U.S. lags in percentage who have high school diploma

[Judi Lynn]

U.S. lags in percentage who have high school diploma
Tuesday, September 14, 2004 By BEN FELLER AP education writer

WASHINGTON — The United States is falling behind other countries in having a high-school-educated public, with the gap widening the most among young adults, a new comparison of industrialized nations shows.

A total of 87 percent of U.S. adults age 25 to 34 have finished high school, which puts the country 10th behind such nations as Korea, Norway, the Czech Republic and Japan.The older the population, the better the United States fares — it remains first in high-school completion among older adults and fifth among adults age 35-44. But other nations are making fast gains among younger adults and passing the United States on the way.

“They’re catching up with you in the proportion that finish school (and) the proportion that go to college,” said Barry McGaw, director of education for the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which develops the yearly rankings.

“The one area you remain ahead is how much you spend,” McGaw told U.S. reporters Monday. “They don’t need to catch up with you on quality, because many of them are already ahead.”

http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?Category=23&ID=182171&r=1

[izzie]

1. And I read some place that Iraq had a very high rate,

I did not get into that site so do not know if they were listed.

[Robb]

2. "The older the population, the better the United States fares"

In other words, things are getting worse. :eyes:

Nothing screws up good government like educated citizenry getting involved in the process, eh?

[leesa]

3. Good news for the facists. Education = bad

[DebinTx]

4. One of the reasons for this

is the hispanic community, which is growing by leaps and bounds. Illegals come to the country and are automatically entitled to public educations which they cannot get in their own countries. By 9th or 10th grade, the kids have greatly surpassed mom and dad's educational level, so they drop out and start work. Unfortunately, hispanics continue to have dropout rates that are increasing.

[DBoon]

5. So relative to the immigrant's home country

We are doing pretty good?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. It isn't just the Latino kids

In Oregon, which is overwhelmingly white, only 75% of the students finish high school.

I see the problem as stemming from a society that doesn't value education. When I worked as an industrial temp, I found so many people whose attitude was, "Why go to school when I can earn money?"

That's what we get for treating education as nothing more than job training. If you take that approach, then immediate money wins out over life-long knowledge. If you take that approach, parents complain about funding the arts, literature, or anything else (except the religion of Sports) that doesn't "help the kids get a good job."

[cprise]

12. I agree

But maybe the societal attitude came from always having waves of very poor immigrants come here, impressed with how much their children could earn before they finish school. This creates teen consumerism, and from that a teen culture, that denigrates older people and authority (teachers). Infantile as it is, teen culture is expanding into the high-20s and lower-30s as less and less people acquire a mature mindset and an interest in what came before.

Families need to expose growing children to more and more focused pasttimes and delayed rewards, and to filter out the intense distraction. Of course, having two parents work full-time jobs complicates the problem. Unless the parents are well-off, the children probably won't be in a healthy/structured environment that personally directs kids' attention. Their school probably receives little engagement from the parents, and the children are probably jammed into crowded classrooms.

Also, I feel that the less people feel society has to offer them, the less willing they are to delay making money for themselves.

[Ellen Forradalom]

20. I don't think teen consumerism is a consequence of immigration

it's a consquence of our general prosperity and teens being targeted as a market by sophisticated corporations.

By the way, there's nothing "of course" about two wage-earner families being unable to raise cultivated kids. To me that's just code language for "Women should not work." Both my parents worked full-time and both were highly educated: my father had a PhD in music. They raised three kids who love the arts and can entertain themselves without popular culture or gadgets.

[Xithras]

7. Very true

The stats are readily available on the Internet, but the graduation of first and second generation Hispanic immigrants is atrocious. The last time I saw the numbers, the diploma rates of first generation immigrants was way less than 25%, second generation immigrants (their children) was somewhere around 50%, and they didn't start "normalizing" with the rest of the U.S. population until the third or even fourth generations.

With the U.S. Hispanic population now over 35 million, those numbers are starting to have a real impact on our overall educational numbers, and there's honestly nothing we can do about it. The illegal alien without an education that crosses the border to take a low wage factory job in Texas is not interested in going back to school to get a diploma or degree, and outreach to that population is typically futile. A better bet is to reach out to his children, so we can start moving those second generation numbers upwards over the next 10 to 15 years.

[geek tragedy]

8. Does that include immigrants, legal and otherwise? n/t

[Laughing Mirror]

9. Assuming a high school diploma is actually worth something, that is

I once found the achievement scores for my old high school, showed them to a friend, who said, "Oh my God. The High School from Hell." Here are the results I showed him, as published on Washington Post website, but which are no longer available. The figures are so alarming for a school of 3,400 students, that maybe somebody somewhere figured it might look better to no longer publish these alarming scores at all. But I kept a copy, and scanned it for you here:

[michaelj1978]

10. It starts at home

You can't blame this on public schools, but you can blame it on the parents of the students. 20 years ago there were no distractions in the home. Today we have cable TV with 100's of channels, nintendo's, play stations, and other things to keep minds away from school and homework. We also have parents that no longer care enough about their children or thier future. The television shows and media in general has turned society into one of instant gratification and what can you do for me and how soon can you do it. They don't focus on the optimism of the future, rather than the negativism of the present. It's becoming an ADD society and no one's to blame except the television and what's on it, and the parents who have become so complacent and let their children be babyset all night long by the TV and video games. I'm 25 now, and I remember when I was growing up, yes I watched some TV shows, but unlike many of today's children I never came home at 4pm and watched TV until I went to bed. Unlike children of today, there was no TV or computer in my bedroom. There was a desk, a dresser, and a bed. When I went into my room there was nothing to distract me from my main focus, homework. Today homework gets pushed aside for the latest greatest game or reality show and kids just can't keep up in school anymore without doing homework and studying. Don't blame the teachers, don't blame the schools. Blame the parents, their style of parenting, and the availability of all the toys at home that keep one from focusing on homework and school.

