they should just cancel all standarized testing practice. its shit
other than that. i think its alright. a little bit easy infact. i barely show up to class and when i do, i get A's B's and C's. i like it this way

I agree with you completely there, but not the second half. I go to school in hopes of learning something, but do I often accomplish this? NO. They're teaching us the bare minimum, enough to pass standardized test. Do they teach to learn outside of that? NO.

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Alot of schools are forced to rely so heavily on Standardized testing because the government forces them too, If the government doesn't think your teaching your kids the right way, then your out and they will just hire someone else,

If you want a special type of Education, Your best bet is private school, and most of the time thats too expensive for people like me, so I'm forced to just get a new book at the library and read up.

the problem is schools now only "teach to the test", while cutting areas like the arts, etc. And then we wonder why our public schools are churning out dumbasses

Education systems are too lax everywhere.

It's easier to convince people who don't know anything than people who really knows.

Welcome to the $%&"·"·%$/& capitalism!

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This comment might have made sense if this conversation was in the 1850s, it symbolised an archaic third world mindset at the present age. Every first world and G8 industralised nation has a 100% literacy rate, except United States. Even emerging industrial second and third world countries like India and China have more Ph.Ds. than US has high school graduates. This trend has been taken seriously by develolped countries like UK, France, Sweden, Norway, Russia, etc. where educated is overhauled to meet the future challenges.

However in US, students are still tied up to the old method and system of education The ignorant and unsuspecting public is pacified by 'high literacy rates' while comparing US to poor third world African nations. Unless you live in Africa, trying to say that your quality education produces 'high litercay rate' is lowering your standards to the level of laughable. Literacy is the ability to read and write, something that is prefected by the time a child reaches 4th or 5th year. A first world country like US boasting about high literacy rate is like a rock star saying "I can hold a guitar".

It depends on how you define 'everywhere'. If you mean the 50 US states, then you are incorrect to not specify in an international forum. If you mean the world in general than surely you know little to make such a judgement. Capitalism controls education only in US and Australia. Even in United Kingdom, the closest soverign ally of US, the public education system can easily beat down US private schools. And France is miles ahead standing among 25th best in the world a/c programme for International Student Assessment testings conducted by OECD.

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The average American's understanding of military strategy comes from popular video games like Call of Duty and Counter Strike.

I think its more students in America are too lax. Most high schools have a curriculum that will allow students to really challenge themselves .. but only if they want to. Schools could make it where every child in the school was required to take an extremely challenging schedule, but if the students don't want to succeed, they aren't going to.

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Lax or not - I don't think boiling it down either way is very helpful. I think the educational opportunities or educational quality definitely may as well vary depending on demographics. It's known that about 70% of students who earn a bachelors are from families with incomes of about $100,000 or more. I can use my public school district as an example. Among the 4 high schools in our district, there is a great deal of variance in wealth distribution. Two of the high schools definitely do not have the resources and correspondingly, the students from those areas attending those high schools are not nearly as wealthy as the other two schools in the district. Consequentially, because they cannot afford the best or enough teachers, space, and resources, they aren't able to enrich their curriculum or "challenge" their pupils. On the other hand, there are the other two schools whose students are upper-middle to upper class students are able to provide the best resources and enough teachers to accommodate the students. They also can afford to bring different educational programs to the school. Actually, at the wealthiest school with the wealthiest students, if you are in the top 100-150 students of about 400 kids, you have a decent or a great chance at being admitted into the top universities and LACs (UPenn, Stanford, Bates, Pomona, etc.). Again, for the most part, money matters - though it may obviously not be the sole determiner.

I'm going to add more here. Notice that income generally has a strong correlation with the quality or extent of education one receives. Notably, only about 5% or so families have an income of $100,000 or greater in the United States. But remarkably so, US higher education private colleges still out-compete other universities on an international scale. If you bother to reference alumni rankings, quality of college graduates, etc. you will notice that in many rankings US universities dominate in the top 20 positions. Arguably, rankings only add for one perspective, but I think the research behind them merit some insight or appreciation. Perhaps in general, most US students aren't able to compete academically with most industrialized nations internationally, but our elite are quite exceptional.

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Smileyface.

NY has a great ed system

its the same with uk as well children are not encouraged to be ambitious or anything jus do the standadised paper and u will be fine the teachers always say.if thsi keeps going on i doubt there will be any future at all cos im doing everything higher and we only few in my classses les that 10 actually and only amoung chinese students lol

I think this brings up a pretty good point. Also, I think parenting has a lot to do with how well kids do in high school. American kids are spending less and less time with their parents, and this probably doesn't allow the facilitation for parents to teach their children good work ethic or how to challenge themselves to do the best they can/make the most out of their opportunities.

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Smileyface.

I can say one thing. Compared to my country (Uruguay), the work is just way too easy. For example, here in America, I never sat down in my free time to read 15 pages of a book, take notes, and memorize it all. Yet I still got an A on the test. If I had not read those 15 pages in Uruguay, I would not have passed the class. Also, in America you get 'worksheets'. In Uruguay you take out a blank sheet and write everything down from the blackboard, then do the work.

Now, I'm not saying everything in Uruguay is better. America has elective classes, so not everyone has to take the same class. And America offers nutrition plans for low-income families, in Uruguay you ate only if you had money on you... and money wasn't very abundant.

I know Poland's education is also stricter; my boss was Polish and she once told us that, when she went to college here, she was lightning fast completing work compared to the other American students.