Education Levels by Country

[--Pete]

Hi,

While I am in favor of education in general, I consider much of what is being done in practice a waste of time and money. As one example, ESL. The question is not "should an immigrant learn the language of the country they've immigrated to?" for the answer to that is a self evident "yes, they should". The question is whether teaching that language as a school subject is the best way to do it.

Generations of non-Anglo Saxon Europeans came to the USA (and Canada) and learned the language. No special provisions or allowances were made for them (I know, I "flunked first grade because I did not know English). Many (I'd say most) of those people learned enough English to get by on. So, is the cost and effort of ESL worth while? Do more people learn English with the course than without it? Do people learn significantly more (or "better") English through ESL than they do by simply living in an English speaking environment? That, BTW, is *not* a trivial question. Native born children seem to learn all the "bad habits" of language use in their region.

So the cost-benefit ratio must again be examined. The schools would have you believe that people are incapable of learning a language on their own. Experience and history show otherwise. Do the schools make a difference? Enough to justify the resources? Or does the very concept of turning the necessity of learning a language into a school subject hinder the progress of that learning?

Yes, we need a better educational system. But there are many aspects of that system that need to be reviewed and analyzed, including athletics, extra curricular activities, even the basic curriculum. Even basic assumptions, like the nine month school year that was an inheritance from a more agrarian society (and from the prevalence of outbreaks of disease in the hot summer months) needs to be re-examined.

So, when the schools ask for more money, the tax payer and voter should ask how the money they have received in the past was spent. If the money was being used to "teach a horse to sing", then said tax payer and voter should perhaps force the system to re-evaluate its purpose and goals.

--Pete

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

It comes down to this:

Teachers know, on a daily, intimate basis... what is lacking in their classrooms. They have an ongoing concern and requirement to deal with lack of funding, resources, hardware and support.

Government Employees and Elected officials know f-all about it. They don't have the background, they don't have the inclination, and they don't have the desire to learn as they will probably be shuffled into a different portfolio within 2 years or less.

Teacher Strikes suck. I'm not arguing that. They're SUPPOSED to suck. A strike is a last means of garnering attention to an oncoming disaster... so drastic measures are taken to INSURE attention is given.

And WHY do Teacher Strikes suck? They delay instruction. They interfere with graduation and testing. They prevent the children from attending (which throws a HUGE monkeywrench into a dual-income household for childcare).

Look at it this way: If teachers are so fundamental, so intrinsic to your children's education, future and daily stability. If teachers have such a dramatic impact on the society at large... shouldn't you take the time to actually listen to what they're saying are problems?

I will maintain to my dying breath that Teacher's issues have nothing to do with their income, and everything to do with their support infrastructure. Teachers will NOT quote "I need a raise" when asked what they want. They will quote lack of textbooks, lack of resources, lack of infrastructure, lack of investment. Teachers don't want more money. Teachers want MORE TEACHERS. The b.s. over raises is solely an issue of the Unions and Boards... who seem to think that any bargaining session is more "newsworthy" if they discuss income, rather than the real issue.

[Occhidiangela]

My father learned English well because he had to: his Mom and Dad made him work at it, and they also adopted a particular attitude:

The chose to try and assimilate, and did not get into "we want to be hyphenated Americans." They wanted their kids to be Americans! That said, my Aunt spoke fluent Serbian and went to a Serbian Orthodox church her whole life, and was fully involved in the "expatriate Serb" community for her whole life. But she always identified herself as an American.

Where ESL has, IMO, become the crutch is that a pretty wide spread attitude has been taken to work against assimilation into the broader base culture. You can see this in many of the ethnic ghettos of big cities, be they Italian, Irish, Korean, Chinese, Jamaican, what have you. The ability to survive without assimilating can reduce the internal motivation to learn English 'in order to get ahead.'

Even so, plenty of folks still choose to succeed in the English language rather than refuse the challenge. To them I tip my tam.

[ShadowHM]

Generations of non-Anglo Saxon Europeans came to the USA (and Canada) and learned the language. No special provisions or allowances were made for them (I know, I "flunked first grade because I did not know English). Many (I'd say most) of those people learned enough English to get by on.

Most of those generations were not literate, Pete. They could 'get by' in oral communication, and most of them were the equivalent of ditch diggers in job skills too. I know there were exceptions. But 'getting by' is not sufficient in today's economy. These children need to be literate. They need to get out there and gain the skills (going back to my cynical assessment of the purpose of education) to make enough money to pay lots of taxes.