[cprise]

14. comsumerism is replacing academics

I hope you're not surprised when I say that corporations and the wealthy are waging a war against the public services like education and anything that engenders values or a sense of responsibility outside of "buy this" and "pay that".

Oh, a television in a kids bedroom? Never in a million years.

And now they give them fully-connected computers with ridiculous "net nanny" software (they should call it "clear conscience" cause thats mostly all it does). Its a bit like leaving your 9 yr old in the car all day WITH the car keys, and a map that has the adult parts of town erased.

[samtob]

18. Very well said,

Thank you for making the statement. I would only add, parents DO NOT GET INVOLVED IN SCHOOL matters. They trust that their kids actually do their homework, they do not check it for errors or completion...then get mad at the teacher when the kids get bad grades.

[UnapologeticLiberal]

11. Sadly, a high school diploma is less valuable than it used to be

I might even argue that whether or not someone graduated high school makes little difference in terms of their job prospects, as most job ads I see either require a bachelor's degree or higher or have no educational requirement. As more people go to college, the value of a high school education (and a college education, for that matter) declines, and it seems to me that someone who graduates high school but does not go to college doesn't have too many more options than someone who does not graduate high school - both seem to be stuck in dead end jobs.

I have no data to back this up, and I am not trying to say that a high school education is worthless - this is just an observation I have made based on the job ads I see.

[tom_paine]

13. You simply CAN'T compare a Third-World nation like Imperial Amerika

to Free World Nations.

Of course we look bad.

Compared, however, to Egypt, Syria, and Haiti, who are now our poorer cosuins sharing similarly corrupt governemnt, media, and law, we probably look pretty good.

[NoBorders]

15. rightwing benefits from low education

Rove said of edcuation 'there is such a thing as too much of a good thing,' noting that people with more education voted more liberally. I honestly believe this is the real reason for the RW hostility to public education. A well-informed public will not swallow their propoganda as easily.

I just saw in a poll that: Among those who feel issues are the most important thing in the election, Kerry has a 10% lead; those who go by 'gut feel' give bush* a 30% lead over Kerry. So, if you don't to take the time and effort to actually understand what's going on, vote your gut. And that's where bush's* appeal is. He's not 'intellectually' threatening. Pisses me off.

[SoCalDem]

16. If a High School diploma will get you a $7 hr job

and you have no money to go to college,is it any surprise that lots of kids drop out at 16 or so, to get a "head start" on that $7 hr merry-go-round??

Probably more than a few have heard the horror stories about kids who DO manage to graduate college,with 30-40K of debt, only to have to settle for a 20k a year job..

[delete_bush]

17. Not good, and probably worse than indicated

Depends on what constitutes a HS education here vs. elsewhere.

I know that some 12th graders take college equivalency courses while others function at an 8th grade level. Yet at the end of the term they both receive a diploma.

Does anyone know the equivalent education received in other nations compared to that of the US? Is there the same extreme in achievement?

Unfortunately our K-12 system is geared for the most part for kids who want to go on to college. For those who have no desire to go beyond high school there is little to look forward to.

We need to do much more in exposing this group to the arts and the different trades.

I've seen a documentary on this comparing schools in Germany vs. the US. The trade industries in Germany are actively involved in providing and funding training programs for high school students. Much better, IMHO.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. I don't know about the German schools, but I do know about Japanese

Japan has compulsory education till ninth grade and no tracking. Everyone is expected to learn the same material, and the pace is fast. By the end of ninth grade, the students are expected to have learned about 2,000 Chinese characters, have completed second-year algebra, and have studied English for three years. This doesn't mean that everyone masters all these things, especially English, but that's the standard that everyone is supposed to aim for.

After that, though, it's a mixed bag, because entrance to senior high school is not automatic in most cities, and the high schools specialize in different themes. Ninth grade is therefore devoted to figuring out what high school an individual student is best qualified for and studying for the entrance exam that will lead to that school. The top-ranked academic high schools aim to put their students into top-ranked universities, and there are vocational schools that work closely in cooperation with local businesses. Students who can't get into a public high school either opt for a private school (some of the private schools are excellent, but others will take any warm body that can pay the tuition) or go to work and possibly continue studying at a night school. There's even a private high school in Tokyo that pretends to educate the young teen singers that the pop music industry grinds out by the dozens every year.

One commentator has said--and I agree, based on my judgment about the general level of knowledge and skills--that other countries may be better at the top levels but that Japan has the most accomplished average students in the world.

However, Korea, Taiwan, and China are right up there.

[delete_bush]

22. It seems as though it's

a difficult measure to take after reading your response. It's just sad that education in general seems to be such a low priority for so many. This is going to come back and bite us big time, especially if the erosion of a strong middle-class is not reversed.

Thanks for your response!

[AspenRose]

19. "Is our children learning?"

And can they read "My Pet Goat" upon graduation?

Thank you, no child's behind left!

I have a friend who was a teacher for at least 25 years and was so disgusted by "No Child Left Behind" and frustrated by the schools that she went to law school to become an education attorney.

[Carolab]

23. Blame the corporations

Why should they pay more for a better-educated worker if they can hire someone at minimum wage? They don't care about someone's skills level. Don't you perceive that many workers with whom you interact are not terribly bright? When was the last time you spoke with a customer service representative who spoke well, understood what you were asking without having to repeat yourself, and managed to get to the bottom of your question and provide an answer right away? How many of them speak with an accent?