Sweden better than the USSA

[garbon]

I don't think I was talking about law schools but rather universities in general.  Additionally I'm not sure your USC does particularly well in world rankings - though I've never looked.

[garbon]

Also I think you might mean the UC system.

[Ideologue]

I don't think I was talking about law schools but rather universities in general.  Additionally I'm not sure your USC does particularly well in world rankings - though I've never looked.

I doubt it does, it sucks.  But we're both confusing the issue.  (Also, I was talking about universities in general too--some Ivies don't have an LS, Princeton doesn't, at least.)

Look, when people talk about primary and secondary schools, they're not talking about the third best public school in the country and its peers, even if you happened to go there and are understandably proud of doing so.  They're talking about the system as a whole.  Likewise, when people talk about the American post-secondary education system, I've always understood it to mean Harvard, Yale, Stanford... and the hundreds or thousands of other, shittier universities that dot our country like human landfills.  After decades of open admissions, tuition inflation due to bungled government intervention, tenure turned to a shield for the lazy and inept, preposterously wasteful physical plant improvements and empire building, and most importantly declining intrinsic and signaling value of their degrees on the market, our universities are not doing terribly well.

[Ideologue]

Also I think you might mean the UC system.

Oops.

[garbon]

I don't think I was talking about law schools but rather universities in general.  Additionally I'm not sure your USC does particularly well in world rankings - though I've never looked.

I doubt it does, it sucks.  But we're both confusing the issue.  (Also, I was talking about universities in general too--some Ivies don't have an LS, Princeton doesn't, at least.)

Look, when people talk about primary and secondary schools, they're not talking about the third best public school in the country and its peers, even if you happened to go there and are understandably proud of doing so.  They're talking about the system as a whole.  Likewise, when people talk about the American post-secondary education system, I've always understood it to mean Harvard, Yale, Stanford... and the hundreds or thousands of other, shittier universities that dot our country like human landfills.  After decades of open admissions, tuition inflation due to bungled government intervention, tenure turned to a shield for the lazy and inept, preposterously wasteful physical plant improvements and empire building, and most importantly declining intrinsic and signaling value of their degrees on the market, our universities are not doing terribly well.

I think that's why I agree with what Valm said. System is a mess but we still have a lot of good main universities.

[Josquius]

The British version of school vouchers includes a 'premium', so schools get more money for disabled children, children with special needs, children from poor backgrounds etc. The idea is to avoid social dumping. We'll also keep external exam boards and they're regulated. Exams are normally marked externally in the UK (often by other schools I think) and are moderated externally. So a big problem we had was exam boards (who sell their product to schools) basically showing teachers how to teach the exam. But hopefully that can be addressed, generally I'm a fan of the reforms - though there are issues.

I do find the American reaction a bit odd though. We're too big and homogenous for socialism! We're too big and homogenous for liberalism!

Exams aren:t marked by other schools are they? They:re marked by the exam board. Or is that SATS? Not sure how they:re done.

I hate the British system, its way too focussed on exams. Very little gets actually learned in British schools due to them only caring about tests.
Exams in general are a pretty outdated way of approaching education. Back in the day when books were rare and cramming knowledge in your head was a much more valuable skill they had some validity, with the internet those days are long gone though. There does tend to be a bit of a correlation between doing well in exams and actually being clever/hard working but its not a perfect one, exams have little relationship to the real world generally.

[Ape]

We do, but the voucher system has completely undermined the public school system and are at the moment turning the public schools into a school for 2nd class children i.e. the physcially disabled, the mediocre, the children with special needs (e.g. dyslectic kids) etc. Not to mention the rampant grade inflation within the private owned schools (come to us, we'll give you good grades, wheter you deserve them or not! ) or even outright bribes to children (come to us, you get a "free" laptop)

No the Swedish school system has been in a decline ever since the economic crisis in the early nineties.

The Swedish public schools or the schools in general?

Both, we now have for the first time since the thirties kids that leave 9th grade without being able to read and write (few, but still they exist) wich is mainly due to savings into special classes that kids with reading or some other kind of learning disorder need to be able to learn at the same rate as other kids. And it is escalating and has spread into other subjects as well, many kids that finish 9th grade can't place the european contries or capitals anymore on a blank map.
Which has lead our current school minister (who is an complete idiot btw) to come to the wrong conclusion that we need discipline in school. Which we don't, we need more teachers and we need a smaller workload on the teachers, as it is they have to be theraptists, teachers and administrators at the same time.

Now don't get me wrong there are some really outstanding private schools in Sweden, in the town I live in, the best 10-12th grade school is a private one owned by a teachers collective (now I hear all yanks screaming: Communism!  ). On the other hand the absolutely worst one is also a private one. But the main problem is that all the private schools are eroding the public shools of funds that ensures that the better and brighter kids leave for private schools leaving the mediocre or disabled even further behind.

