New recruit teacher is inadequate

But I'm on tenterhooks to hear her groundbreaking ideas...has she solved the education crisis in France?

The OP is still ever so busy putting the world's education system to rights on another -bonkers- thread.

OP, how was your meeting yesterday? Any updates to be had?

You're never going to agree so I'm not going to bother trying to persuade, I'm just going to take your argument apart

"the trend is away from early specialisation"

Which is why at A level our students take 4 As levels and 3 A2s. They don't specialise that early.

You discuss lots of international students applying to US universities. You think its only the US that has students from round the world applying to them? Go take a look at the number applying to UK universities.

By the way, nice try with the link but it does actually prove my point that the US universities reputation is heavily influence by post graduate work, 50 % or so of the wieghtings are around research reputation, citation and publication which would all be based on post graduate research ( undergrads in any system tendnot to produce ground breaking stuff, tend being the operative word)

US universities get more funding because of a "superior tax system", you're talking out of your arse there. US universities get more funding cause its a tax fiddle to donate to your alma mater, UK universities get lots of funding and produce great work too, there is no crisis in research funding here. We still, still produce great ground breaking work ( and we have the world's best physiscist)

"This is an outmoded concept that was always related to the British class system" Yet above you talk about the local taxes paying for your high schols and that the wealthier the area the better the schools. The British education system at least (for the moment) has more of a social way of funding, most schools get the same money per student and actually many that deal with high levels of deprevation get way more. The US system entreches privilige far more than the British

Having taught in both systems, and having a DH who is an academic at an outstanding UK university and has taught in both systems ( what reason do you think I may have had to be teaching in New Brunswick NJ for 10 years?) British undergraduates begin at a higher level than American, sorry.

A levels are fine, the IB is good, AP is good, students with 3 good A levels (A*-B) get accepted at all of the Ivy league schools( students with 4 or more are very often offered scholarships). Why do you think they only have to have 3 to get into Ivy league and Russell group universities and AP students have to have 5?. Its not cause the AP is so much better is it.

You then go on to discuss broader knowledge when previously you were saying how amazing your schools were because they gave students such a head start in specific subjects. You then further weaken your argument when talking about "raw talent" which again is the nature vs nurture argument.Are you saying that American kids are naturally more intelligent? Cause to be fair honey I've lived and worked there I didn't notice any difference between US teens and UK teens except US teens appeared to be slightly more materially wealthier in the 1980s.

You go round in circles and compromise yourself all the time in your arguments, you just want me to admit that the US system is better than than the UK, which I'm not going to do AND have been able to effectively argue that actually the English A level system is equal if not ever so slightly more adavanced than the US ( everyone can take A levels, your opportuinity to get them tends not to be based on the ability to live in a wealthy area, A levels student get to skip 1st years in other counries university system).

Also you then go and say Cs are a waste of time? Well it depends on the student doesn't it, a C grade for some is a product of excpetional effort and shows extremely good progress being made. Lots of students who get C grades in school go on to do much better at other levels, its not a "waste of time" because any learning is not a waste of time.

You are actually starting to sound like a bit of a right wing loony.

Actually, your arguments are so flawed I wouldn't even give you a C.

D- www: A good attempt use of linked evidence, but please check what your source actually says, if it does not support your argument then it is not worth using.

ebi: You are consitent with your argument, making two points that actually counter each other in the same argument shows lack of coordination, or a desire to stick to a certain dogmatic theme at all costs.

Must do better.

Otherwise translated as, follow the money.

The degrees are excellent, Longtimelurker, hence the dominance of global rankings, and the thousands of application from students worldwide and within the US.

For QS ratings, reputation among academics, reputation among employers, student to faculty ratio, international faculty and student ratio are all taken into account, with citations per faculty member accounting for 20% of the mix.
US News and World Report rankings rubric.
"The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-2014 list the best global universities and are the only international university performance tables to judge world class universities across all of their core missions - teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The top universities rankings employ 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available..."

Nobody would be willing to pay the price of attendance for four years at undergrad level in the US without some assurance of excellent value for money. Not all those foreign students are there for the cachet. All of them have to hand in papers and pass their exams in order to stay there once admitted. It is not just the postgrad reputations of leading American universities that keeps them on top of world tables, though obviously those reputations are excellent too.

Not that postgrad research isn't important. Maybe UK universities should be worried about the fact that so much research money flows into the US, and the superiority of the tax system that allows that, no doubt dreamed up by some farseeing American university graduates, should put a dint in British complacency. If the disparity of funding continues, many British universities will lose their shine.

