Comments about ‘U.S. falls further behind rest of world in higher education’

It's further behind. Not farther. If someone who has completed higher education goes on to write bad grammar for a major newspaper, then indeed, we are behind.

Perhaps the best solution would be to create a program to concentrate on children who don't want to study and who have parents who have never sat down and read a book with their children. All this at the expense of children who do want to learn.

Such a fine program would need to have a name. How about "No-Child-Left-Behind"?

Where are all the jobs?

Well, there taken by all the smart people.

Too much emphasis on "Get Rich Quick" gimmicks in America.

Network Marketing,
Winning on American Idol,
Playing Professional Sports....

The other key component is Corporations can get away paying Professionals
[Doctors and Engineers] dirt wages.

All those other "Socialist" countries also have strong labor Unions.

Unions create the Middle class.

Destroy Unions, and you destory the middle class.

We have less and less education and more and more indoctrination.

Perhaps if we advanced those who are proven to be at a disadvantage financially...?

*'Study: African Americans Paid Significantly Less Than Whites' - By Boyce Watkins, PhD - Aug 3rd 2010

*'Invisible Men: Many young black males are in crisis' - by Ervin Dyer, Pittsburg Gazette

*'Herbert's new education panel missing diversity' - By Amy K. Stewart - Deseret News - 04/19/10

Herbert, later added diversity.

This, is the response of some Utah lawmakers.

*'Utah Legislature: Lawmaker proposes ending affirmative action in higher education' - By Josh Smith - DSNews - 02/12/10

Is it any wonder why we are lagging...

when people like Chris Buttars wanted to end the 12th grade?

From my experience and our children's experience in college, the first two years are a repeat of junior high and high school only with a more slanted liberal view. Most of our family's experience in college was a huge waste of time and money. All a college degree from a particular college is good for is to get you in the door of a business that wants to work you 60 to 80 hours per week. After that, where you graduated from is irrelevant. Plus, after graduating you get the added bonus of paying back school loans.

'Such a fine program would need to have a name. How about "No-Child-Left-Behind"?' - Rifleman | 11:24 a.m. Sept. 19, 2011

Alright.

Let's look at those results:

*''Run like the mob': US school cheating scandal details emerge' - By DORIE TURNER - AP - Published by MSNBC - 07/16/11

'Administrators pressured to maintain high scores under the federal No Child Left Behind law punished or fired those who reported anything amiss...'

Putting the ENTIRE success of more 'goverment programs' onto the individual teachers, with zero support, created a 'black market' of cheating and false answers in schools across this country.

Great 'result' there.

And guess who penned 'No child left behind?'

'The legislation was proposed by (then) President George W. Bush on January 23, 2001. (sic) President Bush signed it into law on January 8, 2002.'

- Cursory wikipedia search.

"U.S. falls further behind rest of world in higher education"

What more could you expect with our schools full of immigrants (illegal and otherwise) who are still working on how to speak English?

I sincerely doubt we would have gotten to the moon in the time of Kennedy (or shortly after) had the engineers in the time of Kennedy been taught the math as it is taught in today's secondary schools.

The math in junior high and high school is much less challenging than back then. Math education has been watered down. As a result, todays engineers are not as able solve as challenging of problems.

Secondary school math, teaches problem solving to future scientists and engineers in their formative years. This is what has been watered down significantly.

Well all I know is that I am a hispanic about to graduate from University of Utah Medical School and I have a residency in neurosurgery waiting for me next year. I am still only 25 years old.

Other countries have higher education with less college time? Our schools waste so much time with eight hours days--five days per week. Now we have after school and Saturday tutoring.

How about three five hour days per week? How can children be creative when most of they're waken time are controlled by schools and standardized tests?

Thomas Edison, Wright brothers, and Charles Lindberg would have suffered from boredom and cabin fever.

@cbj- Teaching watered down math is not the problem as much as we are seeing the the aftermath of the preserve the child's self-esteem at all costs movement. Until we figure out a way to motivate students to "work hard" in the classroom, nothing will change. All No Child Left Behind does for the classroom is making teachers coddle those who have no desire to better themselves; leaving behind our best and brightest to fend for themselves.
Another problem I see on a regular basis is the amount of programs in schools that expect teachers to parent instead of teaching school material. Teachers are reqired to teach reading, writing, math, and science, just as you remember. However, we also have to teach children to bathe, dress appropriatly, teach bully awareness, teach diversity awareness, teach disability awareness, use of appropriate language, teach children not to cheat, keep their hands to themselves,and not to sexually harass others. Not to mention making sure they are fed, and fed the right amount of calories daily. When teachers can go to school in a classroom with ALL students ready to learn you will see American schools flurish.

