[bradly]

I don't understand this. The U.S. would be much worse without free, universal High School, regardless of whether you think it has devalued over time. I believe that if I didn't have a H.S. education, my life would be more difficult, but I get the feeling from these replies that people view a u.s. high school education as throw-away.

[umanwizard]

Many developed countries in e.g. Europe don't actually have universal academic high school like the US does - they have perhaps 1/3 of people go to academic high school, where it is more difficult than in the US (perhaps comparable to the difficulty of AP classes). The rest go to vocational or semi-vocational school.

[C1sc0cat]

Not sure that is actually a good idea as kids with well of backgrounds tend to get the higher tracks.

I remember a native German poster on hn commenting on the subject "funny how the its the brown skinned Germans, who end up in the lower tier schools"

[9HZZRfNlpR]

You get there by merit not wallet, I thought usa has it the same to be honest. Sometimes I feel like Americans have very deranged view of Europe where half thinks it's some socialist equality utopia and the other half thinks a communist hellhole.

[bradly]

> You get there by merit not wallet, I thought usa has it the same to be honest.

The problem in the U.S. is that not all public schools are equal, so the "merit" to get into a certain school/scholarship is at least partly tied to your social-economic status.

For instance in my area, all public schools have removed arts/music/foreign language, but in the nicer neighborhoods PTA, boosters, and fundraisers have added those removed subjects back with parent donations. So you have a situation where when it comes to vote for a small tax increase to help our schools, many people are confused as their kids go to a public school with everything they need. These are schools in the same school district. New, upscale homes can also pay directly for their public school in the form of Mello-Roos taxes.

[C1sc0cat]

Really and having well of parents live in a wealthy make no difference, not being Neurodiverse also is a big help.

You know that meritocracy was seen as a bad thing when it was coined.

[bradly]

Thanks for that. Yeah, I'm all for education reform and different options so it's great to hear about different programs, but many of the comments here are dismissing education, both high school and higher ed, simply because it is less scarce or not what it used to be.