4 ms·

> Citation? All countries have a mix of wealthy, educated students, working class students, students whose parents are drug addicts, immigrants who don't speak

> Citation? All countries have a mix of wealthy, educated students, working class students, students whose parents are drug addicts, immigrants who don't speak the local language, etc. In my experience the US isn't that different from other wealthy countries I've lived in. Yes, but many European countries engage in so-called tracking of students, putting them in separate tracks for tradeswork, skilled labor, and university such that the "dumb" ones aren't taking university entrance exams. In the US this has become increasingly frowned upon by (perhaps) well-meaning administrators who feel that to do this is unconscionable. In my freshman year of high-school they had advanced academic and standard groupings in the same school, but removed this my sophmore year. They re-branded all the base-level courses as "College Prep," with "Honors" being the former advanced-track classes, AP and IB courses already being branded as such. Of course, if you were in the advanced group the counselors and teachers would all push you into AP and IB courses but they also encouraged everyone to take the SAT and ACT tests, to apply to university, and discouraged enrolling in the trades program that the county offered (half-day academic, half-day trades classes). This type of "everyone goes to college" mentality is why the SAT is a poor academic bellwether.

eeZah7Ux 7y ago
> Yes, but many European countries engage in so-called tracking of students, putting them in separate tracks for tradeswork, skilled labor, and university such that the "dumb" ones aren't taking university entrance exams. Not at all, this is largely false.
- eeZah7Ux 7y ago
  Instead of downvoting, provide evidence to the contrary. In various countries in Europe where I lived there are no laws preventing people from taking university entrance exams.
zmk_ 7y ago
But in Europe this often goes hand-in-hand with mandatory schooling while in US people sort themselves by dropping out.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  In my home state, one cannot drop-out until 16 which is well past when one would be traditionally tracked.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  Mandatory schooling in most of Europe is up to the age of 15-16 and you can do w/e you want after that not unlike the US... https://os.unil.cloud.switch.ch/tind-customer-edudoc/aa7b2aa4-cfe2-4f45-a924-46bfe179e3da?response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27compulsory_education_2018_19.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&AWSAccessKeyId=1e2525c929074b90b98e19eb95e6256c&Expires=1569518355&Signature=iy%2BwCYz0cHkACt8CYRFZaD0ELjs%3D https://os.unil.cloud.switch.ch/tind-customer-edudoc/aa7b2aa...
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
> Yes, but many European countries engage in so-called tracking of students, putting them in separate tracks for tradeswork, skilled labor, and university such that the "dumb" ones aren't taking university entrance exams. Err, this is a positive thing? Personally I found the AP classes and SATs to be pretty useless beyond getting into college. We should just admit anyone who wants to to. If the point of this is to justify high international test scores, there’s a much better argument there to test either nobody or everyone.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  > We should just admit anyone who wants to to. Well, the problem was not only that anyone could enroll in the higher-track classes but teachers and counselors pushed many to take courses they weren't prepared or willing to take. I myself was heavily pressured into taking higher-level Spanish courses than I was capable of, or even willing to take. I was explicitly told I had to because I wouldn't get into any universities without it. They really wouldn't take no for an answer, and I ended my senior year with a 40 / 100 grade, but thankfully had a high enough GPA and enough credits to take the hit without issue. In almost every class one could expect the population to be bi-modal, you would have the flunkies with no desire or hope to succeed and you would have the students who wanted to be there. This resulted in the teachers often having to meet the lowest-common-denominator. We had a programming course (Visual Basic) that after the first month they switched to one of those "learn-to-program" visual building-block languages, but then myself and a few others raised hell so they allowed everyone to choose which they wanted to do in the same class of 30 or so. The reality was the counselors pushed the students to take the course, and most figured they would get a free 90 minutes of fucking around on the internet, and the teacher ended up giving the lower-end of students low-but-passing grades. As it were, I'd had that same teacher several years in a row and ended up as something of his assistant because I was already a competent programmer. They're not able to do anything, it's all a metrics / numbers game. To be clear, my point isn't about the benefits of tracking as it is a rebuke of a broken system of metrics-appeasing administrators cloaked in the lie that everyone is equally capable of the same things.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
lizkm 7y ago
>In the US this has become increasingly frowned upon by (perhaps) well-meaning administrators who feel that to do this is unconscionable. Because it is unconscionable. I dropped out of high-school at 16. I was able to go back and earn a degree in computer science at the age of 28 at a Canadian school. Under the European system where your life path and career trajectory is decided for you at 14 years old, I wouldn't have been able to do this.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  What about tracking students in high-school precludes your being able to attend university at the age of 28? Insofar as I'm aware, one can change tracks in most tracking systems. It just isn't entirely common, likely because it puts most on a path where they should be.
  - lizkm 7y ago
    > What about tracking students in high-school precludes your being able to attend university at the age of 28? Because the "dumb" students are pushed into trades instead. And good luck going back to university when you don't have a long chain of prerequisite courses from age 14 onwards. In the states you can just get a GED and take the SAT (along with individual selection) to prove you belong in university. Assigning a person a career based on a test they take at 14 seems awfully reductive and like it would segregate students based on the social standing of their parents. Wouldn't surprise me if the German system reduces social mobility. Should students have their entire lives mapped out for them at 14? And if so, why at 14? Why not at 10, or 6, or at birth?
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      Nothing about a tracking system actively precludes your being able to jump tracks later in life. To be frank, you're blindly speculating based on this assumption. > Assigning a person a career based on a test they take at 14 seems awfully reductive and like it would segregate students based on the social standing of their parents. Wouldn't surprise me if the German system reduces social mobility. That's not how tracking works. They don't assign you a vocation.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

