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These basal, fundamental flaws in the educational system give me pause to awe, and a gut feeling the US is gonna get trampled many times over by the likes of Ch

These basal, fundamental flaws in the educational system give me pause to awe, and a gut feeling the US is gonna get trampled many times over by the likes of China within some decades. So little regulation and such harsh capitalism is eating its heart out bit by bit. I guess what keeps America bright at this point is a legacy from the past century, that's slowly eroding, and the brain drain sucked chiefly out of Asia and Eastern Europe--at least the same hands-off market attracts those people with today a stronger educational background than the average educated American, but how sustainable is it to keep importing talent? Is the power of capital enough to keep the american infrastructure and investment momentum on american grounds indefinitely?

programmarchy 12y ago
Such little regulation? What about Common Core, and the long history of ineffective state mandates to "improve" the education system? The education system is highly regulated, and nearly entirely state-run (not counting those few who are able to afford private school tuition on top of school taxes or the time to homeschool). Many, if not most, schools in the U.S. resemble prisons. Top-down. Hierarchical. Rigid. Compulsory. And if you look at the history of the state education system, it was largely modeled after the Prussian education system, set up by the king, which "attempted to instill social obedience in the citizens through indoctrination [...] The purpose of the system was to instill loyalty to the Crown and to train young men for the military and the bureaucracy." [1] And I would argue that the school system serves a similar function today. Based on the goals of social obedience and instilling loyalty to the state... Well, I think in those terms our education system is doing quite well. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
- jonhinson 12y ago
  How is Common Core, a set of standards that can voluntarily be adopted by states, equivalent to regulation?
  - programmarchy 12y ago
    Sorry, I was thinking about No Child Left Behind, which was an Act of Congress. You're right -- Common Core is implemented differently. From what I know, it was mainly drafted up by testing corporations, but has the support of the Obama administration. Since the federal government has levers and dials it can use (i.e. fines, penalties, withholding grants, etc.) then it seems to me like the end result will be the same.
    - Jtsummers 12y ago
      Common Core was one standard that states could adopt, and they could also develop their own, that would satisfy requirements to gain additional funding. Essentially, the Feds said: Improve your curricula because what's out there sucks, if you do, we'll give you a bonus. Texas and others developed their own standards, for example.
    - justizin 12y ago
      No Child Left Behind is anti-productive. How anyone could believe an education initiative by a president who thinks captain crunch discovered america in 1975 could be of any value is beyond me.
- briantakita 12y ago
  > Based on the goals of social obedience and instilling loyalty to the state... Well, I think in those terms our education system is doing quite well. Teacher wages approaching subsistence level is just the next step in the McDonaldization of education. Even the teachers are just another brick in the wall.
  - programmarchy 12y ago
    Agree with this. Perhaps the silver lining is that it could incentivize educators to opt-out of the state education system in favor of more entrepreneurial avenues? Like, private tutoring, teaching online classes, workshops, apprenticeships, etc.
    - Jtsummers 12y ago
      A lot of good educators do this. And that's part of the problem. Private tutoring and online classes don't reach the masses of students. I mean, if we want to deliberately exclude the majority of the population from being able to receive an education, then sure, let's go this way.
      - grondilu 12y ago
        If you think college teachers should be well paid, it means you think college education is worth a lot. If you think it's worth a lot, then it means it is expensive. If it is expensive, it makes sense that lots of people can't afford it. You can't pay teachers a lot if you have them teach poor people. Otherwise where is the money supposed to come from?
        mercurial 12y ago
        Taxes.
        hnal943 12y ago
        The problem with that is that eventually you run out of other people's money. See: Europe
- r00fus 12y ago
  Just amazing that you and goldfeld are both right - the US education system is at once inadequately designed, and also being sieged by corporate interests as well. Doesn't hurt that some school administrators don't reasonably respond/engage with parents except those who have lawyers, which parents unfortunately engage without trying to engage the school first. Ultimately though, I think the sad state of schools in this country is a (big) symptom of society's greater ills. Rampant corporatism, anti-intellectualism, and creeping authoritarianism from a runaway security industrial complex have been happening for decades... and schools are just one aspect of the decay of the social fabric.
  - dasil003 12y ago
    On one side we have wealth consolidating much faster than the economy is growing, and on the other side we have the military industrial complex sucking up any increase in taxation to bloat its own oppressive bureaucracy, to say nothing of the resolving door between them. I can't help but get the feeling that a dystopia is congealing around us with no way out politically. A lot of intellectuals have foreseen the ills of unbounded capitalism that are really starting to set in now, but I don't think anyone has proposed a credible solution.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      Well, I think if we want to start thinking about these, it needs to become publicly acceptable to say that capitalism is an evil vampire squid trying to suck your blood rather than a cuddly huggable teddy-bear that solves all your problems. See: this entire thread, in which the solution to corporatization of the university is almost automatically assumed to be adding more capitalism.
      - hnal943 12y ago
        That's because every variant of Marxism that's been tried in the world has led to widespread violence and misery. People are understandably reluctant to try it again.
