Isn't this very US-centric? or is it true in europe as well? We French have the worse schools in europe according to PISA, where we score around the same as th

Isn't this very US-centric? or is it true in europe as well? We French have the worse schools in europe according to PISA, where we score around the same as the US. According to data, too much emphasis on grade, too much pressure, school is mostly good for children who already do well (we would rank in the top if only the top 5% was ranked), but bad for the rest. Interestingly, we also have on of the higher teen suicide rate of europe. But we do not have as much bullying issues as it seems US have if i read the comments right. Or at least did not when i was there, nor when i was a youth camp counselor, or "speaker" in school (i brought science experiments, gears and stuff for 6-11yo and did cool stuff with an association). I don't remember any isolated kid when i was in middle school, and i guess in highschool "I" was the most bullied kid at the start of the year (playing violin in the school boarding facilities when the school was 70% technical/trade and 30% generalist do not help), but i mean, people overall were great and the education team helped me past the first few months until my natural charm and bad jokes did the work and offset the out-of-tune sounds (joking, but not entirely). Are those hn comments representative of the overall bullying in public school in the US? We do have bullying in France though, i don't mean to say we are good on this point, and from what i managed to understand in my few years around the education system, those who have the greatest impact are the directors (school or youth camp). A good director will have meeting with this team where he talks about children with special needs, or children who are especially needy ("attention whore" is the special term internet came with, which says a lot about how charitable and nice we are with each other naturally), and help professors or counselors manage those needs. With permanent emphasis on this, the "bad elements" are peer-pressured into doing better (in my experience as a counselor, but its probably the same for teachers). Those with the second greatest impact are people at the departement of education who allocate budgets and basically decide how many children per teacher. Teachers themselves are a most third, at least 5th behind parents and the community.