So, is the cost and effort of ESL worth while? Do more people learn English with the course than without it? Do people learn significantly more (or "better") English through ESL than they do by simply living in an English speaking environment? That, BTW, is *not* a trivial question. Native born children seem to learn all the "bad habits" of language use in their region.

From what I have seen, the answer is yes. I may have been unclear in my post above, but there are large numbers of children arriving here already at school ages. They get dropped into the school system immediately, and they can sit there in a basic deaf/mute posture, bored and ready to be trouble makers, or they can get the jump-start into the system with E.S.L. classes. My local high school has many of these students (up to 40% of the school population and up to 40 different language groups).

So, when the schools ask for more money, the tax payer and voter should ask how the money they have received in the past was spent. If the money was being used to "teach a horse to sing", then said tax payer and voter should perhaps force the system to re-evaluate its purpose and goals.

Oh, indeed they should. And instead the voters will cast their votes where the loudest sound bites and the most mean-spirited placement of scapegoats has directed them, as they usually do. <_<





Oh........
and on a completely unrelated and purely selfish note......
I LIKE the ten-month school year. I want to be able to move to the cottage for two months and expose my children to some other 'important' concepts - such as independence, responsibility and self-reliance, not to mention an absence of smog. ;-)

[--Pete]

Hi,

Most of those generations were not literate, Pete.

I'd guess that the literacy rate amongst the immigrants was about the same as that amongst the Americans (USA and Canada) for the given period. Europe overall has a longer history of education for more people than does the USA. I cannot speak for Canada.

These children need to be literate. They need to get out there and gain the skills (going back to my cynical assessment of the purpose of education) to make enough money to pay lots of taxes.

I agree completely. But my point wasn't that they don't need the skills, my point was that ESL courses might not be the best way to learn those skills. The assumption that a person forced to take a course will learn *and apply* the material from that course is just plain false. So, again, does ESL justify its cost? Or does it make no difference (or even a negative difference) in the number of immigrants that learn a language of the country they've immigrated to.


As to the cynical part of your statement: I know a fair number of people with broken to no English that have done quite well, thank you. And I know a number of people born and educated in the USA, fluent speakers of the language with fancy titles behind their names who never amounted to anything. Ability, drive and desire make up for a lot of other shortcomings.

From what I have seen, the answer is yes. I may have been unclear in my post above, but there are large numbers of children arriving here already at school ages.

You seem to imply (here and in a previous post) that in the past there weren't immigrant children of school age. I don't have data to back my opinion, but from the pictures I've seen of families at Ellis Island, I think that immigrants come in all sizes. Families with school aged children are not a new phenomenon.

Second, "they can sit there in a basic deaf/mute posture, bored and ready to be trouble makers" describes many fluent speakers of English (of a sort) in the schools here in the states. The desire to learn is as much motivated by fear of disciple as anything else. But that's another topic.

Again, "or they can get the jump-start into the system with E.S.L. classes." is an assumption that such classes actually work. My experience with college students that had come from an ESL background was most of them though that it was a waste of time. Those that had achieved a degree of fluency in the language had done so because they had tried to become assimilated. They had friends who were native speakers. Those who had stayed within their "own" group had pretty well failed to master English even with ESL. Instead of requiring ESL, a drama course or debate club might do more good.

LIKE the ten-month school year. I want to be able to move to the cottage for two months and expose my children to some other 'important' concepts - such as independence, responsibility and self-reliance, not to mention an absence of smog. ;-)

There are many replies I could make to this. For instance, while you take the time to make those months valuable for your children, how many other parents don't? So, in the interest of the greatest good, etc., wouldn't a year round school system be better?

Or, if instead of a long vacation once a year, wouldn't four two week vacations make more sense? That way the children would have time to see each of the seasons. They would not be subjected to long free periods that would become boring before the period was half over. The school year would be cut up into shorter sessions, easier for both the children and the teachers. The breaks, being shorter, would keep the children from forgetting as much material and, in many cases, reduce the degree of "wildness" that a long break generates. Some of the teachers I've talked to say that the last month of the year is impossible because all the kids are thinking about is summer vacation, that the first month is impossible because it takes about that long to get them back to paying attention, and that it takes another month after that to bring them back to where they were when they broke for summer.

And, finally, why does a year round school year mean that the children have to go to school year round? A quarter system could be easily set up, and families could be allowed (or even encouraged) to take their children out of school for one quarter a year. That way, the facilities could be used year round, reducing the cost of building additional facilities. Teachers could opt to work 12 months (with the usual holiday breaks) for a one third increase in salary, thus reducing the number of teachers needed. And, if a student "fails" one quarter, repeating that quarter does not have as big an impact on that child's life as repeating a year does.

