4 ms·

There may still be too much emphasis on 4-year college requirements for most vocations in the US. Mediocre students are being pushed towards college, where they

There may still be too much emphasis on 4-year college requirements for most vocations in the US. Mediocre students are being pushed towards college, where they may or may not graduate, and end up with debt even with federal and state subsidies. Worst case is not finishing and having tons of debt with nothing to show for it. These same people would be much better off with a 2-year vocational degree, and a job market in greater need of those skills than your community college IT or business degree will find. I've heard the German educational system steers students in these directions early in high school. When I was in high school, we used to have vocational and college prep paths, but they've since ditched that in an effort to "leave no child behind." Now we have a glut of students graduating from community college in a market with low demand for their degrees. Let's admit that except for being able to transfer those credits to a college of higher prestige, and being granted the same degree from there, community college is of little value. In my area, I can tell you for a fact that the same science and math courses vary greatly in difficulty between the private engineering school I attended, and the local state school. Full-time students knew of this loophole, and took some of these harder classes down the road at the state school.

Happydayz 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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!
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > 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 12y ago
      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 12y ago
  > 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 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      > 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 12y ago
  Americans have greater equality than Germans?

Happydayz 12y ago

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 12y ago
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!
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > 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 12y ago
    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 12y ago
> 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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    > 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 12y ago
Americans have greater equality than Germans?