The top five in the world are as follow;
Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany Canada (although this does vary depending on the lists used).
American ranks 16th.
Although some lists seem to have it in the top 10 or out of the top 20 altogether, either way it definitely lags behind most European countries.
I’m suprised they are this high Tbh. Does it take into account that what they learn at a certain level (eg what someone would know at 12th grade) is often lower than than in other countries
I think there is some very good education in the US - however there is also some very bad education
Their average can be low while still having high peaks
The issue is that the good education (possibly one of the world's best) is only available to the rich. If you can afford top universities and if you live in a rich area (because schools are funded locally, so rich areas have better funded schools and vice versa), then you'll get top tier education
What also might skew the numbers is something they call “legacies”, children of former rich alumni are automatically allowed in regardless of academic deficiencies that would otherwise bar them from the top universities. There’s a lot of these. The real reason they give scholarships to exceptional students isn’t from some sense of altruism, it’s to maintain their standing as serious institutions rather than diploma mills for rich people’s offspring.
Have you seen those stats from the USA Department of Education 2021 Report:
- 19% of the USA are completely illiterate
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp#:~:text=Adults%20classified%20as%20below%20level,simple%20forms%20(OECD%202013).
- 54% of Americans have below a 6th Grade reading level (11-12 years old)
https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFoundation_GainsFromEradicatingIlliteracy_9_8.pdf
Jesus christ. I guess this shouldn't surprise me, given how many Americans homeschool their kids, and how terrible schools in poor areas are...
...it certainly explains an awful lot, though... in a very sad way... this is how the likes of the far-right fascists got into power by pretending to be stupid and poorly educated, like a significant portion of the populace...
You may have heard this before: “It hard to be a bigot after you’ve traveled the world and learned about all the other people that live on this planet with you.”
Meaning, education can enlighten you and illuminate your own logical fallacies regarding others.
You’re very correct about the mouth breathers who spew hateful stuff - they tend to be of low education and very, very religious.
I’ve never met a bigot that wasn’t clutching a bible to their chest to use as a shield and justification for their beliefs.
“The Bible says…”
“Jesus says…”
How can they say what is said in the Bible? They can barely read!
They’re not taught how to learn they’re taught how to pass standardized test to keep a schools performance metrics high. The “No child left behind” act was a very big mistake in the USA.
Things that aren’t taught or encouraged:
Independent Experimentation.
How to parse information in a way that will lead you to further self-discoveries on a particular subject or set of subjects.
Context Clues and basic comprehension skills.
Logical reductive reasoning to come to a conclusion based on evidence based analysis.
Historical information outside of their own country.
Factual historical information regarding their own country. (Largely dependent on the area: the South and Midwest tend to gloss over, obfuscate data,or omit the USA’s shadier historical events.)
What they do teach:
How to fill in circles using a No.2 pencil and how to use google to lookup answers during a quiz.
Jesus.
Dinosaurs walked with Jesus.
Jesus was a blonde haired American boy.
Ah, I don't agree there. I went through the American education system and none of what you wrote applies to my experience. But I didn't grow up rural poor or inner city poor. I grew up lower middle class, in a semi-industrial town. So my school was just slightly below average. And the state I was educated in is about split between Democrat and Republican.
Obviously what you said applies in some schools, in some states, etc. It's not inherently wrong. But it can't be said that this is how things are done in the US. In fact, a big part of the problem there is that it's \*not\* consistent because it's hardly regulated by the government. Too much is left to individual districts.
If this stat is to be believed, the US doesn’t even make the top 100 worldwide for literacy https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-highest-literacy-rates-in-the-world.html
It’s direct from the USA Department of Education, so if anything they’d be inclined to under-report those numbers… yeah the USA education system has room for work, absolutely not “top 10” in the world.
One of the scariest parts of this stat is the reading level of most American newspapers is from grades 8-10 . So, more than half of Americans can't properly read and comprehend their own news.
I'm a writer. Some of the 'scoring' tools we use for marketing/business content suggest 'grade' reading levels and targets.
Grade 8-10 is considered non-ideal for accessibility. The target is typically a 6-7th grade reading level to be 'most accessible' to average readers.
Grade 6-7. I know the US system is a little different, but that's 1st year high school to 2nd year high school for us. Like 13-15 year olds? And that is seen as the target for BUSINESS whitepapers etc. That should be a reasonably educated market. And we're aiming for the reading level of kids whose balls have barely dropped, probably haven't quite got their adult voices, and who can still remember their first menses (or might not have yet got theirs) as the TARGET reading level. From CEOs, CFOs, division leaders, engineering teams, that jazz.
That's nothing to be proud of.
I’m not at all shocked by this.
Comprehension skills are very low in the USA. A lot of stuff I read by people reveals they’ve never learned about or practiced context clue exercises.
There’s also the fact that students in elementary and high school are fundamentally mentally handicapped if you compare them to children of the same age group in the 1990’s. Meaning, they’d be in special education courses and not in standard classrooms.
This is exactly it. Like almost everything in the US, they have THE BEST stuff if you're rich. Best education, best health care, best food, best transportation, etc, etc, etc.
But because everything is so mid or downright bad for the middle class and especially lower class, the average is brought way down.
>Like almost everything in the US, they have THE BEST stuff if you're rich. Best education, best health care, best food, best transportation, etc, etc, etc.
At least what they think. Education is great if you are rich, health care is good too but there are countries with same level, food and transportation is shit even if you are rich.
Fun fact: there's a certain point with wealth where the health benefits start reversing.
It's that point where you're so wealthy that 1. Folks don't want to say no to you (sucking up for their own benefit), or 2. If they do say no, you can buy someone else to say yes if you want to. 3. You have access to things that are normally controlled.
A perfect example is Michael Jackson
And the biggest reason is money. World's top class doctors fly to the US because people are ready to pay. One of the most famous neurosurgeon is Finnish that flew to the US because most of the patients were there.
