Yank Public Schooling

[CubanFox]

I hear so much bad shit about the American public shool system. What exactly is wrong with it?

[Conghaileach]

It's desperately under-funded.

[Dirty Jersey]

at my school they always figured new metal detectors and an army of security guards was more important than books. i swear to god i got out of high school about 4 years ago and the text books still didnt know the outcome to the vietnam war.

[Harmless Games]

At my public school we would have to share assignments that were Xeroxed from the teachers copy of the assignment notebook with the answers whited-out. On tests due to the paper shortage we would have to share copies of the test with 2-4 other kids and write on our own lined paper. Also the teachers could not assign homework because they couldnt afford to give each kid a book. This is also in a Minnesota suburb so we had it relatively easy compared to the inner city kids.

[Urban Rubble]

I live in an area about 40 miles south of Seattle and I never had conditions like these. We had somewhat new books, a good library just shitty teachers. I swear, when you realize you know more about history and politics than your teachers, it makes it hard to stay in school, I didn't, I quit.

[Dirty Commie]

Teachers who don't give a damn, desperate under funding, unfair unjust punishment of innocent kids who do nothing. Locker searching, repression, teachers with very clear favorites, teachers hand picking class presidents even though we have an election. I hate it. It brain washes the less intelectual students to believe every thing the government tells them. I am lucky, my parents taught me other wise. There is more to this. Much more.

[Subcomandante Marcos]

I lived in Hawaii for about 2 years (1998-200) and the school system was awesome, great libraries, great teachers, good system.

But i heard, since i dont live in the U$, that public schools are the worst, but nothing compare to the schools outside of America, si los gringos saben que hay un mundo despues de ellos.

Latin schools are the worst on the face o this earth, first most of the porr kids dont go to school at all and the ones thar go about a 1% graduates and from that 1% about a 0,01% gets a job, not even a decent job, just a job.

Schools dont even have books, the teachers earn about 200 dollars per month, have to work on the dirtiest and rotten place, have to stand drug dealers, criminals and even murderers.

[CubanFox]

Here in Australia we always have to share textbooks. And I always knew more about geography and politics than my geography teacher :P

[Kapitan Andrey]

Quote: from Urban Rubble on 12:30 am on April 23, 2003
I swear, when you realize you know more about history and politics than your teachers, it makes it hard to stay in school, I didn't, I quit.


Whoa! What an interesting story! You are brave!

About Russia:

Our school sistem is one of the best!!!

We got perfect clever-teachers! My favourite teachers was:

1) History teacher.
2) English teacher.
3) Russian, literature teacher.
4) Working teacher.

Our principal was old-yakut-woman!!! She is an angel, she is also teacher of Math(Algebra,Geometry) and Phisics!

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

The funding, though high compared to those of other nations, is not adequete when compared to the government's income and other expenditures. The major problem is the mentality that is passed on through rigid and repressive diciplanary measures. The attitude is zero-tolerance towards any drugs or violence. If a student is found with a pocket-knife or a cigarette, the student MUST be expelled. No room to ask questions, judge the "crime", or offer help. The wors part, is that at this very establishement [school], the tell you that Communism=totalitarianism!

I don't know if the rule is zero-tolerance throughout the country, but here in N. Florida and some of the surrounding counties, it is very strictly followed.

[RedCeltic]

The problem with Public Schools in the United States is that the burden of caring for them often falls on the small communities, who than fund the schools through property taxes. Areas with low property value, hence pay lower property taxes, and hence have poorly funded schools

Areas with higher property vlaue, pay higher taxes, and often send their kids to privete schools, or only live there during weekends or summer.. This is most obvious in places like where I grew up on Long Island New York. The wealthy who live out in South Hampton, often work in the city and don't spend time in their mansions much. The kids that are actually raised there usually don't even go to public schools.

However, on the other end of the island are impoverished areas like Roosevelt Long Island (where Howard Stern went to school) The school system was so bad, and so under funded that the local govt. decided to raise property taxes to pay for a better school.

So now they poor people who lived there before, can't anymore because the taxes are too high. :(

The system of funding schools through property tax has been around for awile, and it seems obvious to everyone but those in power, that it's the root cause of failing public schools.

Than on the other side of the argument, you have people saying that even the most undrfunded public schools in New York and California are better than most southern states. (Florida is among the worst) Dispite poor funding, New York Schools have tougher requirements.

[Blackberry]

Quote: from CubanFox on 2:59 am on April 23, 2003
Here in Australia we always have to share textbooks. And I always knew more about geography and politics than my geography teacher :P


You're lucky. I have to pay top-notch prices for my textbooks - and not to mention that we have quite a few bad teachers who should never have been in the profession.

