My state just got dumber

Well here in the UK people can leave school at 16 and go on to college, although the law was changes recently so that you now have to be in some form of education up to the age of 18. Although, am I right in saying that in the US college and university refer to the same thing, whereas in Britain they are different stages of education?

I am myself in my last year of school and personally I cannot wait to move on to college. I think that if some people in America think themselves ready to go to college at 16 then why stop them, it seems to work OK over here.

My two pence.

More or less.  There are differences between a college and a university (we have both over here, and they are generally considered equivalent education), but the differences are only relevant for those who seek higher education instead of the bare minimum for good employment.

Highschool is so full of crap that you probably should be graduating in two years instead of four.  If you tossed the bullshit, you'd have the reqs that fast easy.  The standardized tests are all a joke because the schools are a joke, if they gave real ones, they'd have a 90% failure rate for graduating seniors.  Most first year college students are taking prep classes these days.  You should never go into college and take precalc, or God forbid, algebra.

There's two big things going from high school to college and the point at which someone is ready to make the transition is more being able to handle these things versus any particular level of knowledge that they currently have, within reasonable limits of course.

The first thing that's necessary is to have learned how to learn on your own. Without this ability a college education is doomed. The second thing is to be able to motivate yourself to do the work. In high school you have your parents and your teachers always pushing you to do the work. In college no one cares if you do your homework or not. In fact there will be the occasional person that can skip all the homework and just ace all the tests and pass everything with flying colors. But unless you're in the 0.001 percentile (i.e. the smartest person in a group of 100,000 people, I was only in the 0.01 percentile) then you're going to have to do all the homework, study hard, *and* struggle and no one's going to tell you that you can't go to that weekend party or you can't blow that joint, so you have to have the self discipline to do it all on your own.

If you can manage the above it really doesn't matter if you had AP calculus and physics in high school or not.

I went to MIT, eventually earning a PhD in Electrical Engineering so I had all the intelligence that I needed but none of the discipline and I essentially dropped out before they threw me out. I got a job as a shipper and packer for $2.10 an hour for a 50 hour workweek in a wallpaper warehouse and after about a year of that I came to the conclusion that doing homework wasn't really all that hard. I went back to MIT got my degree and continued on to a Doctorate and the rest is history.

Thomas Edison said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. I think he underestimated the perspiration a bit.

Just a bit.

You also have to learn to Think.

This is all true, but from my experience (just a college freshman here, so I may or may not be hopelessly naive and if I am, be nice please) I could've gone to college at about 16 and done pretty well. I'm in a rather good college (UNC's generally regarded as the best bargain in state schools, especially when I start paying instate tuition), placed out of all the intro/remedial high school stuff and am doing work that's generally easier than I did in high school senior year (granted most high schools don't offer system level programming and computer graphics after AP compsci, but I went to one of the best high schools in the country). Anyway, I think I would've been ready from a knowledge standpoint after sophmore year, the only class I'm taking now that I would've had trouble with I placed out of with my AP cs test score, so I would've been in a different class. The english class is tought to a slightly higher standard than my high school english classes, but not much. In all honesty, the biggest problem I'm having is procrastination and not wanting to put in the extra effort to get top grades, and that's why I'm sitting at an A- average, not a lack of knowledge. I don't really think I'm qualified to speak on how well my high school career prepared me to learn, because I'm still getting taught how to learn like a college student (first year seminar has kind of held my hand, but oh well, it's a very fun class).

Some are never ready, and some are ready even earlier than 16. It really depends on the person, and the question is how to determine if a person is ready. To be honest, my work habits were even worse at home, at least now I have a good grasp on time and scheduling and am willing to apply myself when I need to, and I of all people didn't see that coming. The problem with a test is determining whether a person is capable of dealing with the work on their own and with the college environment, and I don't see much of a way to do that. One of the goalies on the hockey team isn't playing because he's busy trying not to get kicked out his first term in college, and I doubt his parents would've paid his bills if they thought that'd happen.

In the end, I'm kind of tempted to say go for it, especially if you just want a community college degree, but I also think it'd be awesome if at least precalc never had to be taught in college, so I'm torn on the idea.

