Is the education system sufficient?

[Hawknyr]

The public system no. I didn't learn a thing until i left highschool which didn't prepare me at all.

[raxn]

Education system in Australia, particularly teritiary education is kinda SHITE. ESP with STUPID ABBOTT

[Double.Trouble]

College costs are ridiculous in America. I'm jealous of my friends from other countries that get to go for $8,000 or less a year while some Americans have to pay $45,000+ a year for certain degrees. I'm going to be living on the edge trying to pay for rent, food, and gas while having to pay off my loans for 10 years.

[Foxglove]

There is so much that I feel is wrong with education in the U.S.

I went to relatively "good" schools all my life (all with ratings of 9 or 10 out of 10 on GreatSchools), and yet my peers never really respected our instructors until I entered college, which I think is an issue.
Disruptive, disrespectful students who have no interest in learning (and who like to interrupt the teacher, laugh at them, etc) only disturb the learning environment and make it difficult for the teachers to teach and the other (serious) students to learn. It wasn't until AP classes became an option in the 10th grade that I was able to mostly avoid these sorts of students.

And then there are also the teachers who are extremely disillusioned with their job and think that all their students are just going to turn out to be failures. Definitely not mentor material.
A lot of people in grade school (K-12) don't really take education seriously, plus there are too many adults who don't see education as a national and/or personal priority.

And I REALLY don't agree with the policy of holding back the quicker-to-learn kids so that the slower-to-learn kids can catch up. (Cough No Child Left Behind).
There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a little longer to learn concepts; there are students who start off performing the worst in their class, but given enough time, their understanding of the material will come to far exceed that of the students who performed the best right off the bat. But to keep the standards for education low enough so that even the slowest to learn can keep up (and making them so low that the fastest-to-learn never have to study in order to get an A) is NOT a good system.

For example, I learned how to do everything in Algebra I when I was 8 (thanks to my dad, who liked to challenge me, and who knew I had the capacity to learn that stuff), and it wasn't until I was 13 that I finally went up to Geometry (because 8th grade is the education system's standard for when "the smart kids", so-called, learn geometry, apparently, and because it's not easy to go that far ahead in math... the system worries that the younger kids will get bullied, etc).
I have met SO many others who had similar experiences to me; that is, they were really young when they mastered relatively advanced material, but couldn't move on because they were forced by the education system to stay with other kids in their own year.
A more tailored education system (to better fit each individual) would be the ideal, but I totally get how this would be difficult to make a reality.

Of course, it's so much easier to point out what you perceive to be wrong than to actually produce some solutions and results, especially when there are going to be plenty of people who don't agree with you or who will see issues and find fault with any solution you come up with. Policy is such a headache!

[Jules]

I know New Jersey is known for having good public schools, but I think the reason why a lot of schools aren't good are because of the teachers. I know in my school there are so many teachers who just either don't care about what their teaching, or just clearly hate teaching in general. I think that creates a really negative learning environment so nobody really learns anything, and that ruins your ability to learn/understand other material. If my algebra II teacher teaches me absolutely nothing, then how am I supposed to do well in precalculus? And with tenor it's practically impossible to fire teachers, so teachers who do a crappy job get to teach for years and years but all their students suffer.

I think there should have to be more qualifications to be a teacher personally, or at least some kind of better interview process, because my school has hired so many teachers that can't handle it and quit within the first few months of teaching. My friend's Economics teacher had a nervous breakdown and quit two months into school, and then she didn't have a real teacher for almost two months because they couldn't find a suitable replacement. But this would not have been an issue if the school just hired a competent teacher in the first place. I don't think the education system is completely horrible, but it definitely needs to be improved.

[Foxglove]

Also, my perspective on college/university level education in the U.S.

I agree with a previous sentiment that technical schools shouldn't be considered second-rate schools, because those schools prepare you for actual careers and are therefore perhaps more useful than some of the degrees that you might get out of a "first-rate" research university.
Research universities are rated the highest in the nation because of, well, the research and the studies that get pumped out by the professors, staff, researchers, etc who work there. These days, the degrees you get out of those schools are most useful if you're planning to go into research yourself, or if you're majoring in something like chemical engineering or computer science (where you don't even need to go on and get a masters or PhD to get a really good job that doesn't involve research).

Although I guess these days people kind of judge your worth and your level of intelligence based on what school you go to, so being able to claim a certain top-rated research university as your alma mater and being part of their alumni association probably gets you some brownie points in life. This is something I don't really like, though, because it should be the staff and students who lend the university its prestige, and not the other way around.