TrainedMonkey 12y ago
I disagree, while there are glaring problems within U.S. educational systems there are two significant factors mitigating how crippling they are long term. 1. Opportunities, there are tons of opportunities in U.S., if you want to learn you will find a way to despite all the flaws. 2. Immigration, there are a lot of highly educated people immigrating into U.S. Additionally we still cannot anticipate how whole MOOCs business will turn out. So yes the are problems and they are very bad, but not as crippling as you might expect.
jdreaver 12y ago
Such little regulation? Harsh capitalism? Our education system is propped up chiefly because of government. Most of the US goes to public schools, controlled by the government. Most university students go to public schools. Students get ridiculous loans they can't default on, courtesy of the government. Harsh capitalism would be harsh on the universities who cling to a dying lecture/exam model that hasn't evolved for centuries. It would punish universities who don't produce results, instead of giving them students with free loans from the taxpayers. Harsh capitalism would see universities that can't evolve disappear. I feel like blaming things on capitalism and lack of regulation is so overplayed and fashionable that people can't take a second to think that maybe regulation and government caused the problem in the first place. Everything the government does right is lauded while everything it does wrong is blamed on "corporate interests" and capitalism.
- esrauch 12y ago
  Is it actually better for students that they can't default on their loans? I usually hear it the opposite way, that even after bankruptcy proceedings you still have your student loan debt following you around.
  - dnautics 12y ago
    non-dischargeability was probably a 'good intention' gone horribly wrong. Because on the plus side, the student's APRs are lower because the lender can be guaranteed to own a portion of the student's labor for the specified term unless they die. And because the higher educational institutes really ought to be entitled to continue extracting their students' value.
    - justizin 12y ago
      the problem is that higher education is the only product aside from used cars in the US which can be sold without an implied warranty of merchantability.
      - sitkack 12y ago
spikels 12y ago
Your ideology is getting in the way of clear thinking. Good luck on your prediction on China's future prowess in the education of non-Chinese students. Lack of government regulation (and financing) is probably the opposite of the problem in the US (do you realize that most US colleges are run by state governments?). Ideological blindness aside there is something wrong when education costs more and more but the instructors are paid less and less.
tolmasky 12y ago
So our lack of regulation will leave us susceptible to... China's notorious lack of regulation and corruption? Most of China's "advantages" in the last decades have been thanks to e.g. their ability to pay slave labor wages (vs our minimum wage laws), their ability to have horrible work conditions (vs our regulations), etc etc. We may "lose" to China, but I assure you it won't be because we're less regulated of more capitalistic.
jerf 12y ago
Are you sure this is the defense you want to muster? Universities are basically where liberalism/progressivism comes from. It is where it is in its strongest power. Government money everywhere; tuition, research grants, special projects, tax breaks. Administrative staff benevolently administrating massive diversity programs of every kind. 90%+ of the staff are progressives/liberals. Not being progressive/liberal can be pretty much reason to be drummed out. It is the very beating heart of the anti-"capitalist" regime, the blueprint by which they would remake the rest of the world. And it's still under assault by "little regulation" and "harsh capitalism"? If it's so frail in the real world, then pack it in; the philosophy has no hope of success. It will never find any more fertile ground than it has there. If you don't like the result of decades of liberalism/progressivism's control, perhaps it's time to find a new governing philosophy.
- _delirium 12y ago
  There is a lot of government involvement in American universities, but in weird pseudo-market ways, like grant programs (to institutions) and subsidized loans (to students). They're not a good example of the non-market model, which is much simpler: public universities, funded by tax money, staffed by civil servants, charging no tuition. Some U.S. states had this model through the 1970s, and it worked fine. Parts of Europe still have it, and it works fine, too. I've been at both American and Danish universities, and the American universities today really do not seem progressive to me. Many professors will claim to be left-ish, sure, but structurally the universities are not run according to a traditional public-service model, and are not internally egalitarian. Their structure, with tons of administrators, large pay differences, odd systems of performance reviews, people job-hopping for pay raises, administrators desperately looking for revenue, etc., reminds me of American corporations more than it reminds me of public service. Just the pay inequality in itself is shocking, more like corporate levels than civil-service levels. An American Dean's salary might be twenty times or more what a PhD student is paid, and professors' salaries might differ by 2-4x even within just the tenure-track segment. In Denmark the entire range from "highest paid professor" to "lowest paid PhD student" is maybe 2.5x, and professors' salaries are on a boring civil-service scale with about 30% variation. This already makes the American environment much more like a company: competitive, hierarchical, not really egalitarian, big focus on revenues (for the institution) and salary/advancement (for the employee). There are admittedly things the American university model does do well; it's well regarded in research, for example. But one thing it is not, is a straightforward public system along the lines of what a social-democratic government might run. (One might say the same about the healthcare system, for that matter.)
tn13 12y ago
The very reason US education (higher education) is better is because government has kept its dirty nose out of it. American Public schools are pathetic.

