In 1972, I began my college career, coming as it did immediately after my high school career. We in the United States seem to think that’s the way to do it, and since nothing much has changed since the seventies, high schools across the country continue to diligently encourage students to move up or move on. For various reasons, I never finished college back then. But my story aside, national focus is once again on our public schools, as it should be. I can’t tell you all the statistics related to spending thirteen+ years in the American education system today, but I can tell you that the process needs tweaking.
How many people do you know working in the field they were attracted to freshman year of college? What about in the field they earned a degree? With college costs running to the astronomical, 18 is an audacious age to begin spending your parents’ retirement fund. Or incur large personal debt. I know five people with law degrees who have no interest in practicing law. In my own family, both Son and Daughter are working successfully in careers outside the degrees they graduated with. Husband has advanced degrees in Social Work, but he started out in religious studies. That leaves me, enrolled in a SUNY college full time working toward my BA. As in Back Again.
For a while in almost everyone’s life, knowing what you want to be when you grow up is more investigation than destination, more crapshoot than hole-in-one. The first reason may be that we have so many choices in this country; another because there’s no shortage of lending institutions willing to invest in a student’s future. With interest. And with President Obama’s move toward urging an increase in calendar school days, the question of how well our young people are prepared in general begs for more illumination than Americans seem comfortable with.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in a comparison of eighth grade math and science test scores worldwide, the U.S. just eked into the top ten, with Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan in the first five spots. Anyone, tell me you’re surprised. Anyone? Now before you jump into your Toyota and turn on your Sony sound system, check your Casio watch to see if it’s time to get our head out of our butt and into some books.
The United States has fewer school days, but more hours of instruction per day than the eight countries ahead of us in test performance. Japanese students attend school 201 days a year to our 180, with 4.9 hours of instruction per day to our 5.8. Singapore came in even ahead of Japan, and school kids there attend fewer days (172 to our 180) AND receive less daily instruction time (5.4 hours a day to our 5.8). They’re kicking our ass from across the planet. Wouldn’t you like to know how they’re doing it? I would. And I’ll bet the parents in Singapore don’t even show up at school threatening the teacher to give their kids a higher grade. Imagine.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos are NothingButArt
photo of keith haring’s studio
complementary
eat me
powder lady performing balance
scratch
ooooooh