Then why is Chiles private school system out performing all the nations around them, with identical people and culture? All the other Latin American countries have 100% free public schools, and Chile has almost 100% private pay for service schools.
Your information is not correct. Chili has private and public schools as do other Latin American countries. In Chili, 60% of the school system is private and 40% is public. They are 50th in the world according the 2012 PISA rankings. The US is 9% private schools and ranks 35th. In the top 5 countries, less than 10% of the students attend private schools.
The rankings aren't related to how schools are financed. The most important factor that accounts for the difference in rankings are the educational goals. In the US we provide 12 years of education for every student in a broad range of subjects. In many of the countries that rank higher than the US, only 8 years of education is required, 6 years in some countries. After that point students must qualify for admission to high school which is where PISA does the test comparisons. Those that don't qualify are funneled into vocational programs or allowed to drop out of school. Countries like the US that provide a broad range education for all students are at a distinct disadvantage. If the US allowed students to drop out of school after the 8th grade and required students to qualify for high school, our PISA scores would be near the top of list. Even if every school in the US was a private school, we would score low compared to many other countries because we have different educational goals.
Key findings - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Education in Chile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I believe most people feel that every child has right to healthcare and a right to an education whether their parents can afford it or not.
Sorry for the long post, but you'll find I tend to go 'all out' when I respond. My bad on this book report.
First off... this isn't about "people feel". I don't care what people feel. People felt that borrowing money until they go broke, and get foreclosed on, was a great plan before 2008. What they 'feel' and what is good, is often very different.
Second... You are correct. I thought they had eliminated public schools. I was wrong. They still exist, but they are horrible. Everyone is trying to get into private schools, because... private schools are better.
Third... Chile is 50th in the world.... so what? You are comparing Chile to the US? Apples and Oranges.
I didn't say Chile was leading the world, I said Chile was leading other similar Latin American Countries. Compare Apples to other Apples.
According to your own citation, the PISA rankings, Chile is ranked higher than:
Uruguray
Mexico
Brazil
Colombia
Argentina
Bolivia
Peru
Venezuela
Panama
Costa Rica
So back to my point.... As far as I am aware, all of those countries I just listed, all have free gov-education schools. And yet Chile, the one country with a fee-for-service capitalist based education system, is providing the best, highest quality education out of all those countries.
And back the US Pisa rankings. Yes, I know. That is the problem. We're NUMBER ONE in cost, but 36th in quality.
When you compare how much is spent on education, compared to the Mean PISA scores (2009 numbers), Finland which scored #1, was spending about 60% as much as we do, to achieve those scores. Estonia, which scored around 8th, was spending less than 40% as much as we blow on education, to get that ranking. We're spending more than nearly anyone else, and achieving less than even the OECD average.
Something is wrong, and you said it....
"Countries like the US that provide a broad range education for all students are at a distinct disadvantage. If the US allowed students to drop out of school after the 8th grade and required students to qualify for high school, our PISA scores would be near the top of list. Even if every school in the US was a private school, we would score low compared to many other countries because we have different educational goals."
Yes, I agree completely. The problem is our education goals SUCK.
Little background.... While there is nothing even remotely remarkable about myself, I did have these amazing things called "parents", who also both happen to have been public school teachers. My father was a high school teacher, and my mother taught 4th grade.
I know... (only from talking to them) precisely what the problem is, because they have told me. You have students who don't want to learn, have no interest in doing work, and you can't get rid of them. You send them to the office, and the office sends them right back. You tell them to get to work, and they blow you off. They disrupt the class, they disrupt your lessons.
At the exact same time, you are instructed by the school system to teach X... then teach Y.... then teach Z.... then teach something else, and in the mean time you are not teaching Math, and Reading, and Writing, and Sciences. Then you wonder why the kids come out knowing about the Ozone Layer, and have
no idea how to work a calculator, while they are busy feeling up the girls in the next seat instead of doing their work.......?
(FYI, true story... I met a guy in 11th grade, who could not work a calculator. Literally... did not know how to divide 6 by 2 on the calculator)
And then you have the lack of good teachers. My father specifically retired early, because of exactly this stuff. He was told to teach a dozen different things, and found he didn't have time to teach the fundamentals, and then student test scores were falling, and he was tired of putting up with students who refused to work. He called it quits. My mother said she would have retired early, if she didn't already have 38 years, and just needed to hang in for another 2 to get full retirement.
Contrary to the garbage spewed by the Teachers Unions (which my father was the Union Rep for the school he was at, and admits this too) it's not a problem of pay. The problem is that between demanding teachers teach everything except the fundamentals, while complaining students are not learning the fundamentals, and at the exact same time, preventing teachers and schools from kicking out kids who absolutely will not learn, but will distract other students from learning.... these two things, which you yourself just admitted too, make teaching a miserable job for many people. The result is, you end up with awful teachers, because the good quality teachers, either retire, or quit and find a private school to teach at. (because private schools tend to focus on the fundamentals, and kids who disrupt class and refuse to learn, are quickly removed).
By the way, another true story. I was given the opportunity to tour some private schools while I was in 12th grade. I went to a private school, to a class of 8th graders. The 8th graders were learning the exact same thing in their class, that I was being taught in 12th grade. I'm a product of public edujamaction.
