[tlunter]

I think some resentful high school students that had a hard time often reflect American schooling poorly. I didn't have a supremely negative time (with the teaching at least) and I went to a standard 8:00-2:30 school in Massachusetts that had hour long blocks. I think we need to start taking more negative responses on the Internet as the extreme and not necessarily the norm.

[qrendel]

Massachusetts seems to be consistently ranked as having one of the top public school systems in the US.[1][2][3] That might explain part of the discrepancy between your experience and my own.

(Edit: In fact, it seems MA would be pretty competitive globally against other country's schools - 9th in math, 4th in reading, 2nd in math. On the other hand, the worst U.S. states are on par with Bulgaria and Kazakhstan, among others.[4])

[1] http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/h...

[2] https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-best-schools/5335/

[3] http://www.aecf.org/m/databook/aecf-2014kidscountdatabook-em...

[4] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2014/09/29/i...