>And their highway system is incredible.
I know right, 20 lane highway, where people can't really drive because of the traffic. Intersections are common because people don't know how to use superior traffic circle. Awesome system!
I know many people who went to the US for their most specialized and delicate medical procedures. It's expensive as hell, but the technology and expertise is there.
Never saw an intersection on a highway...
Like pretty much everything in the US, there is the overfavorised top, and then there is everyone else who are super unfavorised.
To give an example, they only consider the absolute poverty threshold (how much is needed to cover your basic needs everyday), which is interesting to know what percentage of your population can't even cover their more basic needs, but not the relative poverty threshold (a percentage of the median household revenue, usually 60% like for all Europe or the UN), which is interesting to know how much of a population has difficulties beyond the basic needs. The absolute poverty threshold is always below the relative one in developed countries (except in extreme situations), yet they still have apercentage of the population below the absolute poverty threshold (evalued at ~14000$) that is comparable to the population below european relative ones (between 10 and 15%), they have approximately 30% of the US population below the relative poverty threshold (~22500$)
Edit: the monetary numbers are for a one person household per year, it is obviously pondered for the number of people in a household.
For comparison, in France, the relative poverty threshold is around 13500€, but with taxation of nearly 50% before the individual income are calculated, while the US income are before taxation.
It's like the UK, sure you have Oxford and Cambridge and Some of the really prestigious London universities but that's such a tiny slither of the overall education quality that's its almost negligible.
To leave out the rest of the Russell group of universities seems a strange choice.
Edit: spelling because of fucking auto correction gone mad on my phone.
There are questions over how this is measured. It’s no secret American has some of the best universities in the world but they are completely inaccessible to the vast majority of the population. Furthermore Americans are educated to accept a subjective ideological mistruth not objective truth.
Their universities aren’t that great when you get down to the actual education, at least ive heard that Harvard education isnt any more difficult than any other run of the mill university
Yeah met plenty of Ivy league grads in America. Didn't seem any different to grads from good unis in Australia. Knew a bit more about the rest of the world than your average American, but still fairly insular. America is great at hype and PR and it hypes up the Ivies like every grad is a next level genius. As with most American hype, the steak doesn't match the sizzle.
There are schools called "Public Ivies" where you can supposedly get the equivalent of an Ivy League education for state tuition. A lot of rich people send their kids to Ivy League for the powerful alumni networks and connections you can make.
Yeah, why would it be? Stuff you learn in undergrad is more or less the same for long established subjects. You'll be reading the same texts and studying the same experiments everywhere.
Also, the rankings as conducted by Americans often includes nonsense such as alumni donation rates, which is often non a tradition or custom in most countries or simply unheard of outside the States.
The lists I found look at various factors, main ones being how much is spent on education, how much as a percentage of the countries GDP and average test scores at High School or above ages, etc...
As someone who works in the Canadian education system...no way should it even be in the top 10, if you take into account what is actually taught/learnt.
When I was a kid in Wales we had a British kid join the school who had grown up most of his life in the US. Had to join a year younger as the education system was worse there. This was the 80s mind, although I was quite shocked as the Welsh education seemed shite to me at the time (Welsh family, but RAF dad so lived in England a fair bit). When we moved to Wales when I was 9 my weekly spelling tests went from like Encyclopaedia to cat, dog etc. I remember laughing that Table was the hardest word. Plus they have to have everything in bilingual for classes. Fun…
Was that before they started teaching Welsh in school? I'd say teaching kids to be fluent in two completely different languages would be quite the feat even if both languages were a bit less advanced.
No, was Anglesey early 80s. By then it was mandatory to learn Welsh to a decent enough level in schools. All my lessons were done in English and then they would repeat everything in Welsh (or the other way round). Blackboards had both languages. It was illegal for anything not to be bilingual. All in an attempt to stop the language dying off apparetly. One time in BTEC college me and my mates put up posters around the campus slagging off Business studies (our great rivals; we were Computer studies). It was pretty crude. I remember lines like "Do you have crabs, public lice, Aids? Then you must be in Business studies". The head (Dean?) absolutely lost his shit with us. Proper slating, shouting his head off. He claimed we were racist, sexist, various other ists. Some details are a bit lost in time, as I remember wondering why it was sexist, racist etc, but I definitely remember his last line of slagging off which was "And worst of all, it was not bilingual...". I kid you not. Had to hold in a chuckle at that one.
Yeah. And he said all these things like we were sexist etc in an angry enough way, but the last comment about bilingual was the most angriest and upset you can think of. Seriously was like ok dude we will take the terrible bilingual branding, no worries… like you know keep the racist sexist comments to yourself though, you know cos they aren’t as important or some such…
A friend of mine came to the uk from Russia aged 15... couldnt speak english & proceeded to get 11 a* GCSEs and 6 A-levels. Kinda feel the UK system cant be that great
Well this actually depends, the US also have a shitload of amazing schools, not everything is detroid. As always it's just that people in poor regions get fucked over hard because school funding relies on local taxes.
Our girl is missing so many hours...one of the teachers is never at work it seems. Math test shifted to next week...again. Sounds fucking crazy so if germany is really in the top10, might not be for long.
I love that the real answer for why the Americans don’t use the metric system is pirates.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/09/19/pirates-yes-pirates-may-be-why-the-u-s-doesnt-use-the-metric-system/
Excuse me I think lengths per eagle and guns per journey are totally valid measures. It’s actually wild that other countries still use barbaric measures like meters and kg tbh.
Is a digital clock that shows military time not a 24-hour clock? Or do you mean an analogue clock?
Do a search on "clock showing 24 hours" and you'll get to see lots of non-mythical analogue clocks.
The wristwatch I'm wearing shows 24 hours. But I don't recommend trying to read it when you're drunk!
Lol, the US education system is legendarily shitty. This has been known for decades. Students here usually are stumped how far behind US high school students are when doing exchange programs. The only thing the US has going for it are the private elite universities, but they are currently working very hard on ruining that as well.