programmarchy 12y ago

Such little regulation? What about Common Core, and the long history of ineffective state mandates to "improve" the education system? The education system is highly regulated, and nearly entirely state-run (not counting those few who are able to afford private school tuition on top of school taxes or the time to homeschool). Many, if not most, schools in the U.S. resemble prisons. Top-down. Hierarchical. Rigid. Compulsory. And if you look at the history of the state education system, it was largely modeled after the Prussian education system, set up by the king, which "attempted to instill social obedience in the citizens through indoctrination [...] The purpose of the system was to instill loyalty to the Crown and to train young men for the military and the bureaucracy." [1] And I would argue that the school system serves a similar function today. Based on the goals of social obedience and instilling loyalty to the state... Well, I think in those terms our education system is doing quite well. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system

jonhinson 12y ago
How is Common Core, a set of standards that can voluntarily be adopted by states, equivalent to regulation?
- programmarchy 12y ago
  Sorry, I was thinking about No Child Left Behind, which was an Act of Congress. You're right -- Common Core is implemented differently. From what I know, it was mainly drafted up by testing corporations, but has the support of the Obama administration. Since the federal government has levers and dials it can use (i.e. fines, penalties, withholding grants, etc.) then it seems to me like the end result will be the same.
  - Jtsummers 12y ago
    Common Core was one standard that states could adopt, and they could also develop their own, that would satisfy requirements to gain additional funding. Essentially, the Feds said: Improve your curricula because what's out there sucks, if you do, we'll give you a bonus. Texas and others developed their own standards, for example.
  - justizin 12y ago
    No Child Left Behind is anti-productive. How anyone could believe an education initiative by a president who thinks captain crunch discovered america in 1975 could be of any value is beyond me.
briantakita 12y ago
> Based on the goals of social obedience and instilling loyalty to the state... Well, I think in those terms our education system is doing quite well. Teacher wages approaching subsistence level is just the next step in the McDonaldization of education. Even the teachers are just another brick in the wall.
- programmarchy 12y ago
  Agree with this. Perhaps the silver lining is that it could incentivize educators to opt-out of the state education system in favor of more entrepreneurial avenues? Like, private tutoring, teaching online classes, workshops, apprenticeships, etc.
  - Jtsummers 12y ago
    A lot of good educators do this. And that's part of the problem. Private tutoring and online classes don't reach the masses of students. I mean, if we want to deliberately exclude the majority of the population from being able to receive an education, then sure, let's go this way.
    - grondilu 12y ago
      If you think college teachers should be well paid, it means you think college education is worth a lot. If you think it's worth a lot, then it means it is expensive. If it is expensive, it makes sense that lots of people can't afford it. You can't pay teachers a lot if you have them teach poor people. Otherwise where is the money supposed to come from?
      - mercurial 12y ago
        Taxes.
        hnal943 12y ago
        The problem with that is that eventually you run out of other people's money. See: Europe
r00fus 12y ago
Just amazing that you and goldfeld are both right - the US education system is at once inadequately designed, and also being sieged by corporate interests as well. Doesn't hurt that some school administrators don't reasonably respond/engage with parents except those who have lawyers, which parents unfortunately engage without trying to engage the school first. Ultimately though, I think the sad state of schools in this country is a (big) symptom of society's greater ills. Rampant corporatism, anti-intellectualism, and creeping authoritarianism from a runaway security industrial complex have been happening for decades... and schools are just one aspect of the decay of the social fabric.
- dasil003 12y ago
  On one side we have wealth consolidating much faster than the economy is growing, and on the other side we have the military industrial complex sucking up any increase in taxation to bloat its own oppressive bureaucracy, to say nothing of the resolving door between them. I can't help but get the feeling that a dystopia is congealing around us with no way out politically. A lot of intellectuals have foreseen the ills of unbounded capitalism that are really starting to set in now, but I don't think anyone has proposed a credible solution.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    Well, I think if we want to start thinking about these, it needs to become publicly acceptable to say that capitalism is an evil vampire squid trying to suck your blood rather than a cuddly huggable teddy-bear that solves all your problems. See: this entire thread, in which the solution to corporatization of the university is almost automatically assumed to be adding more capitalism.
    - hnal943 12y ago
      That's because every variant of Marxism that's been tried in the world has led to widespread violence and misery. People are understandably reluctant to try it again.

