Albert Shanker, the president of the United Federation of Teachers for 20 years, and then the president of the American Federation of Teachers for another 23 years once said: "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children." More recently, Obama claimed "If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America." Uh huh. US educators, and especially its unions, always claim that their budgets aren't sufficient to educate properly. The largest and most powerful union in the US, the National Education Association, even asked for (and recently got) an "emergency" bailout of $10 billion from the federal government. (Sadly, even with that "emergency" money, schools across the country are asking parents to send their students to school with "two double rolls of paper towels, three packages of Clorox wipes, three boxes of baby wipes, two boxes of garbage bags, liquid soap, Kleenex and Ziplocs... and a four-pack of toilet paper." After all, while the US government spends trillions on war, the school budgets are shrinking so they can't afford janitorial supplies.) And what do we have to show for all the money they spend?
FTA:
Of 30 comparable countries, the United States ranks near the bottom. Take math - Finland is first, followed by South Korea, and the United States is number 25. Same story in science: Finland, number one again. The United States? Number 21.
Where does the United States outrank Finland? On the amount spent per student: just over $129,000 from K through 12. The other countries average $95,000.
"We have world class expenditures, but not world class results," said Schneider.
When it comes to high school graduation rates, the United States is 20th on the list. Germany, Japan, Korea and the U.K. all do better with graduation rates of 90 percent or more. In the United States, it's just 75 percent...
Education experts like Wilkins say top performing countries recruit teachers from the top of their college classes. South Korea - No. 2 in math - gets teachers from the top five percent of graduating college seniors. Finland - No. 1 in math and science - the top 10 percent.
DISCUSS!
Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Sep 29, 2010 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=337
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