No. There are many considerations and alternative viewpoints to examine. Some creative thinking applied to our school systems might not be a bad idea.

--Pete

[--Pete]

. . . of the USA and Canada.

Hi,

In many cases, an immigrant can choose to assimilate or can choose to remain a member of the "expatriated" society. And in either case, the ability of that person to make a living, to gain respect, to "do well" is driven more by that person's personality than by their command of English.

However, when one is being specific to education, then the matter is different. While I suspect there are schools in the USA and Canada that are taught in languages other than English or French, I do not know of any. Thus, for most children, the choices are home schooling, going back to the "old" country for an education, or going to a school using the local language. Clearly, if the last is chosen (and that is probably the norm), some fluency in that language is required.

Again, I do not dispute the advantage to speaking the language of the country in which one lives. I question only the effectiveness of the ESL programs. Based on the results that I've seen, those programs are a failure and a waste in that no more people become fluent from those programs than would have done so without them.

And, yes. I am proud to be a native born of the city that gave us the Renaissance. Of the city that had democracy two hundred and fifty years before the American Revolution. But damned if I'm a hyphenated anything. I'm American, by choice, not chance. And completely so.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

What exactly does a college education mean elsewhere? It doesn't mean a whole lot in some cases here.

From my experience as a software engineer, and now as a director of software engineers, the attendance at a University may or may not have exposed the fledgling engineer to what they need to know. It does show that they had the where with all to get through a very difficult and challenging educational process, but may mean nothing to their ability to get the job done. Generally, IMHO, some of the best things one learns in the University are from the exposure to diverse cultures, opinions, and the process of learning how to research and assimilate knowledge.

That said, some of the most impressive intellects I've met were incapable of attending the University, as they were unable to "waste their time" proving to a professor things they already knew. Also, many of most of the undergraduate education is not at the cutting edge of technology, so it exacerbates to notion that the University can teach you very little. For instance, I remember my class on compilers was taught by a very distinguished peer of Alan Turing, but the lab materials forced us to write machine language programs on a PDP11 emulator (antiquated), whilst the modern world was using macro assemblers based on Intel or Motorola chipsets. Using the modern equivalents would have taught us the same fundamentals, but would have also contributed some vocational experience.

A mentor of mine explained it to me thus, with an analogy to plumbing; The vocational schools build plumbing apprentices who have had some basic exposure to the field, and the University builds plumbing engineers who can tell you exactly how fast the water will flow depending on the bends in the pipe, but neither can create a soldered joint that will hold water. When I hire engineers, I look at education as background information, but work experience, capability, and attitude are more important.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Sorry, but I think that an attitude like yours is a large part of what causes the problem. The problem of a lack of respect for education and the failure of the system to provide one. You are not looking at education, you are looking at training. And training in schools is a waste of time. By the time a person is looking for their first job, most of what they've been trained in is obsolete. However, the ability to think, to reason, to solve problems, to learn on their own are of value for life.

As to the "That said, some of the most impressive intellects I've met were incapable of attending the University, as they were unable to "waste their time" proving to a professor things they already knew." that's almost always a cop out used by people who know no better or couldn't make it. All the schools I know of have allowed unlimited challenging of courses for a few decades now. Few schools have any class attendance requirements. If a person has college level knowledge, it is a simple matter to get a piece of paper backing that knowledge up. And I doubt seriously that the people you are talking about are so brilliant and so well rounded that there were no professors in any subject that didn't have *something* to teach them.

There is nothing as useless as a "useful" education.

--Pete

[Iolair]

Naddybeat wrote "I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet, many euro countries have separate academic/vocational tracks. That would explain the absence of countries that might be on this list otherwise, like France and Germany"

This is one of the major reasons why I'm not sure I like OECD's report. I live in Denmark and to be honest, I wouldn't know how to compare my own education system with the system in the states.

What precicely does the term college degree cover? I have never had a good explanation of this, so I dare some of you to try :)..Please.

I know our university degrees are a lot different from the ones in the states, Germany and the UK. So how can we compare these degrees if they are not equal?
The OECD report is only talking in quantity, not quality.

All education in Denmark is free btw :) But it is unfortunately not possible to stay in the university forever.

[--Pete]

Hi,

What precicely does the term college degree cover?

Pretty near anything, and it is getting worse. Even thirty years ago it was possible to get a Bachelors of Science degree from Georgia Tech with a total of fifteen quarter hours (out of 180 to 210 required, depending on the field) of non technical subjects. Which is why we often referred to it as "The North Avenue Trade School".