If current trends are anything to go by, third level education will become more globalised, less parochial. This is already apparent with the international IB, accepted everywhere. The trend is away from early specialisation, which owes much to the notion that there is such a thing as raw intelligence, raw talent, and that it is a good thing to encourage this. This is an outmoded concept that was always related to the British class system. The American model that values effort over potential and offers four years of a grade point average instead of brilliant-day-of-the-exam performance as well as broad range of subjects is arguably superior. It forces students to apply themselves consistently to subjects they may not have a lot of interest in or feel they have much aptitude for, because excellent all rounders who are disciplined and can work is what American universities look for. The approach is certainly more in line with the up and coming int IB approach than the A level system is.

Students with 4s or 5s in AP subjects can skip core requirements in many universities, including Ivies. APs do count for something. Getting a 3 or lower is a waste of time, just as getting Cs and lower is in every other exam. A student with a raft of AP courses with 4s and 5s by way of results is going to be a very competitive applicant anywhere she applies.

Surely there is an internet law somewhere, that if your writing about standards, you're going to feck it up yourself. Ah the irony!

American Universities dominate the top 50 because they can cherry pick the best post graduate students from round the world, a by product of recieving the most funding of any universities in the world. Because of the nature of the way tax works in the states, many American universities recieve way more funding from industry and private benefators so have the best facilities. Also, getting an American degree (especially a post graduate one) is seen as a good way to get a job in the states and get a green card, lots and lots of people from round the world ( my self included, I loved my time teaching in New Brunswick NJ) would like to get a job in the states.

The degrees are good, I'm not denying that, as someone above pointed out more similar to Scottish universities than English. Students with good A levels can often be fast tracked into the second year at Scottish universities as they don't need to do the first if they studied the subject at A level. Many English universities will not accept students who have just done highers, often they will need to have done 3 advanced highers in order to get in.

American students applying to any of the top 5-10 universities in the UK needs very high SAT pass marks and high school diploma as well as 5 AP passes at level 5 ( knowledge gained during working at the American School London), where as offers are made to students with 3 grade As at A level. Sorry to burst your bubble.

What I was pointing out math is that you come on here pontificating about eduction standards, being very judgemental and rather smugly superior, when actually the American education system while good, isn't quite what you're making it out to be.

wrt your insistence that 'US college degrees' are in your view so generic that they can all be classed as 'A levels plus first year university'.

Reading your comments, I am left scratching my head in astonishment at the spectacle of secondary level students from all over the world falling over themselves applying to leading American universities, and students from all over the US being accepted into the same places, and international rankings of universities showing major American universities dominating the top 50.

This might be a good time to point out that US education systems have more in common with Scotland (more breadth, 4-year university, etc) than they do with England, which is one reason that students from the US can generally transition easily into a Scottish university.

OP is busy having a bun fight on another thread, which is so amusing people have brought popcorn.

Come back, OP, your posts are a hoot. Reading this looonng and hilarious thread kept me smiling all through a boring staff meeting yesterday.

I think the junior & senior school are connected with the MD (? Super head chappy) being in charge of both

Math, I didn't say they were running to save the US, it is about money, the degrees, be they undergraduate or post grad are equal.

You economic reading of the US situation is laughable, really, US college degrees are about the same as A levels plus first year university which explains why your Doctors have to be grads first. Its just the truth, I taught AP econ, it isnt the same standard as A level. Sorry.

Doesn't the US have an appalling record for social mobility?

So, have the students who went to St Andrews had their flights, accommodation and tuition fees paid for them via scholarships or the state, or are they, actually, spectacularly advantaged, mathanxiety? Or capable of earning enough money in their spare time to pay for all that? Or facing astronomical debts which mean they won't be willing to, eg, work as GPs in poor areas in future?... You still aren't selling the US system to me.

I don't think doctors and nurses running from Britain to save the US is a thing. The brain drain of med professionals to the UK and the US is due to the money, and also because many doctors and nurses in developing countries despair when faced with the bricks without straw daily grind of their professional lives, seeing patients die whom they know they could help if only they had facilities or supplies or even clean running water. Britain, Canada, Australia and especially the US are destinations for migrating doctors from less developed parts of the world. They often end up practicing in areas of the US where American doctors, saddled with huge med school debts, can't afford to practice, or in specialties that American med school doctors tend not to study (general practice) because they will not be able to pay off their med school loans on the sort of salary a GP makes.

the "graduate" status of your medical degree is there because the basic education that people enter with isn't of a high enough level to go straight in, hence they get a college degree first.
This is not really the case. Medical degrees and law degrees are graduate degrees in the US because undergraduate education and professional education there are conceived of as separate undertakings, and seen differently to how they are conceived of in the UK (and Ireland). The liberal arts and sciences model holds sway in the US. A well rounded and versatile graduate is expected as the product of an American undergrad degree course. She is expected to have mastered a foreign language or two, advanced mathematics, lab sciences, humanities history, philosophy, economics, etc as well as English, on top of her major. Back in my exFIL's day, Latin and Greek were expected.