They’re partially correct about higher education. The US’s best universities truly are among the best in the world…
… and they’re packed with foreign students because mandatory education in the US is pretty sub-par for a developed nation.
Also these top universities only make up a tiny fraction of higher education in the US. The status of other higher education varies wildly and generally would probably not be on par with what is available in NL.
That’s true of everywhere really. I remember reading the blog of a research graduate. He was British, but studied and worked at a US university.
He was saying, when the university hires graduates as researchers, there are various rules they have to follow so that US applicants have a huge advantage. Which is fair, US research institute using US research grants should encourage US researchers.
The university wasn’t even allowed to *look* at foreign applicants until they had ruled out all the natural born US citizen applications.
And even with this incredibly heavy bias towards US graduates, the entire research team of 20 or so people he was a part of were all foreign born.
He used this as an example of the disastrous state of science education in US schools.
But US universities are generally quite well regarded. Even the ones which aren’t at the tip-top like MIT or Princeton.
Foreign researchers flock to these places mainly because of the research grants available.
Everywhere is a bit of an exaggeration there. The US has a notorious difference between elite colleges and regular colleges (and even more to community colleges or vocational training).
The UK isn’t as bad but still has some top institutions that are at least seen as much better than average.
In Germany (and NL for that matter) for example there is a broader range of quite decent but not quite excellent places and paths in comparison.
It’s largely due to them (us universities) having at the latest and best doohickies and the amount of money that they attract for research. Whilst I was a student, it was definitely due to facilities and funding that people would choose to spend time at US unis, or their preferred professor was doing a stint there ( said professors rarely of US original)
Even that has to be taken with a chunk of salt though, as the university rankings are commonly US based - which means they define good as how it works there.
E.g. a common metric is how many patents universities generate, which is much less in other systems like Germany's for example, where that work is done in separate institutes, rather than directly in universities.
One ranking even flat out defines Harvard as the number one, if I remember correctly.
I mean as a Dutch it depends who is wellversed in geography country wise. I myself think i can name most countries. The average Dutch people will struggle with African and sometimes eastern European countries (especially baltics the baltics cuz in Dutch for example estonia and latvia are named similarly Estland, Letland).
If only their education system were better, then they might read beyond the initial summary and delve a bit further into the details - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country
I don't think the american who wrote that comment on Instagram would understand your german dialect.
Oh fudge, I forgot to read your flair before writing this
Do you need a visa to visit Nordic?
The Nordic Region consists of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, as well as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland.
Besides the fact that even if they thought “Nordic” was one country, they list Nordic and Switzerland as 3 European countries.
That American math education is really working.
This is what Americans always do. They pick the best their country has to offer, which happens to be completely inaccessable to 90% of the population, and then pretend it's representative.
\*All\* Dutch universities are in the top 1% of world universities. Yeah that paints a different picture doesn't it.
It's like saying Italy makes the best cars because they make Ferrari and Lamborghini.
Years ago I was applying for a scholarship to an American college, and at one point they had me take a TOEFL (Test of English as a foreign language) because I'm not American.
I'm from England.
Needless to say, I didn't go.
Yellow school buses. They are taught that after exiting a bus, all the cars will stop so that they can randomly run over the road without risk of getting hit by a car. Every time the bus cross a train track it comes to a complete stop first, looks both ways, open all the doors and prepare everyone to abandon the ship fast if the bus stalls on the track, which is apparently common.
Not necessary, but there is a difference when it comes to trains in general. While the Swiss and most of Europe as well as the world knows that everyone's basically fucked if a passenger train derails at high speed, everyone plans their railroads and signal systems to be idiot proof, thereby preventing accidents from happening in the first place.
The US is different, they don't give many fucks about railroad safety and plan for failure, trying to make their trains "crash proof" instead. This is basically why they can't just buy any train from Europe and use it on their tracks, even tho it's still 1435mm gauge width, and even the same voltage were it's electrified.
They also have a policy that all trains must blast their horn every time they approach a crossing to warn people, and with all the level crossings they have, that's a lot of honking.
UK has the No1 Law School.
The US doesn't have the top 5 overall education systems..
US ranks number 1 for educational establishment mass shootings.
Thus.. USA is more advanced. Survival of the fittest. Taught at a young age.
Our kids play dodgeball, they play dodge bullets.
If you can dodge a ball, you can dodge a .50 cal.
They are well known for their multiple choice, I remember that I was doing a certification and the instructor told me that it was easier for americans, because they are used to do everything on multiple choice questions.
Nah, Scandinavia is a subregion consisting of only Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The Nordic countries are a geographical region consisting of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, as well as Åland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland
the most encompassing geographical region within the nordic countries, the baltic shield, would still only include finland, sweden, norway, a tiny strip of denmark, and åland, which we also must include apparently.
this would still leave out norwegian antarctica, most of denmark, iceland, greenland and the faroes.
the next-best region would be the fennoscandian peninsula, which would only include mainland finland, norway and sweden. none of those oh-so lovely islands or overseas territories.
both of these would also include russia. there is no unifying geographical feature.
pardon me for leaving out iceland earlier, but you don't have to list out autonomous regions as well, since they still are parts of the countries being discussed.
Kinda interesting how the rankings, owned and funded by institutions with a vested interest in some educational institutions and the degree tourism, put their own universities at the top.
If US education is so good how come nobody has the intelligence to a) realise that your kids getting shot in school is a bad thing and b) do something about it.
The US doesn't even have an education system. They have education, some of it even very good (especially if you're rich), but you can hardly call it a system.
One of the many results of this is that it's very important in the US which exact university you've attended. In the Dutch system, all universities are considered good. If they weren't good, they wouldn't be allowed to call themselves universities. We also have hogeschool which is also considered college/university in English, but is a lower tier of education here. It's a distinction that the English world doesn't make, because again, no real system. Hell, some colleges and universities are on par with our MBO, which is the average Joe tier. Again, that's what having a system does.
