Stupid in America
“Stupid in America is a nasty title for a program about public education, but some nasty things are going on in America’s public schools and it’s about time we face up to it.”
Why do American high school students suck so badly when compared to other countries — even poorer countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, and South Korea? Why do American students do well when they start public school, but then do worse as each year goes by?
John Stossel finds some answers in his report, Stupid in America.
Read More: Stupid in America, John Stossel, education, public school, no child left behind
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August 19th, 2007 at 8:24 am
I don’t get high speed in my area, so I can’t watch this. However, I have pretty much stopped watching Stossel anyway. It seems to me his reporting the last few years has been so….facist. Honestly, he is so rough, I equate his tone with FOX. I used to like him, then something happened.
August 19th, 2007 at 11:27 am
You ask why are they getting dumber?
I only got the thing to work up till the woman said her 18 year old couldn’t read. I would like to ask her, did she ever place a book in his hands in all those years.
As with everything else in this country, we do not look in the mirror and ask ourselves, am I to blame for this problem? It is easier to blame others. In this case let’s blame the teachers.
Parents spend hundreds and even thousands to improve dance, sports and other such skills; yet balk at paying for tutoring to improve academic skills.
Pages upon pages of sports coverage of high school sports. A paragraph or two buried someplace in the paper of academic achievements.
It’s OK to spend hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to build new sports stadiums, but heaven forbid a few dollars go toward education.
Smart students are looked down upon, while being stupid is glorified.
Parents to busy to get involved and never attending parent/teacher confronces to monitor their kids progress.
Yes kids are passing all these tests that they are being given; but that is all they are learning, as we teach them how to pass tests and not how to learn.
August 19th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
I’m not a big John Stossel fan, either, but every year when the statistics come out ranking US students badly against other countries, I wonder what the difference is? This report clearly shows it’s not money…in the report he shows what happened in a school system where they DID attempt throwing more money at the problem. The result? The school got the very best gymnasium, swimming pool, and computers, but kept the same teachers on the same salary they were already being paid.
The big difference Stossel points out, is that in the US, we may give a school $10,000 per child, but in other countries, they give each child the $10,000 and let the child choose the school. And, viola, the schools have to work hard and get results, or else, they won’t attract students and the school will go under…replaced by the schools (and teachers) that DO work. The secret, it seems, is putting the people in control instead of the bureaucracy. Sadly, he points out, when that has been attempted in this country, the bureaucracy has shut it down, then reasserted the cry to throw more dollars their way. Then the dollars are swallowed up by the system (not the teachers…) and the facilities (and the contractors who build them…) and American kids continue to slip further behind…
Of course, some of the blame can be placed on parents who hardly even try. But, somebody besides the parents have the kids for six or seven hours a day, and the countries whose schools use that time wisely produce smarter kids.
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Amazing, an important topic such as this, and nobody is outraged.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
A funny thing intelligence,
funny how highly intelligent people can be so colossally stupid.
Mind your education.
Schools are an indoctrinarian hell realm.
I agree with Henry Miller:
“From the day we went to school we learned nothing;
on the contrary, we were made obtuse,
we were wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions.”
Once I had high hopes for our schools, I even entertained the invitation to be a school teacher.
Children should be taught how to think, not filled with “facts”, false history and political propaganda. Schools have become job mills, not halls of education.
—
Disclaimer: I attended four universities. I rest my case.