What constantly shocks me in the U.S. is that the gross visible disparities in the living standards between haves and have-nots, and the quality of public education that kids receive reflects their parents’ living standards (perhaps because the school funding comes from local taxes as a comment above mentioned).

If the value of public education is mostly in maintaining some sort of “universal” standards, it is odd that kids need to be given advantage or punished depending on where they are born. We know, however, that’s basically how the U.S. is structured. Haves in this country do benefit from having less educated population around, and the social momentum is to keep things that way.

Low salaries in public education make it a rather unattractive career option in the U.S. for many domestic talents. If things come down to money and how that flows in society (as is often the case), then maybe the U.S. can start hiring cheap(er) English-speaking educators from third-world countries with very well educated populations, maybe like India. It’s been happening in private education industry, such as in online tutoring. Many sectors in the U.S., from the sweat-shop type to the highly technical, already depend on foreign labor, so why not public education?

That seems very American way of solving the “problem”… for now…

Does anyone have data on the decline of US public education? Literacy rates for the last 100 years, and so on? I expect the decline exists, but its not my country so I’ve never looked into it

Right.

Exactly.

That is the case because parents and tutors have assumed responsibility for making sure their students are learning the content being “discovered” in class.

Yes, indeed.

Parent involvement!

Try Googling that phrase.

Then try Googling Siegfried Engelmannn and Direct Instruction: “If the student hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.”

It’s high time someone took a good, hard look at the test scores of black and Hispanic students in these “high performing” public school districts.

In my own district, last year, every single black and Hispanic student in the 8th grade failed the state tests in math and English. Every single one.

Why do the white students pass?

Parents and tutors are doing a vast amount of teaching.

Also, 50 years ago was only 7 months after Sputnik, and the post-Sputnik boost to science education did not have a chance to kick in. So, I think that, as far as science is concerned, it is quite likely that public schools were worse 50 years ago.

On the other hand, I think that you are absolutely right about the effect of the parents. I suspect that this is actually far more important than the quality of the schools in predicting the future success of students.

So what are #2 and #5? 5 is probably a model; is 2 some kind of Renaissance nobility? I was unaware that was a career option in the 1950’s.

Also, it’s nice to see that the young blonde girl in the inset picture has other hair colors and styles open to her, too. Freedom of choice is what this country is all about.

While the school system has been perennially maligned, it did take a hit when women started getting alternate careers. A lot more people remember truly amazing teachers, teachers who today would be working as lawyers, executives, doctors and in other careers. I’m no romantic about the school system. My mother was a teacher in NYC and I grew up with Up The Down Staircase. Education has always been one of those magical professions where we haven’t put in the resources to understand it. (This sometimes happens. Women have been getting pregnant for years, but we only figured out their most fertile times five or ten years ago.)

We forget that it was illegal to teach a black slave to read. We forget that it was illegal to hire another company’s workers for higher wages. We forget that there was a Supreme Court decision barring women from being lawyers. People rail about taxes, but the tax on a black slave used to be 100%, of everything. The tax on women, particularly women of skill, was far higher than anything that modern tax protesters like to whine about.

Also took me years to do the math to realize that the Caltech Alumna I know are the *first* women Caltech allowed in.

It’s not as ancient history as we like to pretend.

Why are schools worse? Many reasons, including as mentioned above, talented women going into more lucrative fields, leaving behind those who aren’t as well prepared and who do not care as much. But the most important one is the parents. And they sabotage education in a mulitude of ways. Some think their children can do no wrong. Others are completely absent from their children’s education, or even worse, actively oppose the schools. And far too many won’t hold their children, or their schools, to high standards.