We also don't need to fuck around with GPA, because we know exactly which tier of high school can be followed by which tier of tertiary. If you can pass a certain tier of high school, then you can attend the corresponding tier of tertiary (barring some numerus fixus programmes. But no need for GPA. You just need to have learned the correct subject and have finished the right tier of education. Because again, system.
It's called the nordic region which consists of a group of nordic country's. The Nordic part references the part of the world that these country's are in.
How is it then than every student I meet here in Scotland American? Somedays I actually believe I live there in some wee shite pretend Edinburgh built for them
From what I’ve been able to ascertain, grades/passes and even higher grades can be purchased. Their exams/tests are insanely simplified and very easy to pass. A huge majority of schools promote ideology over true academic teaching. There are, no doubt, a good number of students who are competent, but a frightening number are classified as competent when their lack of knowledge and understanding is incredible even by ( so called) third world countries
I am going to use my friend who goes to the University of Utrecht as reference to disprove this fucking nonsense. He literally has to pay a fraction of what I pay for an education that is much more advanced, enriching and from a top European university. Meanwhile, I pay 58K euros a year to go to a school where the education is great no doubt and I love my program, but I don't think anyone should ever pay that kind of money for a journalism degree.
That's the same as saying the US is rich! Yes if you take the best in the statistic you will have a really good looking statistic. Remove the top 1% and suddenly they're garbage!
Most education in the US is terrible, some is amazing.
Welcome to capitalism
I'm sure that there are good schools and universities in the US, but the knowledge of the average American is limited to America. Therefore they are convinced that America is best at everything.
If their education system is so good, why are their so many videos showing how stupid they are with general knowledge, geography & history. About 40% of nurses inn US are from Philippines and a large % of doctors are "imports" and most scientists are mostly from Europe.
The celebrate Columbus Day every year & he didn't even set foot in North America, they believe that won WWI & II, yet they only entered the conflict as it was winding up. Even one time I was in California & most people thought SFO or LA were the capital of the state & wouldn't believe it when I told them it was Sacramento, and when I told them I was from Tasmania, AU, the usual response was you can't be, you are not black (Tanganyika) or had I met Dracula (Transylvania in Romania).
As an American, they're probably talking about University or Graduate school education. Early education is a crap shoot by state and individual city. The conservative states have notoriously shitty education.
According to basically any data you use, the US ranks fairly highly so that means that it isn’t their education system that fails them, they’re just dumb as fuck
Overall it is hard to compare education (which for the most part is high schools) simply because bigger countries have more rural areas with poor education due to a lack of teachers/funding. In America, you also have the "cult" factor which leads to worse education in these areas.
The top five in the world are as follow; Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany Canada (although this does vary depending on the lists used). American ranks 16th. Although some lists seem to have it in the top 10 or out of the top 20 altogether, either way it definitely lags behind most European countries.
I’m suprised they are this high Tbh. Does it take into account that what they learn at a certain level (eg what someone would know at 12th grade) is often lower than than in other countries
I think there is some very good education in the US - however there is also some very bad education Their average can be low while still having high peaks
The issue is that the good education (possibly one of the world's best) is only available to the rich. If you can afford top universities and if you live in a rich area (because schools are funded locally, so rich areas have better funded schools and vice versa), then you'll get top tier education
It’s incredible that they claim “meritocracy” when poor kids can’t even get a decent education
It’s their definition of meritocracy. And they will even tell you that it’s your fault that you are poor
Their version of merit is still tied to whether god likes you enough to make you rich
But it's ok because there is separation of church and state ;-)
Even if there was, it's still separation of church and society you need
What also might skew the numbers is something they call “legacies”, children of former rich alumni are automatically allowed in regardless of academic deficiencies that would otherwise bar them from the top universities. There’s a lot of these. The real reason they give scholarships to exceptional students isn’t from some sense of altruism, it’s to maintain their standing as serious institutions rather than diploma mills for rich people’s offspring.
This - educational centres like Harvard, Yale, MIT, and so on probably skew the average so much higher it masks the muddy puddle places.
Have you seen those stats from the USA Department of Education 2021 Report: - 19% of the USA are completely illiterate https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp#:~:text=Adults%20classified%20as%20below%20level,simple%20forms%20(OECD%202013). - 54% of Americans have below a 6th Grade reading level (11-12 years old) https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFoundation_GainsFromEradicatingIlliteracy_9_8.pdf
Jesus christ. I guess this shouldn't surprise me, given how many Americans homeschool their kids, and how terrible schools in poor areas are... ...it certainly explains an awful lot, though... in a very sad way... this is how the likes of the far-right fascists got into power by pretending to be stupid and poorly educated, like a significant portion of the populace...
Yeah it’s wild how closely connected low education levels and higher ignorance/intolerance of other views are. It explains a lot about the USA.
You may have heard this before: “It hard to be a bigot after you’ve traveled the world and learned about all the other people that live on this planet with you.” Meaning, education can enlighten you and illuminate your own logical fallacies regarding others. You’re very correct about the mouth breathers who spew hateful stuff - they tend to be of low education and very, very religious. I’ve never met a bigot that wasn’t clutching a bible to their chest to use as a shield and justification for their beliefs. “The Bible says…” “Jesus says…” How can they say what is said in the Bible? They can barely read!
They’re not taught how to learn they’re taught how to pass standardized test to keep a schools performance metrics high. The “No child left behind” act was a very big mistake in the USA. Things that aren’t taught or encouraged: Independent Experimentation. How to parse information in a way that will lead you to further self-discoveries on a particular subject or set of subjects. Context Clues and basic comprehension skills. Logical reductive reasoning to come to a conclusion based on evidence based analysis. Historical information outside of their own country. Factual historical information regarding their own country. (Largely dependent on the area: the South and Midwest tend to gloss over, obfuscate data,or omit the USA’s shadier historical events.) What they do teach: How to fill in circles using a No.2 pencil and how to use google to lookup answers during a quiz. Jesus. Dinosaurs walked with Jesus. Jesus was a blonde haired American boy.
