The identity crisis of American education

Punishments are standard and mandatory and can only be overturned by the school board - and until they are, a student is unable to participate in ANY extracurriculars.

Zero tolerance policies have common sense clauses added.

The goal needs to be to provide n child (regardless of race, location, origins, or wealth) with a good basic education that prepares them to be productive members of the workforce and our society.

...and not waste money on systems that don't work. We spend billions on our government run public education system and in return we get mediocre results. The special interests resist change hard but 'we the people' must be strong, ignore all the FUD, and work toward a better system.

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The United States spends more public and private money on education than other major countries, but its performance doesn't measure up in areas ranging from high-school graduation rates to test scores in math, reading and science, a new report shows.

The report cited Australia, Finland, Ireland, Korea and the United Kingdom as examples of OECD nations that have moderate spending on primary and lower secondary education but high levels of performance by 15-year-olds in key subject areas.

The United States spends more public and private money on education than other major countries

I'm not a fan of vague comparisons like "major countries". India and China are major countries, but I don't think it's apples and apples.

Not to be picky, but do you have any stats less than a decade old? Europe wasn't even on the Euro when those stats were compiled.

Not to be picky, but do you have any stats less than a decade old? Europe wasn't even on the Euro when those stats were compiled.

Canada spends 12.7 percent of its total yearly budget on education. The United States spends 17.1 percent of its budget on education expenses. Mexico uses 24.3 percent of its budget on education spending.
Nicaragua spends 15 percent of its yearly budget on education. In Columbia, education spending is 15.6 percent of its annual budget. Argentina education spending is 13.8 percent of its yearly budget.
Norway spends 16.2 percent of its budget on education spending, while Sweden spends 12.8 percent of its budget on education. In the U.K., education spending is 11.5 percent of the yearly expenditure. In Germany, education spending is 9.5 percent. In France, education spending is 11.4 percent of France?s yearly budget. Italy uses 10.3 percent of its annual budget for education spending. The annual education spending of Spain is 11.3 percent of its budget.
In the United Arab Emirates, education spending makes up 22.5 percent of the country?s annual budget. In Iran, education spending is 17.7 percent of its allocated budget. The education expenditure of Pakistan is 7.8 percent of all its yearly expenditures.
Morocco spends 26.4 percent of its annual budget on education expenditures. The education of South Africa is 18.5 percent of its budget. In India, education spending is 12.7 percent of its total spending. Thailand spends on education.
Australia spends 13.3 percent of its budget on education. New Zealand education spending is 15.1 percent of the New Zealand yearly budget. In China, 12.1 percent of the annual budget is spent on education expenses. South Korea spends 15.5 percent of its total yearly expenditures on the education. In Japan, the education spending percentage is 10.5 percent of the country?s annual budget. Russia spends 11.5 percent of its annual budget on the education.

(education spending graph)

...and not waste money on systems that don't work. We spend billions on our government run public education system and in return we get mediocre results. The special interests resist change hard but 'we the people' must be strong, ignore all the FUD, and work toward a better system.

So you're in favor of doing away with charter schools in Florida then? Because studies show they're doing more harm than good to students here at this point.

While the report recognized a robust national demand for more charter schools from parents and
local communities, it found that 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were
significantly better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent of charter schools showed
gains that were worse than their traditional public school counterparts, with 46 percent of charter
schools demonstrating no significant difference.

States with reading and math gains that were significantly below their peers in the traditional
public school system included: Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas.

In Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New
Mexico and Texas, the effect for charter school students was significantly worse than the gains
realized by the TPS students.

In Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico,
North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, charter school students? gains were eclipsed by their TPS virtual
twins.

Please refute the following report with appropriate citations as necessary:

Some big result variations by state- California charters do well, while the Texas and Florida charter systems should probably be regarded as failures.

"States that have limits on the number of charter schools permitted to operate, known as caps, realize significantly lower academic growth than states without caps, around .03 standard deviations"

"Charter students in elementary and middle school grades have significantly higher rates of learning than their peers in traditional public schools, but students in charter high schools and charter multi-level schools have significantly worse results"

"Charter schools have different impacts on students based on their family backgrounds. For Blacks and Hispanics, their learning gains are significantly worse than that of their traditional school twins. However, charter schools are found to have better academic growth results for students in poverty."

"English Language Learners realize significantly better learning gains in charter schools. Students in Special Education programs have about the same outcomes."

"Students do better in charter schools over time. First year charter students on average experience a decline in learning, which may reflect a combination of mobility effects and the experience of a charter school in its early years. Second and third years in charter schools see a significant reversal to positive gains".

"The news for charter schools has some encouraging facets. In our nationally pooled sample, two traditionally disadvantaged subgroups fare better in charters than in the traditional system: students in poverty and ELL students. This is no small feat. In these cases, our numbers indicate that charter students who fall into these categories are outperforming their TPS counterparts in both reading and math. These populations, then, have clearly been well served by the introduction of charters into the education landscape."

I'm still curious where the figures for the graphs come from. I'm betting it includes the massive infrastructure building that came with the real estate boom. Compared to many of those countries we have two things they don't; exploding population numbers or a much lower poverty rate.