And that was from a highly regarded technical school. An examination of the catalog of some other schools indicates that a person can easily obtain a degree with little or no actual work. The most recent "outrage" that I ran across was the acceptance of American Sign Language for the foreign language requirement. While learning ASL is probably a worthwhile thing to do, and probably of more practical use to a resident of the USA where the need for a different language doesn't arise every time someone takes a two hour drive, it should not count as a foreign language. No more so than Morse code or semaphore should. ASL does not expose a person to the differences in mindset that studying a foreign language does.

And, of course, there is the "buy a degree" limit. Because there is no Federal control of education, and because some states have antiquated laws, it is possible for three (unscrupulous) people to set themselves up as a "university" in some places. These three then can legally bestow a degree on anybody. The degrees so bestowed are legal and valid college degrees. And the price is only a few hundred dollars.

So, no there is no way to define just what a college degree signifies. And that does indeed make comparison much harder.

--Pete

[Iolair]

Thank you, Pete. It made sense to me for once :)

I guess I can now understand why it was so hard for me to get a good explanation.
To be honest, I had no idea it was so easy and I'm quite shaken by your answer. Shaken, because I thought there was some kind of control.

I'm used to control with degrees, that there is a certain standard of the different degrees and a certain amount of control with them.

But thank you again, I got wiser and that is always something

[Occhidiangela]

Arno venues quite like La Ponte Vecchia here in America? (Bad puns are bad puns, guilty as charged, your honor!)

My long review of Florence would take too long, (I want to go back many more times before I really decide on the details); my short review is of course too short, but it captured how I felt the day I returned to Bella Napoli:

"In Florence, they took all the flavor out of the bread, however, that is the only significant fault I could find with the place."

[ShadowHM]

Hi Pete.....

One of the problems with a series of posts in a thread is that assumption that everything you said was absorbed. I may well have been less than clear in my writing. But I fear you have missed some of my points as well.

Firstly, I would like to re-iterate that I have a good working knowledge of what transpires in the Toronto District School Board (no mean accomplishment in itself, since it serves 300,000 students), a fair knowledge of the Education System in Ontario, and a passing knowledge of the systems in upper New York State and Michigan. I claim no knowledge of how curriculum or methods are imposed elsewhere.

Re: Immigrants in the School System

I doubt that any school board serves as many (either in real numbers or proportionately) immigrant children as mine does. Newcomers to Canada, and we do have a fairly open immigration policy, tend to settle here more than anywhere else in Canada. And they are a wildly varied lot too. My local high school has at minimum 40% of its students born elsewhere, with at least 40 home languages. And it is not out of line with norms in the city.

I am aware that immigration has always included children. But things have changed. Firstly, getting a high school education completed was not a minimum criteria for a job. Secondly, immigration was seen as a way of infilling the ditch-digger jobs anyway. Nobody really gave a damn whether those or any children found good employment. And society needed ditch-diggers too.

Re: ESL

You missed my point on the deaf/mute comment. Many of these children already do have the underpinnings of a good education. And they are quite often highly motivated children, as first-generation immigrants often are. (Stereotypes do exist for a reason sometimes.) The point of catching them early enough with ESL help to get the language barrier crossed is so they can communicate and participate in class work.

So the next question is: Is it effective? Does it make a difference or would they muddle through on their own? The experience that I have suggests that it is effective here. I cannot speak to alternative delivery systems/structures/curriculum for ESL. All I can say is that here it works.

Re: Innovation in other areas, specifically changing the school year

My motivations were, as stipulated, entirely selfish. I don't want three weeks at the cottage in December. :huh: I am aware that what is good for me and my family is not necessarily good for everyone, though.

From a societal viewpoint, given that we are no longer anything like an agrarian society, and that working parents are the norm now, changing the school year does make sense. And there is some research that suggests that several shorter breaks would be better for learning retention than one long one. There are some other minor issues that could be problematic, such as blocking off time for repair and maintenance of what is an aging set of buildings, but I am sure that could be worked out.

Regarding further innovations, I will heartily agree that creative thinking is needed on the whole sorry topic of education. But, I also don't want to see my children be the experimental subjects. Catch-22, I know. Please do not expect any parent to give an inch on the 'greater good' argument when it comes to their own offspring.

[--Pete]

Hi,

First, I do not doubt you credentials. Nor do I doubt that immigrants are a pressure in your school system. Whether yours has the *most* severe problem is not important. That your problem is severe is.

So the next question is: Is it effective? Does it make a difference or would they muddle through on their own? The experience that I have suggests that it is effective here. I cannot speak to alternative delivery systems/structures/curriculum for ESL. All I can say is that here it works.

