[Happydayz]

US educators are well aware of the German model. Like you said, we've opted not to go with serious tracking for students. The minimal tracking we already do is controversial as is. It would be a huge ruckus for us to do what the Germans do and start segregating students by ability soon after elementary school. We just value different things differently, and in this particular case we accept less optimal social outcomes in the name of greater quality.

[kaitai]

Thought experiment: I wonder if one reason the US doesn't do formalized tracking of this sort is that it would be distasteful to formalize the inequalities in our system, but yet we don't have the stomach to actually provide equal opportunities.

We have de facto tracking by parental income and social capital. Look at the other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science: AP CS is basically a class that is only offered if the parents agitate for it and the district has the money. Somehow in Mississippi this just doesn't happen, and we are fine with that as a nation. Keeps us wringing our hands about who says what words in the workplace instead of having to make a substantive change in what we offer students.

There are swaths of the US (with power) that benefit from this socioeconomic/cultural capital tracking of students. Keep the poor relatively poor with shitty schools for all, keep the rich rich with private tutoring so their SAT scores get 'em into a decent college, get the immigrant parents to put out good workers by running their kids through prescribed hoops so they can rise a little and be good middle managers and developers. Then we don't have to deal with poor kids with ability or rich kids who are dumb as dirt -- we can say everyone has equal opportunity with clean hands and conscience!

[tsotha]

The US doesn't track for four reasons.

* The US is obsessed with race, and tracking makes it too obvious black kids aren't doing as well as white kids.

* Parents all believe their own child is above average regardless of the mathematical implications, and they get very upset if you hint the possibility little Johnny might not be the most intelligent child in his class. Clearly he just doesn't do well on tests.

* Children tend to live up or down to expectations. Obviously you can't make a dumb kid smart by expecting him to be smart, but you can influence the amount of effort he puts into school.

* People have looked at income statistics and decided if we send every child to college they can all be doctors and lawyers, and the toilets will magically clean themselves.

[dragonwriter]

> Look at the other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science: AP CS is basically a class that is only offered if the parents agitate for it and the district has the money. Somehow in Mississippi this just doesn't happen, and we are fine with that as a nation. Keeps us wringing our hands about who says what words in the workplace instead of having to make a substantive change in what we offer students.

I think you'll find that the people "wringing hands about who says what words in the workplace" (at least, if by that, you are referring to public concern with things like race, gender, and sexual orientation-based harassment) are, in no small part, the same group of people actively concerned about and things like math and science education. They just aren't particularly influential in Mississippi.

[kaitai]

Overall, I agree, but as someone who's been in the fight for good treatment for all for a long time, I've started to worry that we're being misdirected to the wrong fights -- distracted by the obvious rather than looking deeper. Among other things, I teach at a university. I just don't get a lot of students from certain backgrounds, and it's not because of the problems at tech companies. It's because of the economic concerns of parents and the culture that we've passed to children. By college or the master's level half the community I grew up with are just not even on the same track. Maybe part of it is that we drag kids who would be great electricians through some inferior faux-college-prep charade instead of giving them an actual good education. Having taught precalc at the college level those students would have been better prepared for college by taking a shop class that involved using fractions and trig than by taking all four years of what math they actually took.

The parent comment to my previous one implied that we in the US have equality of opportunity, unlike Germany with its tracking. I am experimenting with the argument that we in the US say all the right things and yet insidiously do worse. Our rhetoric and our reality in the United States don't really line up. My high school had International Baccalaureate classes open to all, but only some kids signed up. How have we built this self-perpetuating organism of inequality that plods along even though we say all sorts of "correct" things? Even in Mississippi people are publicly concerned with race, gender, and sexual-orientation-based harassment. And yet.

[creshal]

> what the Germans do and start segregating students by ability soon after elementary school

It's not that fascist.

For one, the parents decide which schools their kids go to, the states can only give recommendations (which are regularly ignored by Special Snowflake Parents).

Additionally, the decision is not final. Students can (and do) switch to a higher school form if their grades are good enough, and work their way from the lowest school form to university.

And after a recent reform, they don't even need to, as vocational schools (for which all students are eligible to after 9 years) are now able to grant bachelor degree equivalents.

[Happydayz]

Ah, very interesting then. I lived in Germany for three years, but there are still obviously many aspects of German culture I'm still not 100% on. Thanks for that correction. My understanding from the time (mid 2000s) was that the school tracking happened relatively early and that moves between tracks were infrequent.

[creshal]

> My understanding from the time (mid 2000s) was that the school tracking happened relatively early

It happens after the four-year primary school, yes. But as said, the school merely gives recommendations, and the parents can put their children in every (public or private) school they want, only home schooling is heavily restricted (and basically only possible if it's medically necessary).

> and that moves between tracks were infrequent.

From my (limited) personal experience, yes. But there's little bureaucratic obstacles to such a move, as far as I can tell, most don't move because there's little need – even the lowest secondary degree allows you to attain a bachelor of arts (although it's a rather long route and you're looking at a total of 20 or more years via vocational school time versus 15/16 years via university).

[RodericDay]

Americans have greater equality than Germans?