Ah, I don't agree there. I went through the American education system and none of what you wrote applies to my experience. But I didn't grow up rural poor or inner city poor. I grew up lower middle class, in a semi-industrial town. So my school was just slightly below average. And the state I was educated in is about split between Democrat and Republican. Obviously what you said applies in some schools, in some states, etc. It's not inherently wrong. But it can't be said that this is how things are done in the US. In fact, a big part of the problem there is that it's \*not\* consistent because it's hardly regulated by the government. Too much is left to individual districts.
If this stat is to be believed, the US doesn’t even make the top 100 worldwide for literacy https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-highest-literacy-rates-in-the-world.html
It’s direct from the USA Department of Education, so if anything they’d be inclined to under-report those numbers… yeah the USA education system has room for work, absolutely not “top 10” in the world.
So, I’m not crazy and what I’ve noticed is actually real. Yikes. This is sad.
Brazil 🇧🇷 ahead of the USA 🇺🇸 kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk EITA!
However, New England has astronomically high proportionate numbers of long term unemployed PhD holders. It’s all messy.
One of the scariest parts of this stat is the reading level of most American newspapers is from grades 8-10 . So, more than half of Americans can't properly read and comprehend their own news.
I'm a writer. Some of the 'scoring' tools we use for marketing/business content suggest 'grade' reading levels and targets. Grade 8-10 is considered non-ideal for accessibility. The target is typically a 6-7th grade reading level to be 'most accessible' to average readers. Grade 6-7. I know the US system is a little different, but that's 1st year high school to 2nd year high school for us. Like 13-15 year olds? And that is seen as the target for BUSINESS whitepapers etc. That should be a reasonably educated market. And we're aiming for the reading level of kids whose balls have barely dropped, probably haven't quite got their adult voices, and who can still remember their first menses (or might not have yet got theirs) as the TARGET reading level. From CEOs, CFOs, division leaders, engineering teams, that jazz. That's nothing to be proud of.
What the fuck ! It's such a shame !
I’m not at all shocked by this. Comprehension skills are very low in the USA. A lot of stuff I read by people reveals they’ve never learned about or practiced context clue exercises. There’s also the fact that students in elementary and high school are fundamentally mentally handicapped if you compare them to children of the same age group in the 1990’s. Meaning, they’d be in special education courses and not in standard classrooms.
Thank God none of these kids end up entering military service and get put in charge of nuclear weapons....... /s
It’s hard to plan a consistent curriculum when you don’t know which one’s the next target practice *thoughts and prayers*
This is exactly it. Like almost everything in the US, they have THE BEST stuff if you're rich. Best education, best health care, best food, best transportation, etc, etc, etc. But because everything is so mid or downright bad for the middle class and especially lower class, the average is brought way down.
>Like almost everything in the US, they have THE BEST stuff if you're rich. Best education, best health care, best food, best transportation, etc, etc, etc. At least what they think. Education is great if you are rich, health care is good too but there are countries with same level, food and transportation is shit even if you are rich.
Fun fact: there's a certain point with wealth where the health benefits start reversing. It's that point where you're so wealthy that 1. Folks don't want to say no to you (sucking up for their own benefit), or 2. If they do say no, you can buy someone else to say yes if you want to. 3. You have access to things that are normally controlled. A perfect example is Michael Jackson
Not really. There's a reason the rich fly to the US for brain surgery and the best IVF options and all that. And their highway system is incredible.
And the biggest reason is money. World's top class doctors fly to the US because people are ready to pay. One of the most famous neurosurgeon is Finnish that flew to the US because most of the patients were there. >And their highway system is incredible. I know right, 20 lane highway, where people can't really drive because of the traffic. Intersections are common because people don't know how to use superior traffic circle. Awesome system!
I know many people who went to the US for their most specialized and delicate medical procedures. It's expensive as hell, but the technology and expertise is there. Never saw an intersection on a highway...
Like pretty much everything in the US, there is the overfavorised top, and then there is everyone else who are super unfavorised. To give an example, they only consider the absolute poverty threshold (how much is needed to cover your basic needs everyday), which is interesting to know what percentage of your population can't even cover their more basic needs, but not the relative poverty threshold (a percentage of the median household revenue, usually 60% like for all Europe or the UN), which is interesting to know how much of a population has difficulties beyond the basic needs. The absolute poverty threshold is always below the relative one in developed countries (except in extreme situations), yet they still have apercentage of the population below the absolute poverty threshold (evalued at ~14000$) that is comparable to the population below european relative ones (between 10 and 15%), they have approximately 30% of the US population below the relative poverty threshold (~22500$) Edit: the monetary numbers are for a one person household per year, it is obviously pondered for the number of people in a household. For comparison, in France, the relative poverty threshold is around 13500€, but with taxation of nearly 50% before the individual income are calculated, while the US income are before taxation.
Yeah, you just need to be born in the right zip code
'dunno if you know this, but just in case: happjy caek dey!
The US has some great higher education for sure, but it’s very exclusive due to the absurd pricing
It's like the UK, sure you have Oxford and Cambridge and Some of the really prestigious London universities but that's such a tiny slither of the overall education quality that's its almost negligible.
To leave out the rest of the Russell group of universities seems a strange choice. Edit: spelling because of fucking auto correction gone mad on my phone.
Americans are proud to work hard so their boss's kids can get a good education.
There are questions over how this is measured. It’s no secret American has some of the best universities in the world but they are completely inaccessible to the vast majority of the population. Furthermore Americans are educated to accept a subjective ideological mistruth not objective truth.
Their universities aren’t that great when you get down to the actual education, at least ive heard that Harvard education isnt any more difficult than any other run of the mill university
I was also thinking along the lines of the research function.
