By now, the results of PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) should be known by anyone who has any investment in the future of the US.
The fact that US public education system is a sham is a secret only to a people who are sublime to the point of being idiots or to a very high, and I don't mean administrative position, dejects. Yes, many US schools are well-equipped, some of them are architectural masterpieces, and even some school lunches are not that bad, but that makes no difference. While politically correct, humanities-educated teachers are discussing the issue of creationism, they forget what is this all about and it is NOT about biology or high school football--it is about:
1. Precise sciences, which are Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry. Such "subject" as "science" doesn't exist, unless, of course, it is in some American high school. I don't mention here all those "computer" (aka "technology") things, since any person with good math and physics background can get the basics of programming fairly easily;
2. Linguistics--knowledge of a proper native language, its usage and preservation, including through own literary masterpieces;
3. Ahem....history. Well, here I would abstain, since US History is a subject which can only be described by Schrodinger's Equation and is good only for some predictions of what US History is going to be in the future. I am pretty sure that at some point of time all of the Renaissance and Enlightenment (its best part), that is European, heritage will be demolished in US. Of course, what Tolstoy or Bach have on Spike Lee. Oprah will take it from here.
None of them, especially pp.1 are taught properly in US public schools anymore. Yet, those are the subjects which DEFINE national intellect and abilities. How do I know this? I spent many years teaching American kids (yes, if you are 23 year old, you are still a kid), and by American I mean kids with European background--90% of them wonderful, talented and ethical human beings. All of them are as good as their European or Asian peers, yet they are the subjects of indoctrination, which, at this stage, becomes a totalitarian system of "education", which deplores serious knowledge and ability to think critically--and it always starts with Mathematics. So, for now, no surprise that American hi-tech industries can not employ all those "free thinkers", who are at the bottom of the global skills pool and who are losing it to the kids from Eurasia. Yes, my last years in education were spent teaching the kids from India and China--they work their asses off to get Newtonian Mechanics and Partial Derivatives. Have it ever occurred to anyone that more and more US Physics Nobel Prize Winners (not that Nobel is anymore a defining award) have Chinese names?
Since I am Russian, I have to, and, yes, I know Russian education system was destroyed by all kinds of liberal morons, but the truth is--it is real. Russian 10th Grade homework--simple trigonometric identities. US homework, of course, differs with the real estate.
To be continued............
