Drake. Even thinking about Japanese (and more broadly Asian) popular culture, it's clear that the Teacher/Master/Sensei is a revered figure, and the process of learning is an important one. It reminds me of the Teacher/Rabbi position in Jewish culture.

American culture, by contrast, has Ichabod Crane and the saying, "Those who can't do, teach."

Not surprisingly, Asians and Jews are both over-represented at the US's top universities. Hmm...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Boshko
Well at the least in the case of korea this doesn't mean much since the poor students get so burned out that they learn nothing in college, where the workload tends to be a good bit less than at good american colleges, so they don't come out any more knowledgable at the end.

Boshko: What sort of percentage of Korean kids end up going to college in the west? Don't many of the best students score well on the entrence exams and then go over seas?

[Q Classic]

it's confucianism at its best.

respect for authority is impressed upon children, and education is seen as pretty much the only true way of moving upwards in the world.

it started in china with civil service exams; koreans took them on, and since korea had a more solid caste system, education was the only method of moving up. japan absorbed the ethos, and that's why east asia has the obsession with education, exhorting their children by saying a 99 is not good enough.

[Q Classic]

it's honestly seemed to me that the ones that score high tend to go to seoul university or the like; it's the ones rejected from those universities, or those with wanderlust, or those with money who tend to leave.

[Drake Tungsten]

it's honestly seemed to me that the ones that score high tend to go to seoul university or the like; it's the ones rejected from those universities, or those with wanderlust, or those with money who tend to leave.

It's the same in Japan. The kids with the best scores go to Todai or one of the other prestigious Japanese universities. Only the lower scoring kids or those with a great interest in Western culture go overseas.

[Ecthy]

No Prussian system in Germany anymore

[Q Classic]

part of the reason why the best students stay, i think, is because going to those prestigious universities gives oodles of connections.... great for politics and what not.