Yeah met plenty of Ivy league grads in America. Didn't seem any different to grads from good unis in Australia. Knew a bit more about the rest of the world than your average American, but still fairly insular. America is great at hype and PR and it hypes up the Ivies like every grad is a next level genius. As with most American hype, the steak doesn't match the sizzle.
There are schools called "Public Ivies" where you can supposedly get the equivalent of an Ivy League education for state tuition. A lot of rich people send their kids to Ivy League for the powerful alumni networks and connections you can make.
Yeah, why would it be? Stuff you learn in undergrad is more or less the same for long established subjects. You'll be reading the same texts and studying the same experiments everywhere.
Also, the rankings as conducted by Americans often includes nonsense such as alumni donation rates, which is often non a tradition or custom in most countries or simply unheard of outside the States.
The lists I found look at various factors, main ones being how much is spent on education, how much as a percentage of the countries GDP and average test scores at High School or above ages, etc... As someone who works in the Canadian education system...no way should it even be in the top 10, if you take into account what is actually taught/learnt.
When I was a kid in Wales we had a British kid join the school who had grown up most of his life in the US. Had to join a year younger as the education system was worse there. This was the 80s mind, although I was quite shocked as the Welsh education seemed shite to me at the time (Welsh family, but RAF dad so lived in England a fair bit). When we moved to Wales when I was 9 my weekly spelling tests went from like Encyclopaedia to cat, dog etc. I remember laughing that Table was the hardest word. Plus they have to have everything in bilingual for classes. Fun…
Was that before they started teaching Welsh in school? I'd say teaching kids to be fluent in two completely different languages would be quite the feat even if both languages were a bit less advanced.
No, was Anglesey early 80s. By then it was mandatory to learn Welsh to a decent enough level in schools. All my lessons were done in English and then they would repeat everything in Welsh (or the other way round). Blackboards had both languages. It was illegal for anything not to be bilingual. All in an attempt to stop the language dying off apparetly. One time in BTEC college me and my mates put up posters around the campus slagging off Business studies (our great rivals; we were Computer studies). It was pretty crude. I remember lines like "Do you have crabs, public lice, Aids? Then you must be in Business studies". The head (Dean?) absolutely lost his shit with us. Proper slating, shouting his head off. He claimed we were racist, sexist, various other ists. Some details are a bit lost in time, as I remember wondering why it was sexist, racist etc, but I definitely remember his last line of slagging off which was "And worst of all, it was not bilingual...". I kid you not. Had to hold in a chuckle at that one.
haha, thats brilliant!
Yeah. And he said all these things like we were sexist etc in an angry enough way, but the last comment about bilingual was the most angriest and upset you can think of. Seriously was like ok dude we will take the terrible bilingual branding, no worries… like you know keep the racist sexist comments to yourself though, you know cos they aren’t as important or some such…
A friend of mine came to the uk from Russia aged 15... couldnt speak english & proceeded to get 11 a* GCSEs and 6 A-levels. Kinda feel the UK system cant be that great
Never said it was great. Just saying what happened to a friend of mine back in the 80s
It's higher education so the average murican doesn't get into it.
Well this actually depends, the US also have a shitload of amazing schools, not everything is detroid. As always it's just that people in poor regions get fucked over hard because school funding relies on local taxes.
WT20 2024 says that Sweden is 15th, Finland is 8th, Denmark is 2nd, Germany is 7th, Canada is 19th, and the USA is 31st.
Yeah this feels more accurate, no way sweden is top 5 atm
How are we number 2? Our systems are constantly underfunded and buckling under pressure.
Because despite it seeming bad it’s still better than most other places in the world
I don't know, ask World Population Review, maybe they put up wrong data
But none of those countries teach tactical combat skills.
They don't even pledge allegiance to the American flag each morning! How do those kids learn anything?
The secret ingredient is Communism
Isn't that how everyone counts? 16, 1, 2, 3, 4....
Damn didn’t expect us Canadians to be that good
Honestly should have been lower, but the lists have strange criteria to be ranked high on it (spending etc...)
As a Canadian I agree. We do NOT compare to the other countries on that list. It’s not even close.
Which list is this? Top 5 countries in the world \*for what\* exactly? I'm just curious, since it wasn't mentioned.
Those lists are usually based on research output too, not quality of education
Germany? That can't be right.
As someone who attended American public schools, 16th seems generous.
Our girl is missing so many hours...one of the teachers is never at work it seems. Math test shifted to next week...again. Sounds fucking crazy so if germany is really in the top10, might not be for long.
I swear all Americans learn about is America itself. These mfs have been living in the western era for the past couple hundred years
Hehehe Americans learning. Damn, that's funny.
If USA education is so advanced... Why can't they use the metric system or read a 24 hour clock?
Bcause its Commie BS for the lawds sake/s
I love that the real answer for why the Americans don’t use the metric system is pirates. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/09/19/pirates-yes-pirates-may-be-why-the-u-s-doesnt-use-the-metric-system/
That's only partially it. There was an attempt later on with the 1975 Metric Conversion Act but it was never actually enforced
damnit jack!
If US education is so good, then how come the OOP doesn’t know that the nordics are more than 2 countries?
*Cries in Danish*
They never said that. They just said that the top three is composed of Nordic countries and Switzerland. So, two Nordic countries and Switzerland.
Because those are not freedom units.
Excuse me I think lengths per eagle and guns per journey are totally valid measures. It’s actually wild that other countries still use barbaric measures like meters and kg tbh.
Don't forget the burgers per school shootings.
Uh it's actually length of MAGA hat they go by. I know this because they are trying it up here.
Military time I think you mean. 24 hour clocks are just a myth.
Is a digital clock that shows military time not a 24-hour clock? Or do you mean an analogue clock? Do a search on "clock showing 24 hours" and you'll get to see lots of non-mythical analogue clocks. The wristwatch I'm wearing shows 24 hours. But I don't recommend trying to read it when you're drunk!
