Education - Canada Does Better Than Us

[Craig Read]

Canada beat the pants off of the US in a recent OECD international test of 15 year olds. The US spends the most of any country - $11 K USD per student year. I think Canada spends about $7 K USD per student year. This is still a sizeable chunk of change. However the US had abysmal ratings.

Rankings by order:

Math: Japan, Korea, NZ, Finland, Australia, Canada and the US @ 19 [out of 23]

Reading: Finland, Canada, NZ, Australia and US @ 15 !

Science: Korea, Japan, Finland, UK, Canada and US @ 14 !

Canada finished 5th 2nd and 4th. Not bad.

CNN called the US results 'middle of the pack'.

Come on they are a disaster.

US universities are the best in the World, the high school and lower school systems are a shambles.

This is one area in which Canada is superior. The trick in Canada is to liberate the University system and make it uber-competitive with the US.

[SirRiff]

everytime i cross the border i knew this was the case.

so craig, you spend all you time saying that Canada is the biggest failure, yet time after time, we always come out on top on the most important social measurements. its all because of progressive social polices.

isnt this along with the many many other measurements that we are in fact nearly an ideal country by any measurement, and we in fact the sky is not falling?

its so obvious in everyday life that Canadians have among the best society in the world. studies help to quantify it, but if you travel around you can see it in reality. and its not just the brainwashed flag waiving we see down south either, it manifests itself in positive ways as we have seen,

once again, science states the obvious

SirRiff

[Lost in Manitoba]

But maybe we should privatize our school system, right Craig?

When I took my aptitude tests to join the USN, I had to go to GrandForks ND, I believe. That was a central recruiting station for about 4 different states. I tied the top overall score for the testing which was standing for a few years at that time. Now what was the reason for this? I don't think I'm a genius by anymeans. I guess it could be that the millitary doesn't attract the brightest people. Or, and I happen to believe this, our public education system is leaps and bounds over that of the US. Maybe the Yanks should try paying their teachers a decent wage istead buying missles at $5million a pop.

[Craig Read]

Hey genius the US spends more per capita than in Canada - so what is your point on money ?

The system is broken in both Canada and the States - more so there than in Canada at the public school system level.

At higher education levels the US is however leaps and bounds ahead of Canada even discounting the Ivy League snots who learn that Westernism is bad, White people are stupid and that post modern marxism is the only moral vehicle of societal organisation.

The US needs to fix its system of management of schools - unions, vested interests, school boards, and vouchers all need reform. As well the curriculum which is becoming a pathetic morass of non essential courses, post modern rights, obsession with minority revisionism and pandering to the 'self esteem' of the poor little dears, as well as incredibly 'sensitivity training' in some states, all needs to go.

Basically the US system is so bad because of the lack of competition, lack of transfer rights and unions/school boards wasting huge amounts of budget on non-essential items.

Spending per student has nothing to do with quality per student.

[Mr. Chater]

heh, that is really kinda sad, but hey..we canadians arent that bad. I mean for Canada to beat US isn't that bad is it?

[SirRiff]

At higher education levels the US is however leaps and bounds ahead of Canada even discounting the Ivy League snots who learn that Westernism is bad, White people are stupid and that post modern marxism is the only moral vehicle of societal organisation.

i dont belive that.

my university, and all of my friends university degrees have fielded job offers from teh states. if you did the same study on recent university grads we would find teh same trend i suspect.

if you look at where the brightest people end up going, then yeah, the money might get them to teh US, but that has nothing to do with our school system at any level.

studies like this show us there is no reason to claim that any part of our society (except our military maybe) is broken or lacking compared to the US.

we are obviously on par or better in most areas,

SirRiff

[FastNed]

What Canada 'lacks' in education is the N.E.A., the National Educational Association. Give thanks that this one American institution has not infected Canadian education - although the 'multicultural' disease is also spreading among Canadian educators.

While American Third Graders should be learning the 3 R's, they are instead reading about how Heather has two moms! Education has been politicized and has a fatal multicultural disease. Plus, we have badly mishandled "Special Education". If 7,000 is spent on average, ten times that is expended to allow Special Ed kids to attend the same classes as other children. It is not working.

That is my complaint - it does not work!

American Education in its present form fails badly the needs of the "Outliers" - The Top and Bottom one or two percent. All the attention has been directed at the bottom and much needs to be done there but lowering the level has not worked. The question I can not get answered is if we must have "Gay" High Schools because of their special needs (I'm not being judgmental) why don't we have "Special Needs" Schools for those with special needs? Educators are insisting that one group of special needs require seperate (but equal, one presumes) educational opportunities while the other must be integrated, no matter the cost or overall ineffectual results to date?

But Canadians should not get too complacient, I suspect that if Canadian Schools were compared to the top 8 or 10 percent of American Schools (and the population numbers are about identical) the results would be different.

And SirRiff, of course American Firms solicit the best and brightest from Canada, it's what we do and a large part of the reason we lead the world in accomplishment.

[SirRiff]

And SirRiff, of course American Firms solicit the best and brightest from Canada, it's what we do and a large part of the reason we lead the world in accomplishment.

yeah money, the top 1% go for the gold.

but as we see in this and other studies, the other 99% is better off with the education policies of Canada, Japan, and some European nations.

that manifests itself in the general makeup of the nation in day to day life.

if the US adopted the better polices along with its academic freedoms and economic strength they would benefit themselves greatly.

and no, lesbians have nothign to do with the lack of math and geography skills of young americans. i rembmer in 4th grade we started class with some bible based morality stories or something. it didnt harm my devlopment.

SirRiff

[FastNed]

SirRiff, you said:

and no, lesbians have nothing to do with the lack of math and geography skills of young americans. i remember in 4th grade we started class with some bible based morality stories or something. it didnt harm my development.

I rest my case!

[KrustyKidd]

LOL

[westcoast99]

Education is excellent in this country in almost every province.
The problem is where Canadian youth go after they've graduated from University. Many times, it's south of the border, and this is a big problem.

Edited August 12, 2015 by Gugsy

[Craig Read]

Canada needs to liberalise its university system. You can't subsidise and enforce wage and investment controls and expect to be world class.

An exception that proves this, is the business schools of Ivey, Rotman and Schulich. There are world class in many ways because the programs and their tuitions were liberalised.

Without this, they would be just good local schools subsidised by the state with poor facilities, average teachers, and average students.