[Skarl]

A few nights ago @(you need an account to see links) and I compared and contrasted the education that I received here in the United States to that which he acquired in Australia. As a patriotic American, I feel that our populous is lazy overall, and therefore doesn't retain as much as our public education system has to offer. Unknown to @(you need an account to see links), I went to vocational school for my last two years of high school to earn dual credit (HS and college). I take my current course-load at an expedited rate and test well.

While American schools do have you take generalized classes, to encompass a learning environment that may not be of interest nor required for a future scholar's career, the system invites students to determine what subject(s) they are interested in at a young age and do so progressively. There are -- as I'd assume in other countries -- a variety of "levels" for basic classes (history, literature, science, mathematics, et cetera) and our students are given the option to participate in more challenging classes as they progress throughout the system.

Unfortunately, we are becoming a society that does not harp on the necessity to have knowledge about a specific subject, but rather, for an individual to have the ability to look up the desired material. It's disheartening, because factual information -- with which is derived the basis for many theories, developments, et cetera -- is phrasing out of the learning process. I am geographically illiterate because that knowledge (though I tested well when needed) is not something that I've retained.

What I found interesting is that Scarmans, like @(you need an account to see links) (who resides in the UK/England, I believe?), have a college setup that is career-based. Though you learn the ins-and-outs of a specific career, you're also readied to enter the workforce. Here in the United States it seems easier to change your major or study interest, but even at a higher academic level you are still required to have a general knowledge of the four primary subjects I listed earlier. It is my understanding that education overseas in their respective countries is more specialized.

Although I cannot complete a crossword puzzle in pen -- and fail to retain trivial facts about history/geography -- I believe that my limited writing abilities, scientific knowledge, and managerial skills (most of which I did learn in public school!) will assist me in my chosen career field: accountancy. It is important to compose financial reports, interact with and lead teams, and assess numbers to appease a multitude of hypothetical scenarios.

That's just my "two cents."

[Thommy]

Realistically, you can't learn in a book how to prepare for the workforce these days, at least in the US.

Trade schools still have their places as skilled laborers are one of the highest demand workers (as opposed to the plethora of business majors w/o employment from regular colleges).

Looking solely at traditional 4 year universities, they are more of an experiment than anything. It will be for the most part, a students first time (largely) on their own. They can self destruct, they can thrive, they can do whatever w/o constantly being monitored by parents (yes, some parents dont really watch or push their children, but that's another topic).

What matters these days is what you do in your 'free' time. GPA is used by employers who are looking for interns, internships grant work experience, work experience leads to well paying jobs when you graduate. Skip this part and just grind courses and you will find yourself struggling for employment. An A student w/o relative work experience will lose out to a low B or upper C student even that has interned at a reputable fortune 500 company (and has good references).

There is a large education gap, in the united states currently. I wouldn't say university learning is flawed, even with taking classes that we lack an interest in to become more 'well rounded' but I will say that university learning no longer translates well to the current state of the workforce the US has, which is focused on more managerial or sourcing positions.

I graduated college over a decade ago, but my wife just finished up this past semester. Its a necessary evil. Getting through those 4 years shows that you can be a responsible adult (even if its not entirely true) and most companies will train you to function in their environment with how they run themselves.

The degree trumps those w/o it, but it still falls to those with relevant work experience. Its hard to get that experience w/o either knowing someone to help you or being currently enrolled in college to make use of collegiate resources in order to secure an internship.

Outside of that, all 'education' is rather irrelevant.
Who would you rather have perform your surgery, a guy that got straight A's and is on his first day of work .. or that guy that has done it thousands of times but barely passed?

I don't have any problem with people changing or needing to change majors, High School (in the US) is so much different than college that you don't really know what you want entering college. I have a Computer Science degree and I seen pretty much every year, the class size get cut in half with people changing majors because coding as a hobby is far different than doing it as a job (where you are writing code for some program that you don't even care about what it does because it has no interest to you).

Cheating is also prevalent in US universities (i cant speak for other countries) but that's also another topic for another day.

[raxn]

College costs are ridiculous in America. I'm jealous of my friends from other countries that get to go for $8,000 or less a year while some Americans have to pay $45,000+ a year for certain degrees. I'm going to be living on the edge trying to pay for rent, food, and gas while having to pay off my loans for 10 years.

LOL that's changing. Abbott is pretty much americanising the whole system; with universities being free to determine their own fees for courses (I'm not sure if I right here... correct me if I'm wrong). He uses the reason that he wants to build more competition and how Australian universities cannot compete internationally with other universities. But it's a load of bullshit because my tutors get paid approximately $50/hr to teach 15+ students which is RIDICULOUS. We spend $1000 per course and there's not even airconditioning in most of the building.... and they're already building a new building for accommodation, cutting down costs further by COMBINING subjects... it's ridiculous

[zxzero]

Best speech ever about schooling.