eeZah7Ux 7y ago

eeZah7Ux 7y ago
Instead of downvoting, provide evidence to the contrary. In various countries in Europe where I lived there are no laws preventing people from taking university entrance exams.

zmk_ 7y ago

But in Europe this often goes hand-in-hand with mandatory schooling while in US people sort themselves by dropping out.

mieseratte 7y ago
In my home state, one cannot drop-out until 16 which is well past when one would be traditionally tracked.
dogma1138 7y ago
Mandatory schooling in most of Europe is up to the age of 15-16 and you can do w/e you want after that not unlike the US... https://os.unil.cloud.switch.ch/tind-customer-edudoc/aa7b2aa4-cfe2-4f45-a924-46bfe179e3da?response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27compulsory_education_2018_19.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&AWSAccessKeyId=1e2525c929074b90b98e19eb95e6256c&Expires=1569518355&Signature=iy%2BwCYz0cHkACt8CYRFZaD0ELjs%3D https://os.unil.cloud.switch.ch/tind-customer-edudoc/aa7b2aa...

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

> Yes, but many European countries engage in so-called tracking of students, putting them in separate tracks for tradeswork, skilled labor, and university such that the "dumb" ones aren't taking university entrance exams. Err, this is a positive thing? Personally I found the AP classes and SATs to be pretty useless beyond getting into college. We should just admit anyone who wants to to. If the point of this is to justify high international test scores, there’s a much better argument there to test either nobody or everyone.

mieseratte 7y ago
> We should just admit anyone who wants to to. Well, the problem was not only that anyone could enroll in the higher-track classes but teachers and counselors pushed many to take courses they weren't prepared or willing to take. I myself was heavily pressured into taking higher-level Spanish courses than I was capable of, or even willing to take. I was explicitly told I had to because I wouldn't get into any universities without it. They really wouldn't take no for an answer, and I ended my senior year with a 40 / 100 grade, but thankfully had a high enough GPA and enough credits to take the hit without issue. In almost every class one could expect the population to be bi-modal, you would have the flunkies with no desire or hope to succeed and you would have the students who wanted to be there. This resulted in the teachers often having to meet the lowest-common-denominator. We had a programming course (Visual Basic) that after the first month they switched to one of those "learn-to-program" visual building-block languages, but then myself and a few others raised hell so they allowed everyone to choose which they wanted to do in the same class of 30 or so. The reality was the counselors pushed the students to take the course, and most figured they would get a free 90 minutes of fucking around on the internet, and the teacher ended up giving the lower-end of students low-but-passing grades. As it were, I'd had that same teacher several years in a row and ended up as something of his assistant because I was already a competent programmer. They're not able to do anything, it's all a metrics / numbers game. To be clear, my point isn't about the benefits of tracking as it is a rebuke of a broken system of metrics-appeasing administrators cloaked in the lie that everyone is equally capable of the same things.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

lizkm 7y ago

>In the US this has become increasingly frowned upon by (perhaps) well-meaning administrators who feel that to do this is unconscionable. Because it is unconscionable. I dropped out of high-school at 16. I was able to go back and earn a degree in computer science at the age of 28 at a Canadian school. Under the European system where your life path and career trajectory is decided for you at 14 years old, I wouldn't have been able to do this.

mieseratte 7y ago
What about tracking students in high-school precludes your being able to attend university at the age of 28? Insofar as I'm aware, one can change tracks in most tracking systems. It just isn't entirely common, likely because it puts most on a path where they should be.
- lizkm 7y ago
  > What about tracking students in high-school precludes your being able to attend university at the age of 28? Because the "dumb" students are pushed into trades instead. And good luck going back to university when you don't have a long chain of prerequisite courses from age 14 onwards. In the states you can just get a GED and take the SAT (along with individual selection) to prove you belong in university. Assigning a person a career based on a test they take at 14 seems awfully reductive and like it would segregate students based on the social standing of their parents. Wouldn't surprise me if the German system reduces social mobility. Should students have their entire lives mapped out for them at 14? And if so, why at 14? Why not at 10, or 6, or at birth?
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    Nothing about a tracking system actively precludes your being able to jump tracks later in life. To be frank, you're blindly speculating based on this assumption. > Assigning a person a career based on a test they take at 14 seems awfully reductive and like it would segregate students based on the social standing of their parents. Wouldn't surprise me if the German system reduces social mobility. That's not how tracking works. They don't assign you a vocation.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]