I got all my schooling done in Ireland. Their education makes high school here sound like playschool. America needs serious reform in that regard.

Lets be clear: they can lower the corporate tax all they want but you still cant compete with the better-educated workforces of other countries.

The biggest difference between UK and US would be culture.  Over here, we're frickin babied until we leave high school, and many folks have a shock when they leave on their own and have to do things themselves (college or not).  If I'm not mistaken, most of you Europeans are raised to be more independent earlier on.  And due to liberal "they're so young and shouldn't be expected to do x' crap, it will probably only get worse.

I will say that the last two years of high school seem to be about the same as college, similar course material.  Of course, I took the AP/Honors route, so I had to, but most college prep curriculums probably do the same.

I was told by one girl that moved from Russia in the 8th grade that she went back in what they were learning by about 4 years when she came over.  I can't disagree, they stoped offering Algebra in the 8th grade my 8th grade year, and we keep pushing crap back.

I will say that ending after 10th grade will let the folks out with HS degrees that won't go any further, but 12th needs to be a continued milestone, unless we accelerate our education rate (which won't happen anytime soon).

I have a friend from russia who was taking his math class senior year at NYU's grad school. Of course that may have had more to do with the weekend school he was taking during school. Also, one of our teachers took problem #1 from a bunch of sequentially numbered geometry questions from his 4th grade textbook and stumped a 10th grade honors class in the best high school in new york city. Hooray! Also, we may have had half the NYC math A team, but I don't think any of the members were born in America. Actually, a distinct minority were born here (partly because a lot of the immigrants can't afford the top private schools and my high school was a tremendously good public school, but way more because they aced the entrance test).

However with that said the level of the "top talent" here in the US is as good or better than anywhere in the world. I personally scored a 1600 on my SAT's and that was before the test was devalued, twice. I went to the best engineering school on this planet (MIT) and although there were certainly a good share of foreign students easily 95% were from the US of A.

Things may have changed in the 29 years since I graduated but googling the stats of the incoming freshman class at MIT the number of US citizens/perm residents accepted out of applied is 1470/10344 or 14% of those that applied. For International students it's 119/3052 or about 4%. There's no doubt that the acceptance standards are the same for US and International students and if anything I believe that MIT will accept slightly lower performance from an international student simply to try and get the international presence higher.

In any case International students are 119/1589 or about 7.5% so that's probably a 50% increase since the days that I attended but still the overwhemling majority are home grown.

Yes I agree that there are brilliant people all over the world and that the US school system lags that of other countries, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the top US students are weak by any stretch of the imagination.

Check it out yourself at http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/.

As far as a world ranking of engineering schools here's the top 10

1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA
2 University of California, Berkeley USA
3 Indian Institutes of Technology India
4 Imperial College London UK
5 Stanford University USA
6 Cambridge University UK
7 Tokyo University Japan
8 National University of Singapore Singapore
9 California Institute of Technology USA
10 Carnegie Mellon University USA

http://www.universityportal.net/2007/09/world-university-ranking-of-engineering.html

I'm very skeptical of rankings for universisties now.  I'm going for a masters in statistics.  For a project for multivariate analysis, a friend of mine decided to do discriminant anaylsis on what a journal article claimed to be the "top 50" and the rest "below 50".  What she found out through discriminant anaylsis, they practically based the whole ranking on the ACT scores of the students.  They never even mentioned it in the article. 

Go figure..

I'm not saying that those schools are not great, cause I'd love to be accepted to any of those.

As an 8th gerader getting ready for high school, I think that we should continue havng high school last for four years. How ever here is what I think they shoud do. I think that for kids who have an averege of one or more A's (or 100's or whatever your school is using) should have to take this test if they manage to do this during most of 10th grade and if they pass they should be able to graduate and go to college. Now as for the other kids they should have to go through their junior and seinor years. Now I usually get more than one A on my report cards so I keep this up until 10th grade I'll be able to go to college earlier. I am trying to get a job in game developement so I can work for Stardock. I'd love to work on Galciv 3.