TrainedMonkey 12y ago

I disagree, while there are glaring problems within U.S. educational systems there are two significant factors mitigating how crippling they are long term. 1. Opportunities, there are tons of opportunities in U.S., if you want to learn you will find a way to despite all the flaws. 2. Immigration, there are a lot of highly educated people immigrating into U.S. Additionally we still cannot anticipate how whole MOOCs business will turn out. So yes the are problems and they are very bad, but not as crippling as you might expect.

jdreaver 12y ago

Such little regulation? Harsh capitalism? Our education system is propped up chiefly because of government. Most of the US goes to public schools, controlled by the government. Most university students go to public schools. Students get ridiculous loans they can't default on, courtesy of the government. Harsh capitalism would be harsh on the universities who cling to a dying lecture/exam model that hasn't evolved for centuries. It would punish universities who don't produce results, instead of giving them students with free loans from the taxpayers. Harsh capitalism would see universities that can't evolve disappear. I feel like blaming things on capitalism and lack of regulation is so overplayed and fashionable that people can't take a second to think that maybe regulation and government caused the problem in the first place. Everything the government does right is lauded while everything it does wrong is blamed on "corporate interests" and capitalism.

esrauch 12y ago
Is it actually better for students that they can't default on their loans? I usually hear it the opposite way, that even after bankruptcy proceedings you still have your student loan debt following you around.
- dnautics 12y ago
  non-dischargeability was probably a 'good intention' gone horribly wrong. Because on the plus side, the student's APRs are lower because the lender can be guaranteed to own a portion of the student's labor for the specified term unless they die. And because the higher educational institutes really ought to be entitled to continue extracting their students' value.
  - justizin 12y ago
    the problem is that higher education is the only product aside from used cars in the US which can be sold without an implied warranty of merchantability.
    - sitkack 12y ago

spikels 12y ago

Your ideology is getting in the way of clear thinking. Good luck on your prediction on China's future prowess in the education of non-Chinese students. Lack of government regulation (and financing) is probably the opposite of the problem in the US (do you realize that most US colleges are run by state governments?). Ideological blindness aside there is something wrong when education costs more and more but the instructors are paid less and less.

tolmasky 12y ago

So our lack of regulation will leave us susceptible to... China's notorious lack of regulation and corruption? Most of China's "advantages" in the last decades have been thanks to e.g. their ability to pay slave labor wages (vs our minimum wage laws), their ability to have horrible work conditions (vs our regulations), etc etc. We may "lose" to China, but I assure you it won't be because we're less regulated of more capitalistic.

jerf 12y ago

Are you sure this is the defense you want to muster? Universities are basically where liberalism/progressivism comes from. It is where it is in its strongest power. Government money everywhere; tuition, research grants, special projects, tax breaks. Administrative staff benevolently administrating massive diversity programs of every kind. 90%+ of the staff are progressives/liberals. Not being progressive/liberal can be pretty much reason to be drummed out. It is the very beating heart of the anti-"capitalist" regime, the blueprint by which they would remake the rest of the world. And it's still under assault by "little regulation" and "harsh capitalism"? If it's so frail in the real world, then pack it in; the philosophy has no hope of success. It will never find any more fertile ground than it has there. If you don't like the result of decades of liberalism/progressivism's control, perhaps it's time to find a new governing philosophy.

_delirium 12y ago
There is a lot of government involvement in American universities, but in weird pseudo-market ways, like grant programs (to institutions) and subsidized loans (to students). They're not a good example of the non-market model, which is much simpler: public universities, funded by tax money, staffed by civil servants, charging no tuition. Some U.S. states had this model through the 1970s, and it worked fine. Parts of Europe still have it, and it works fine, too. I've been at both American and Danish universities, and the American universities today really do not seem progressive to me. Many professors will claim to be left-ish, sure, but structurally the universities are not run according to a traditional public-service model, and are not internally egalitarian. Their structure, with tons of administrators, large pay differences, odd systems of performance reviews, people job-hopping for pay raises, administrators desperately looking for revenue, etc., reminds me of American corporations more than it reminds me of public service. Just the pay inequality in itself is shocking, more like corporate levels than civil-service levels. An American Dean's salary might be twenty times or more what a PhD student is paid, and professors' salaries might differ by 2-4x even within just the tenure-track segment. In Denmark the entire range from "highest paid professor" to "lowest paid PhD student" is maybe 2.5x, and professors' salaries are on a boring civil-service scale with about 30% variation. This already makes the American environment much more like a company: competitive, hierarchical, not really egalitarian, big focus on revenues (for the institution) and salary/advancement (for the employee). There are admittedly things the American university model does do well; it's well regarded in research, for example. But one thing it is not, is a straightforward public system along the lines of what a social-democratic government might run. (One might say the same about the healthcare system, for that matter.)

tn13 12y ago

The very reason US education (higher education) is better is because government has kept its dirty nose out of it. American Public schools are pathetic.