[Waterluvian]

I’m not sure this “thinking” on public education holds up if you look outside the U.S. where countries with emphasis on public education so consistently outperform the Americans.

I guess at best it might be that there’s problems unique to American culture that makes public education not work. But that feels unlikely to hold up. I think the premise is simply wrong.

[somenameforme]

It's not really about "emphasis". For instance the US is one of the highest spenders in the world, even PPP adjusted, per student on education. I think it's largely about educational culture and goals. For instance in many/most places in Asia there tends to be far less tolerance for disruptive students. Many places even have varying forms of corporal punishment, even when there are technically regulations or laws against it. There are also generally parallel education systems where people can, from relatively young ages, pursue vocational school instead of normal schooling.

Basically the US education system is more focused on a sort of one-size-fits-all education with the only real differentiation being a 'normal' or 'accelerated' track (with some places like California even gradually moving against that remaining differentiation). This is in spite of having a far more diverse population in every possible way than other countries which focus on more of having educational systems which work to the strengths of each student.

[moi2388]

Well, my country has public schools, but children are segregated by educational prowess. The smartest kids go to schools which are completely separate from the less intelligent ones. If you fail, you might get sent to a lower school system.

So this would explain why these disruptions would not appear in my country (or to a far lower degree)but would in the US school system.

[rickydroll]

How would your country school system deal with kids like me, ADHD with spots of brilliance and spots of, "how do you remember to breathe?"

[moi2388]

There is special guidance, so usually you can just do the level you “ought” to be in.

If it’s really severe there is special education as a last resort.

More commonly modified lesson plans, or teachers will be instructed to let you out of the classroom for a bit, or give you tasks like “fetch this item from the front desk” in between.

It’s certainly not perfect, but there is quite some guidance and individual measures possible.

[Retric]

An apples to apples comparison adjusted for things like Americans who have English as a second language or other countries removing people from school roles significantly shrinks the differences.

A surprising number of the absolute best schools in the world by those same criteria are US public schools due to the population and resources going to those schools. So the issues are not quite so simple as they might first appear. The US education system isn’t efficient, but it’s also not as bad as generally perceived.

[almostgotcaught]

> An apples to apples comparison adjusted for things like Americans who have English as a second language or other countries removing people from school roles significantly shrinks the differences.

"If I remove all the data that hurts my case, the data clearly supports my case!".

Those people that you want to exclude aren't transients - they're either current or future Americans which are called immigrants. So if you want a well-functioning democracy, economy, society, etc you have to educate them effectively too, not just the people that were born here.

[Retric]

The point isn’t excluding buckets, the point is to have multiple points of comparison.

If we want to know which system you should copy, you want understand the factors that make that system more challenging. America doesn’t need to deal with severe malnutrition, but we may want to copy elements from countries dealing with such issues.

Unless of course the goal is a hit piece for whatever emotionally agenda you you’re pushing.

[almostgotcaught]

I have no idea what this comment means.

I'm pointing out that "an apples to apples" comparison is all of the people in the seats at the schools because all of those people live, work, and (eventually) vote in your country.

[Retric]

I edited for clarity, but an apples to apples comparison means to compare like to like not to compare everything.

I can weigh a bag of groceries, that’s a metric I can collect on everything you’re buying but it doesn’t tell me if you’re making healthy choices at the grocery store.

Similarly I can look at the test grades of everyone in Ukraine right now, but that tells me more about society in general than the countries school system.

[almostgotcaught]

> Similarly I can look at the test grades of everyone in Ukraine right now, but that tells me more about society in general than the countries school system.

I'll repeat for the third and final time: excluding people that speak English as a second language in a country's school system that has been taking immigrants for all time (and vaguely plans to continue) is not the same thing as excluding people affected by a brutal but eventually ending war.

I can't make it any simpler for you.

[whimsicalism]

the “problem” unique to America is that we like to take in the poor and huddled masses (who don’t test well), while the EU likes to watch them sink and die in the Mediterranean.

[Gud]

This is objectively not true.

If anything, the opposite is true. Europe receives less educated individuals who will be a burden on their welfare, while the USA has cheap labor from South America and attract top talent globally.

[whimsicalism]

name me a single EU nation with a higher per-capita rate of immigrants from developing countries. it is simply not true that Europe has more immigrants without strong education background than the US, there is no way of cutting the data

[Gud]

You are changing the goal posts. The USA doesn’t have a welfare state the same way Sweden has.

[whimsicalism]

i’m not changing anything - you are the one who brought up welfare. my point is and always has been that the US has a multi-decades long run of relative immigration permissiveness towards people from poorer countries - and that will impact education outcomes.