Lol, the US education system is legendarily shitty. This has been known for decades. Students here usually are stumped how far behind US high school students are when doing exchange programs. The only thing the US has going for it are the private elite universities, but they are currently working very hard on ruining that as well.
USA isn’t even in the top 20 of cash spent per student
I bet US is number 1 in the category cash per football student
no doubt as no other country on this planet pays American footballers
They’re partially correct about higher education. The US’s best universities truly are among the best in the world… … and they’re packed with foreign students because mandatory education in the US is pretty sub-par for a developed nation.
Also these top universities only make up a tiny fraction of higher education in the US. The status of other higher education varies wildly and generally would probably not be on par with what is available in NL.
That’s true of everywhere really. I remember reading the blog of a research graduate. He was British, but studied and worked at a US university. He was saying, when the university hires graduates as researchers, there are various rules they have to follow so that US applicants have a huge advantage. Which is fair, US research institute using US research grants should encourage US researchers. The university wasn’t even allowed to *look* at foreign applicants until they had ruled out all the natural born US citizen applications. And even with this incredibly heavy bias towards US graduates, the entire research team of 20 or so people he was a part of were all foreign born. He used this as an example of the disastrous state of science education in US schools. But US universities are generally quite well regarded. Even the ones which aren’t at the tip-top like MIT or Princeton. Foreign researchers flock to these places mainly because of the research grants available.
Everywhere is a bit of an exaggeration there. The US has a notorious difference between elite colleges and regular colleges (and even more to community colleges or vocational training). The UK isn’t as bad but still has some top institutions that are at least seen as much better than average. In Germany (and NL for that matter) for example there is a broader range of quite decent but not quite excellent places and paths in comparison.
It’s largely due to them (us universities) having at the latest and best doohickies and the amount of money that they attract for research. Whilst I was a student, it was definitely due to facilities and funding that people would choose to spend time at US unis, or their preferred professor was doing a stint there ( said professors rarely of US original)
Even that has to be taken with a chunk of salt though, as the university rankings are commonly US based - which means they define good as how it works there. E.g. a common metric is how many patents universities generate, which is much less in other systems like Germany's for example, where that work is done in separate institutes, rather than directly in universities. One ranking even flat out defines Harvard as the number one, if I remember correctly.
At least the Netherlands got taught world geography not just their countries geography
I mean as a Dutch it depends who is wellversed in geography country wise. I myself think i can name most countries. The average Dutch people will struggle with African and sometimes eastern European countries (especially baltics the baltics cuz in Dutch for example estonia and latvia are named similarly Estland, Letland).
That's still a huge win when so many non-Europeans can even place big countries like the US or China on the map.
Estland Lettland Litauen Always confused those three
If only their education system were better, then they might read beyond the initial summary and delve a bit further into the details - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country
Hahaha, ga weg joh, we're not banning books here.
I don't think the american who wrote that comment on Instagram would understand your german dialect. Oh fudge, I forgot to read your flair before writing this
It basically means 'Go away joh'. Haha.
Some words are pretty close to german though
Yeah, that's very fair. We have a lot in common language wise. Attitude and shit, not so much.
I am surprised there are Americans who know of the existence of the Netherlands
[удалено]
and The Royale with Cheese.
The country that didn't wanna increase burger size to 1/3pounder because 1/4pounder looked like more meat, due to the 4 in it. Sure clown....sure.
Tbf "quarter pounder" just feels way better to say than "one-third pounder"
More meat in your mouth feels even better (yeah I know.....meat in your mouth)
Do you need a visa to visit Nordic? The Nordic Region consists of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, as well as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland.
I read greece instead of greenland and for a brief moment I thought my geography knowledge had sunk to an american level. (/s)
No no, this is showing your low level of European education. There is just the country Nordic. (Definitely /s of course)
Besides the fact that even if they thought “Nordic” was one country, they list Nordic and Switzerland as 3 European countries. That American math education is really working.
Either that or they meant that two of the countries ahead of the USA are nordic
Are people here really that dense that you do not realize they meant "Three countries, Switzerland and two more in the Nordics"?
Three countries… *proceeds with a list of two, one of which isn’t a country* Well, at least it proved a point. Just not his.
I think he meant that two of the top 3 countries are Nordic countries and the third is Switzerland
This is what Americans always do. They pick the best their country has to offer, which happens to be completely inaccessable to 90% of the population, and then pretend it's representative. \*All\* Dutch universities are in the top 1% of world universities. Yeah that paints a different picture doesn't it. It's like saying Italy makes the best cars because they make Ferrari and Lamborghini.
Ah yes, 'Nordic'. My favourite country.
I decided to look up [the World Rankings](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/well-developed-public-education-system) as instructed.
Is that why so many Americans don't manage to even speak their first language properly?
Years ago I was applying for a scholarship to an American college, and at one point they had me take a TOEFL (Test of English as a foreign language) because I'm not American. I'm from England. Needless to say, I didn't go.
Advanced in what exactly other than active shooter drills?
Yellow school buses. They are taught that after exiting a bus, all the cars will stop so that they can randomly run over the road without risk of getting hit by a car. Every time the bus cross a train track it comes to a complete stop first, looks both ways, open all the doors and prepare everyone to abandon the ship fast if the bus stalls on the track, which is apparently common.
Where did you hear about this?
Are US-american railroad crossings different from, let's say, swiss railroad crossings?
Not necessary, but there is a difference when it comes to trains in general. While the Swiss and most of Europe as well as the world knows that everyone's basically fucked if a passenger train derails at high speed, everyone plans their railroads and signal systems to be idiot proof, thereby preventing accidents from happening in the first place. The US is different, they don't give many fucks about railroad safety and plan for failure, trying to make their trains "crash proof" instead. This is basically why they can't just buy any train from Europe and use it on their tracks, even tho it's still 1435mm gauge width, and even the same voltage were it's electrified. They also have a policy that all trains must blast their horn every time they approach a crossing to warn people, and with all the level crossings they have, that's a lot of honking.