...   continue having high school last eight years?  O.o

Opps that was an accident.

Some are some are not. Many years ago when i was in school they put me in {what was called by us students} the easy reading class. This was in second grade and in first grade they were using the Dick and Jane series of readers. Well to make this short, after two years in the slow reading class with extra help I passed the rest in testing and ability scores and I was able to slide thru jr and high school due to early intervention. Without a strong primary school foundation when we are able and more willing to listen and learn ten years of high school wont be enough for a good start for collage.

Theres something else that u need to know and that is the usa doesnt hide the schores of the specail ed student we go right ahead and use there number with reverone else im makeing the averages.  while most other countrys hide and shune thos students and dony put thee scores in with the othetrs to make an average.

just look at japan.

well I am not to sure as to why the US education system is such a sad state.  But from what I have gleamed - WE are not challenged the right way.  We do not get hands on experience, we do not get in depth information in the subject matter nor do we get a feel for the consequences when we do fail.

What I mean by this is that in Europe/Asia the students are constantly challenged with the same basic information.  They learn the same 8/9 arithmatics till they are blue in the face ( + - / x ^ ! % Square and root ) while we try in vain to teach our students 32 arithmatics.  The things they learned and absorbed are not really implimented and our "standardize" test tie our teachers hand and force them to teach to said tests.  Creativity and understanding are squashed and they are force to remember and regurjitate things they do not understand.  Its like putting a tape cassette under a kids head during the first 2 years of his life and feign surprised that he can repeat the information he heard all this time yet has no real understanding of what it is he heard/absorbed.

In my state of FL they had a small "competition" on redesigning the "curriculum" 3 years back and I sent them a 47 page business plan (the only i could make it work lol) informing them that within 10 years our 4th grade students would not only be able to read and right at the 9th grade level but also understand, comprehend and explain 8th grade Math.  And by the time those same studens leave HS to commence their tour of duty in College, those 2 years of garbage "Prep" classes would no longer be needed.  All this could've been reinstituted by starting with the "lowest performance schools" (remember they force the teachers to teach to a damn test) and then move up to the more productive schools.  And all in all it would have only cost - with todays inflation - a meager $55 million with $15 mill of which would have been needed from the start.  Needless to say it was never implemented.

I'm 26 by the way and the year I graduated HS i had just turned 16 and finish college @ ~19 with a BA in a useless degree of physics which i do not even use at all (good going McGuyver).  It is not that kids are not ready or prepared for college, its just a simple case of the "Now What!?".

Low or no expectations (drop the bar and push kids on through, who cares about actually passing these days?), zero responsibility (by *all* involved parties), and poor parenting are probably factors.

Honestly, if the kids were responsible and dedicated enough to prepare themselves (and honestly, given most freshman year courses, it wouldn't take much), I wouldn't see the problem with it. But with most schools these days seem more interested in self-esteem and trying to make everyone equal (drop everyone to the level of the lowest student) and such than actual academic performance, and the kids just not caring, I don't see it working out.

A large problem with the education system is the implementation of new educational research.  We have learned a lot in the last few years when it comes to educational psychology.  How people learn and what environments induce the best learning.  But the problem with the new research is that on paper and in small one day sessions of testing, it looks great, but in practice it was a horrible idea and produces poor students in the long run.  Many students were forced into these experiments which produced a bad crop of student for roughly 7 years, and now we are starting to see a turn around in our students and standards.  (At least I see it with my own college classes I teach.)

As for allowing students to go to college at the age of 16, it is perfectly fine to allow such an option to exist.  But I would not recommend this option to very many students, as most students, or people for that matter, do not know exactly what they want to do in life or if they would enjoy the job after they obtained it.  Some of the best students I encounter in college have always been non-traditional students.  (People who went out to the workforce for 3-4 years and then decided to come to college to learn their trade or to better themselves.)  These student tend to be quite mature when it comes to education.  Which is really the requirement whether a student is ready for college or not.  You will find that some people are not mature enough at the age of 35, while other are ready at the age of 12.  There is no real test to see if somebody is ready to attend college or not.  (If there is one, let me know I would be happy to see it.)