In the UK, undergrad degrees tend to take less time and are more specialised. The UK secondary system allows (or forces) early specialisation and it is arguable that as a result there are many unhappy square pegs in round holes, engineers who can't put a sentence together, English grads whose knowledge of maths or economics or lab sciences is dodgy, etc. You get a situation where a Classics grad from Oxford who dropped maths after GCSE and never studied economics or finance gets a job in the Treasury that she will most likely hold for her entire working life, with goodness knows how much impact.

I actually don't see an advantage to the early specialisation in the UK. (Ireland escapes that with the Leaving Cert. Perhaps that is why the IB isn't so big in Ireland -- one primary years, one middle years and one diploma school in the Republic).

It really is a case of apples and oranges. Imo the big advantage of the American system is versatility of graduates, which makes a difference as economies develop and change especially in a technological sense, and as well as that a well rounded graduate class is an advantage to a democracy. A common language of sorts is spoken. It is worth noting that the military academies also feature a liberal arts education.

It is not only the spectacularly advantaged or the anomalies in the US who perform really well. In the last three years, students from the local high school have gone to St Andrews and Edinburgh. DD1 was placed in Calc III in university and iirc took another semester of mathematics beyond that, doing lord knows what. She did BC calc in high school (an AP course) having started at exactly the level of maths I was doing in Ireland at the age she started high school. BC calc was the terminus of the bog standard bright kid track in maths in the school. She tested out of French in university, having done honours French in high school, not AP. She nevertheless took a year of French in university and did a semester abroad in Paris. Her AP coursework in general gave her a legup. AP level courses are not just available to an elite. DS and DD2 had similar trajectories, except DS did Latin in HS and took German in university. DD2 will be heading to UCL next semester and I anticipate she will hit the ground running just as her classmates will if they go abroad.

I haven't said a word about whose approach is better longtimelurker. I was just trying to address your post about entrance qualifications for medical degrees. It's a bit apples and oranges considering the different educational approaches.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread - especially the "Look a badger" comment.

I am in awe of all the OP has achieved, despite the fact that for the foreseeable future her DC will continue to be taught an incorrect curriculum by an inadequate teacher.

There's no difference in the end product the "graduate" status of your medical degree is there because the basic education that people enter with isn't of a high enough level to go straight in, hence they get a college degree first.

If there were a difference in the quality of a UK undergraduate medical degree and a US graduate medical degree we wouldn't be seeing the brain drain of doctors and nurses from the UK to the USA.

But isn't the medical degree in the UK generally an undergraduate degree? In the US medical degrees are all graduate degrees.

Not all medical students in the US majored in sciences as undergraduates. My mother's cardiologist has a degree in English literature.

Having taught in both systems, frankly, a good A level student in the UK is a about a two years more advanced in terms of subject knowledge and application than a high school student. However, due to the massive inequalities in U.S system there are anomilies.

Having ALSO taught at the the American School in London ( which if you follow other threads is why I have been in Kilburn/Maida Vale for donkeys years) I would say that some very privilleged American students are very good.

Medical students here with A levels don't need to have done chemistry or biology at undergraduate level ( which actually good med schools don't want you to have done) in order to progress to a medical degree because they have the grounding from A level. It is just not the same standard as the UK. Even the brilliant (and I genuinely do think it is brilliant no sarcasm) IB which takes in a wider range of subjects does require ( in my subject at least) the same kevel of knowledge, analysis or evaluation skill

Are you sure this OP is who you think she is?
This OP struggles to express herself, seeks help with jargon and has her DD in a pretty ropey school by the sounds of it. Not sure she is the person anyone would turn to for advice on schools.

So if she is a font of all.knowledge - why ask us, in "little ole me" fashion, what jargon to use?

mathanxiety - I note that none of your examples of community involvement involve parents deciding which members of staff are adequate or inadequate, or deciding that the curriculum of a subject is inadequate, or that teaching methods must be changed, and then going on to devise a proposal for the content of the revised curriculum. I'm all for parental involvement in schools and schools and communities working in partnership, but surely there is a difference between setting out concerns, pushing for more or better provision or better facilities, and telling schools how they should be achieving it and with whom?