Bad education? How do we fix it? By commenting on an article, and doing nothing else?

I've started to wonder about some of US (including myself) frequenters and how much good we do continually commenting. I click on 'comments' and start to think "the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round" - And then I wonder... do I comment, or is this not going to really accomplish anything.

While I realize the irony of my posting this comment as a sort of anti-comment. My point should still stand and hopefully someone may ponder and change... who knows, maybe that will even be myself. - ponder, change, then actually do something about the 'bad news' we read of and start making good news out there... in the real world... real life... not on here.

Meh.

First, dare to depart from the "cures" inflicted by the teachers' unions and the educational beauracracy for the last 50 years. They have demonstrably failed.

Second, demand higher performance levels from students, and fail those who do not meet them, instead of "social promotion" and refusing to tell parents that their kids do not deserve promotion. (A lot of the lack of interest or performance in education is a result of the familial attitude towards education.)

Third, sort kids by ability and quit holding back smarter/harder working kids surrounded by a bunch of lackidasical or mentally challenged kids.

Fourth, end teacher tenure and fire those who are not good teachers, and reward (handsomely!) those who excel.

Fifth- Dump the "higher ed" curriculum and adminstration and professors who provide little more than liberal indoctrination and remedial High School skills and lots of wothless fluff courses. (However, I bet the U.S. scored high on the vital fields of "gender studies, African literature, environmental nitwittery", etc). Adopt the curriculum and standards of Hillsdale College instead.

Sixth- Cut college admissions by half, limited to those prepared to benefit, and having the drive to do well, not just postpone working.

I just wonder if anyone read this article. The issue is not education quality, but quantity. The leading countries in the data base focus on 2 yr certifications. The US on 4 year degrees. Of course, those that focus on such 2 year certifications will have more numbers. Many of these countries provide these certificates in the last year of what we call 12th grade, with an additional year for an additional certification. Given the rapidity of change in the work world and its demands for quick specialized training. It may indeed be time to look at the focus and get more certification for young workers in the the 12th grade.

Wow. My initial response to the article was to doubt the data, especially when I saw the diverging goals (4 yr degree here vs. certificate elsewhere), and when I saw that the quoted experts were allocating value to a college degree as job preparation rather than life preparation/improvement. Then I read these posts...and now I believe we are far behind. I suppose I read too many freshman compositions and too readily recognize poor writing, backed up by rash generalizations and non-critical thinking. We can certainly do better, especially when discussing higher eductation.

Don't tell your kid to eat their dinner, "there are a billion staving chinese." Teach your children to study math and science, there are a billion chinese that want your job.

Maybe all those lefty classes in subjects such as "gender studies, African literature, enviornmental theory" and the like might not be doing much to prepare our kids for the real world outside the liberal indoctrination centers.

It also reinforces that fact that much of the preparatory work at the High School level as dictated by the teachers' unions and "professional" educators is pretty much a failure at getting kids ready for college since the first year or so is now mostly remedial High School level knowledge.

Too many college students come unprepared for a college-level education. Thus, many freshman and sophomores must take remedial math, writing, English, and science courses, just to come up to speed on the expectations for university standards and to think critically. Further, they lack study skills.

We also find that students come with a host of myth-like beliefs -- global warming or evolultion are psuedo-sciences; Iraq was behind 9/11; age of the earth is only 6,000 years old; etc. Thus, there's significant de-programming of superficial, uncritical thinking that must be replaced by fundamental concepts, such as the scientific method or basic American history or how society and government work (e.g., social contracts, civil rights, systems of government, etc.).

Students often feel "they know it all," and they are shocked to learn things contrary to "what Uncle Jim said on fishing trips." They also seem to get frustrated with learning things that they believe "have no use" to get a job. Why should students learn Mexican history? And yet, once they understand it, then they understand the underpinnings of today's immigration challenges.

We indoctrinate our children with myths that create challenges for higher ed.