(Edited by Neutral Nation at 12:55 pm on April 23, 2003)

[nz revolution]

In NZ we have the opposite to the US idea of property taxes, if a school is in a low area it gets massive funding and fees are low, if its in a rich area then it gets fuck all funding but fees are huge, although I went to a high school that was in the richest town, I lived about 15mins away, way out in the countryside.

I never used to pay the fees which Im sure were $600 a year or maybe a grand. Our school had crap stuff too, but computers, so many computers that we weren't really allowed to use, strange huh? Our school was in the rich area but had low funding. Fights would happen with fuck all punishment, drugs and smoking you got the flick, knives, well I took a knife after I got a beating...

We never paid for text-books, when I got to uni, it was like "WHAT THE FUCK!!! $120 for a Spanish book!!!"

[Dirty Jersey]

for real man. this year i spent more on text books than tuition. my psych book starts at around $300 used. a set of about 7 maps cost me about $40. i got raped at the book store.

[exploding toast]

i agree with Urban Rubble. My school is pretty well funded, but my teachers are so stupid. my history teacher gave me detention for correcting her about politics. its sad when a 16 yr old student knows about 4 times as much about politics and history then the teachers knows.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Quote: from Kapitan Andrey on 3:37 am on April 23, 2003

Quote: from Urban Rubble on 12:30 am on April 23, 2003
I swear, when you realize you know more about history and politics than your teachers, it makes it hard to stay in school, I didn't, I quit.


Whoa! What an interesting story! You are brave!

About Russia:

Our school sistem is one of the best!!!

We got perfect clever-teachers! My favourite teachers was:

1) History teacher.
2) English teacher.
3) Russian, literature teacher.
4) Working teacher.

Our principal was old-yakut-woman!!! She is an angel, she is also teacher of Math(Algebra,Geometry) and Phisics!


Hmm, I remember my time on the Soviet schools, they were great. Clean, big, we even had an own swimming pool! We slept the afternoon at school, because it was the custom there to have a sort of siesta.

But I thought the system had collapsed, because it's also very expensive and not affordable by the Russian state.

[Umoja]

I don't mind American Public schools, only because the system works the way it's supposed to. I live in a large suburban sprawl with many people little business, which gives us insane taxes, and most of them go to maintaining our cute but archaic lighting. This means very little goes towards schools (which are over populated), but since schools seem to be pretty locally controlled I can deal.

Actually, I could complain, but I'm lazy.

[mentalbunny]

I have to admit I've got it very very oucky, cos my rents have sent me to private school (called public for some strange reason, I think it's cos the first public schools were established so you didn't have to join a monastry to go!). This means my textbooks just go on the bill, I've got mostly pretty good teachers and great facilities all round. However I'm still oppposed to having private schools, bizarre huh? Well I don't think so, through my education I have discovered that there is more to life than money and people shouldn't be limited in their opportunities by being born in a particular country or with parents who have only a certain amount of money.

In the UK schools have had to cut funding, due significantly to the war. There was an 8% rise (I think, can't remember exact figures) rise in costs that schools can't cover so there aren't enough teachers and schools are having to cut back in using ICT, which is supposed to be the way forward!

[Fever]

I believe it all depends where you live in the U.S. I live in an area where basically you either go to a really shitty inner city school and get little to no education, or go to a private school with a bunch of fucking snobs. Really, there is no answer to the problem of our schools as of now. Although, i did here they are implementing major improvements in the NYC schools. Anyone no abou that?

[hawarameen]

its shocking to hear about the school system in the US, here in UK we are so short of teachers that they pay you to train tax free, and university fees are paid for by the gov. in some harder areas, new teachers are even given a £5000 bonus per year for 3 years just to stay in the proffesion, thats just under 30% bonus just for sticking it out!

[Umoja]

Logically the solution is to raise taxes, but America (and I assume Britain) have politicans who'd be lyched if they did that.

[Sabocat]

Quote: from exploding toast on 9:50 am on April 26, 2003
i agree with Urban Rubble. My school is pretty well funded, but my teachers are so stupid. my history teacher gave me detention for correcting her about politics. its sad when a 16 yr old student knows about 4 times as much about politics and history then the teachers knows.




It's even sadder that you're punished for it.

My favorite quote..."Those who can't. Teach."

Of course this is not all teachers, I had some great teachers and profs. It is strange however that the most arrogant and misinformed teachers I had were History teachers.

[SlimShady4538]

I was once punished in 4th grade fo telling my teacher the word is spelled "doughnuts" and not "donuts".

Anywho, overall public schools are oppressive of free though. they arent preparing us for the world of tommorow, theyre training us to be mindless cubicle drones. plus their sense of justice is all screwed up. When 5 hockey player from our school were beating down on me AT SCHOOL, i got punished for defending myself. how is that just???

[anger is a gift]

where to start? underfunded. teachers are not always the most talented. they teach lies. the conservatives run the damn school systems. everything is about socializing kids to be good americans. and a bunch of other stuff