This is the crux of my question. Your experience "suggests that it is effective". And then you say that it does work. Considering the size of the immigrant population in your area, I'd guess ESL is a considerable fraction of the educational budget. It would seem that, to justify such an expense, more than a "suggestion" of effectiveness should be needed. But I have never seen a study, nor can I find one online, that demonstrates that ESL programs are better than doing nothing. Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are not (and the fact that other nations seem to get along without ISL or FSL or SSL seem to indicate that people tend to pick up the language of where they live without formal courses).

In an ideal situation where the available money for education can cover all imaginable expenses, perhaps the only justification required for a program is that it does no harm. But in the real world, where budgets are limited and often insufficient, I think a demonstration of a considerable positive cost - benefit analysis is not an unreasonable request.

But, I also don't want to see my children be the experimental subjects.

I can understand and sympathize. However, your children *are* the experimental subjects of the latest theories. The state of education has been in flux since, at least, the mid fifties. Curricula change, disciplinary techniques come and go, the balance between memorization and understanding of concepts keeps shifting, failure is banished through the front door and makes a reappearance as "opportunity". Some of these experiments worked, others (like "new math") were a disaster.

--Pete

[Griselda]

Now that I'm working as a teacher, I find myself with less and less time to discuss the state of education on the various fora. Please forgive me for not jumping in sooner.

I'm a certified ESL teacher, although most of my experience with English language learners has been in a mainstream classroom or in a tutoring environment. I have worked as a substitute ESL teacher, but only for a few days total. I currently teach in a bilingual preschool, although English is the only language in which I am fluent. Please note that I have no teaching experience beyond fifth grade, and I am aware that the dynamics of ESL shift dramatically when looking at children who enter the system in middle or high school. My comments relate to elementary ESL.

While learning English is a goal of ESL, I do not believe that an ESL program would be complete if that were its only goal. A major concern is that ESL students will fall behind academically while they are in the process of learning English. ESL programs can help support students by teaching content-specific vocabulary and providing support in a setting that has a lower student-teacher ratio.

Another concern is that bilingual students often lose their native language proficiency. Or, they may not develop proficieny in their native language that extends beyond basic conversational fluency. While you may argue that English is the unofficial official language of the USA, and that we have no responsibility to teach students another language, profociency in an additional language (or more) is certainly an asset in today's world.

It is true that education is an ongoing, non-controlled experiment, but I don't see that situation changing any time soon. My local elementary school has recently implemented the dual-immersion model, and I'm in favor of it even though it's only in its second year at the moment (actually, I'll be enrolling my daughter in the program next year, although sometimes I am conforted by the fact that I know we will be able to support her education at home regardless of the school situation). The school's dual immersion model creates a class with 50% native Spanish speakers and 50% native English speakers and a bilingual teacher. Instruction is in Spanish and English, but the teacher does *not* translate everything- then (s)he would only have time to cover half the content! The goal is for both groups of student to be fluent and academically proficient in English and Spanish, clearly a benefit to both groups of children.

This program does not use the traditional "pull out" model of ESL. In fact, it doesn't take significantly more resources than a traditional classroom, since it still uses one teacher per classroom. One could reasonably argue that resources for a bilingual classroom are not as inexpensive as English resources in the USA, but that may change over time.

I'm out of time to type more on the subject now, but I think I've at least touched on most of your concerns about ESL, although I may have left a few too many loose ends. I'll check back later and see if I have anything to add. :)

-Griselda

[ShadowHM]

I am reminded of an anecdote about a man who consulted several authorities about what to do for his son's ailment. Three suggested surgery; the fourth suggested a non-invasive therapy. The non-invasive therapy worked a cure. When he reproached the surgeons and asked why they had recommended surgery when the non-invasive method was effective, the answer he got was "The surgery would have worked too."

So the E.S.L. experience here seems to be fruitful, in what I can observe. Would they muddle through just fine without it? I don' t know. :) Would they muddle through but take five years to complete high school instead of four? Would 'most' of them muddle through but we would lose some?

The problem is that taking chances on a 'maybe' on the cost reduction has a cost that is real, in real people. It is the same kind of cost, albeit on a less dramatic scale, that the burgeoning expenditures on health care in our two countries face. And in both cases, prevention is better than cure. You can look at the 'cost' of ESL and wonder if you need to pay it, just as some look at the 'cost' of health and safety education and home care and wonder if it is worth paying. But the societal costs of not trying are pretty steep too, albeit difficult to measure, and certainly coming out of a different basket of costs.

And on the subject of 'experimental subjects'......I know. :(