[Admiral Yi]

Employee owned companies are the antithesis of Communism. 

[Valmy]

Now don't get me wrong there are some really outstanding private schools in Sweden, in the town I live in, the best 10-12th grade school is a private one owned by a teachers collective (now I hear all yanks screaming: Communism!  ). On the other hand the absolutely worst one is also a private one. But the main problem is that all the private schools are eroding the public shools of funds that ensures that the better and brighter kids leave for private schools leaving the mediocre or disabled even further behind.

Heh no we have plenty of employee owned companies.  We actually like that setup, when the employees have more of a stake in the company they work harder...or so the theory goes.  Anyway thanks for the feedback this confirms my concerns about the impact of school vouchers.

[crazy canuck]

We do, but the voucher system has completely undermined the public school system and are at the moment turning the public schools into a school for 2nd class children i.e. the physcially disabled, the mediocre, the children with special needs (e.g. dyslectic kids) etc. Not to mention the rampant grade inflation within the private owned schools (come to us, we'll give you good grades, wheter you deserve them or not! ) or even outright bribes to children (come to us, you get a "free" laptop)

No the Swedish school system has been in a decline ever since the economic crisis in the early nineties.

The Swedish public schools or the schools in general?

Both, we now have for the first time since the thirties kids that leave 9th grade without being able to read and write (few, but still they exist) wich is mainly due to savings into special classes that kids with reading or some other kind of learning disorder need to be able to learn at the same rate as other kids. And it is escalating and has spread into other subjects as well, many kids that finish 9th grade can't place the european contries or capitals anymore on a blank map.
Which has lead our current school minister (who is an complete idiot btw) to come to the wrong conclusion that we need discipline in school. Which we don't, we need more teachers and we need a smaller workload on the teachers, as it is they have to be theraptists, teachers and administrators at the same time.

Now don't get me wrong there are some really outstanding private schools in Sweden, in the town I live in, the best 10-12th grade school is a private one owned by a teachers collective (now I hear all yanks screaming: Communism!  ). On the other hand the absolutely worst one is also a private one. But the main problem is that all the private schools are eroding the public shools of funds that ensures that the better and brighter kids leave for private schools leaving the mediocre or disabled even further behind.

We have a variant of your system that would seem to address your problem with private schools.  The Province funds all public schools based on student population.  Private schools also get a per child subsidy but it is a small fraction of the contribution public schools recieve.

However, our model has different problems.  Students may attend the school of their choice and and so schools compete for those students...er funding dollars.  Good thing you might say. The very thing a voucher type system should encourage.  But of course the knowledge of the consumer is imperfect.  Some schools become preferred not because of the qaulity of the education they will provide but because of the neighbourhood in which they are located.  As a result schools in the City's more affluent areas are jammed to capacity (and beyond) while schools in poorer areas have suffered a flight of students and are closing because they can no longer afford to operate.

After about a decade of this approach we are facing significant overcrowding issues in public school classrooms.

Given your situation, the great irony is that the private school system which didnt get the government subsidy becomes the big winner because there is so much demand from people fleeing the overcrowded public school system.  Here private schools consistently top the list of school rankings in the province.

[Bluebook]

I dont know who Ape is, but apparently he doesnt know what he is talking about when it comes to swedish schools. He seems to be going through the talking points for the left wing opposition here though.

[Neil]

I don't know who you are either.

[Sheilbh]

I hate the British system, its way too focussed on exams. Very little gets actually learned in British schools due to them only caring about tests.

I disagree. As Ian Leslie recently pointed out there are very respected, modern academics in the US especially who argue that knowledge is a precondition for 'skills'. So you need to learn things before you can learn skills (something I think our curriculum has the wrong way round). They also suggest that tests are a good way to assess knowledge but also inspire pupils to do better than they do on coursework. They're not overly ideological and aren't always sure about Gove's policies, but I think his grounding's pretty solid. Here's one response to his recent speech:
http://www.danielwillingham.com/1/post/2013/02/the-science-in-goves-speech.html

As I say the UK's current education reforms are inspired by Sweden's. They're different in that they do try to address the issues Ape mentions (the pupil premium), but also the money can't go to private schools - yet.

[Ape]

I dont know who Ape is, but apparently he doesnt know what he is talking about when it comes to swedish schools. He seems to be going through the talking points for the left wing opposition here though.

Who the fuck are you?

And no I do know what I am talking about. I am a teacher.

[The Brain]

I dont know who Ape is, but apparently he doesnt know what he is talking about when it comes to swedish schools. He seems to be going through the talking points for the left wing opposition here though.

Who the fuck are you?

And no I do know what I am talking about. I am a teacher.

So you are a member of the most retarded profession in Sweden that hasn't attracted a bright person since the 70s? You are a left wing nut who wouldn't know good education if it took a dump on your face.