Quite frankly, the problem with American education is that we don't like to see anyone fail - so we lower the bar so far you have to dig a tunnel under it not to pass. And still some do. It's pathetic, really.

Both my sisters are teachers. The older works in inner-city Houston, the younger was in Las Vegas until recently. So when they say Bush's no child left behind bullshit was exactly that, they know what they're talking about. Frankly, there are significant portions of the population we NEED to leave behind.

I keep hearing about these terrible jobs we need to let Mexicans do for us because "Americans don't want those jobs." Personally, I think the prospect of spending the rest of your life picking lettuce should be a powerful inducement to actually learn something in school. Any person who gets into ninth grade with a second-grade reading level no longer deserves to have taxpayer money wasted on them. Yes, some of it may be language barriers or whatever; the vast majority are simply lazy fools. Even if the "system" is failing you, or your entire demographic group, that's no excuse. Some personal responsibility needs to be exercised, and by failing to force that upon them, we are all subsidizing failure.

I work in the chemistry department of a university. University policy is that each student must take at least two science classes to graduate, so we developed a chemistry course to meet the standard they set. I've seen the material they are teaching; I covered the same material in EIGHTH GRADE. And still people fail. The biology and physics departments are the same.

It's not just science; ever see someone break out a calculator to multiply something by 10? I do, on a daily basis. And these aren't even the people in the eighth-grade level class, these are nursing majors!

The university used to have a writing exam, to ensure at least a minimum of skill before someone gets a degree. Recently they decided the standard was so low it wasn't worth the money to administer, so they dropped it instead of raising the standard.

College freshman and sophmore years are basically reviews from high school. I'd gladly have gone to college after sophmore year. And going to private school just made college more annoying.

Edit : @ Kyro : I really don't understand where this everyone is equal in all ways is coming from in America. Sad news to all the leeches,  YOU'RE NOT EQUAL TO SOMEONE WHO WORKS HARDER. Equality means if you put in the same amount of effort you get the same result. Not lazy people should be rewarded as much as over achievers.

I would have to agree with American schools having incredibly low standards. Everything progresses so slowly in some misguided effort to allow deadbeats/leeches to keep up. I fail to see how a person needs to be fourteen to begin taking algebra and how someone can pass a course while only knowing 60% of the content. It all needs to be accelerated and toughened up, along with failing those who can't put any effort into school instead of dragging them along to dumben the remaining 3 years of high school. That way we'll at least pull up the bottom draggers and dump out the deadbeats who would otherwise disturb everyone else and waste taxpayer money.

Personally, I think a lot of the problem is ( and those who are teachers or know some who is will probably agree) parents that’s right the parents they same to think that they have to responsibility to help there children learn.

The system also only  teaches to one learning stile (out of three). And as has perversely been stated “No child left behind” has not helped schools that fail often have extenuating circumstances  (I.E. high transfer rate or high amount of emigrants ) or standardized testing which again is useless. In fact the people who make the test will say (off the record of course) that they mostly just  test if you take test well or not 

I my self was home schooled ( technically I when to a privet school but what ever). And you know these test that those  aptitude learning test that they give? Well they told my mother that she should even bother to teach me to read because I would never learn also they classified me as extremely unintelligent. This was done at a major university. Not to be donated my mom (who happens to be a teacher) decided to home schools me. 

Any way graduated H.S with a 3.8 GPA ( screwed around my junior year ) and a year early  

 At seventeen I was tested (while in my second semester at collage) and found to have an  I.Q. 143 they also confirmed my mothers suppositions that I am A.D.D. and Dyslexic. 

At nineteen now in my second  years at collage the only class that has challenged me was English 1A.(which I had in my first semester)

Given your dyslexia, pointing out your errors is impolite at best, however, I believe the word you were looking for is deterred, not donated. I would assume you also meant suspicions rather than suppositions but that could easily be a typo, even without dyslexia contributing.

Apart from that, though, your post was at least as legible as your average senior in high school without accounting for dyslexia, so I'm not complaining-and I'd say your mother did a good job.