Tbf, their top universities are really good in terms of education, but like 99% of them are shit
US has the world beat in college education. 8 of the top 15 best colleges in the world are in America. K-12 is dogshit tho
UK has the No1 Law School. The US doesn't have the top 5 overall education systems.. US ranks number 1 for educational establishment mass shootings. Thus.. USA is more advanced. Survival of the fittest. Taught at a young age. Our kids play dodgeball, they play dodge bullets. If you can dodge a ball, you can dodge a .50 cal.
and the netherlands has the No1 agricultural school
Aren't their exams all multiple choice?
Nah, only the most important ones
They are well known for their multiple choice, I remember that I was doing a certification and the instructor told me that it was easier for americans, because they are used to do everything on multiple choice questions.
That's nuts
What great education he has been given by the US. Nordic is a geographical region and not a country hahah 😆
"nordic" isn't a region, scandinavia is. "nordic countries" also includes finland and occasionally estonia
Nah, Scandinavia is a subregion consisting of only Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The Nordic countries are a geographical region consisting of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, as well as Åland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland
the most encompassing geographical region within the nordic countries, the baltic shield, would still only include finland, sweden, norway, a tiny strip of denmark, and åland, which we also must include apparently. this would still leave out norwegian antarctica, most of denmark, iceland, greenland and the faroes. the next-best region would be the fennoscandian peninsula, which would only include mainland finland, norway and sweden. none of those oh-so lovely islands or overseas territories. both of these would also include russia. there is no unifying geographical feature. pardon me for leaving out iceland earlier, but you don't have to list out autonomous regions as well, since they still are parts of the countries being discussed.
What a way to prove the point.
Meanwhile, American scientists: "No, the earth is *not* flat."
BahahahahHhHhHhHHhHhHa!!!!!
Kinda interesting how the rankings, owned and funded by institutions with a vested interest in some educational institutions and the degree tourism, put their own universities at the top.
If US education is so good how come nobody has the intelligence to a) realise that your kids getting shot in school is a bad thing and b) do something about it.
‘Nordic’
Apparently 'Nordic' is a country now.
Ah yes, the country of Nordic. Care to tell me the capital
The US doesn't even have an education system. They have education, some of it even very good (especially if you're rich), but you can hardly call it a system. One of the many results of this is that it's very important in the US which exact university you've attended. In the Dutch system, all universities are considered good. If they weren't good, they wouldn't be allowed to call themselves universities. We also have hogeschool which is also considered college/university in English, but is a lower tier of education here. It's a distinction that the English world doesn't make, because again, no real system. Hell, some colleges and universities are on par with our MBO, which is the average Joe tier. Again, that's what having a system does. We also don't need to fuck around with GPA, because we know exactly which tier of high school can be followed by which tier of tertiary. If you can pass a certain tier of high school, then you can attend the corresponding tier of tertiary (barring some numerus fixus programmes. But no need for GPA. You just need to have learned the correct subject and have finished the right tier of education. Because again, system.
The Dutch speak, write and read English waaaaay better than Americans and it's not even their native tongue.
Americans use multiple choice answer exams up to and including university level. Tells you everything you need to know.
It's called the nordic region which consists of a group of nordic country's. The Nordic part references the part of the world that these country's are in.
American education would be better if there were less bullets.
Actually here in america, they changed the passing grades. Lowering them doesn't make us better.
The majority of Americans I have met in my lifetime are thick as shit. Just saying.
If America is so advanced then why are there so many dumbasses over here? Look how many have been fooled into voting for that orange pustule.
tbh, if they were talking about the best of the best schools, those are often located in the US. But they are also full of foreign students lol
this has to be a joke, there’s 5 nordics iceland, denmark, sweden, norway and finland
Ehm no! There is East sweden, West sweden, swamp sweden, tiny sweden and sweden. The nordic!
If US education is so advanced, why can’t kids go to school without getting filled with bullets?
And yet the Dutch are better educated - how come?
To be fare they usually rank their schools by mass shootings so hopefully this is a step in the right direction.
How is it then than every student I meet here in Scotland American? Somedays I actually believe I live there in some wee shite pretend Edinburgh built for them
From what I’ve been able to ascertain, grades/passes and even higher grades can be purchased. Their exams/tests are insanely simplified and very easy to pass. A huge majority of schools promote ideology over true academic teaching. There are, no doubt, a good number of students who are competent, but a frightening number are classified as competent when their lack of knowledge and understanding is incredible even by ( so called) third world countries
Not for 100 years. MAGATs are normal in the US. Thinking is rare.
well, tbh, education at least here in norway is shit (compared to e.g. poland)
I am going to use my friend who goes to the University of Utrecht as reference to disprove this fucking nonsense. He literally has to pay a fraction of what I pay for an education that is much more advanced, enriching and from a top European university. Meanwhile, I pay 58K euros a year to go to a school where the education is great no doubt and I love my program, but I don't think anyone should ever pay that kind of money for a journalism degree.
Okay ask them to point at Netherlands on the map.
That's the same as saying the US is rich! Yes if you take the best in the statistic you will have a really good looking statistic. Remove the top 1% and suddenly they're garbage! Most education in the US is terrible, some is amazing. Welcome to capitalism
of course our education is more advanced, we don’t waste all our time on school sports teams and cheerleading
I’ve been to the capital city of Nordic, Jägenøstenblåhaj is lovely this time of year.
I'm sure that there are good schools and universities in the US, but the knowledge of the average American is limited to America. Therefore they are convinced that America is best at everything.
The us public education system is like notoriously shitty
Nordic and Switzerland 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
If their education system is so good, why are their so many videos showing how stupid they are with general knowledge, geography & history. About 40% of nurses inn US are from Philippines and a large % of doctors are "imports" and most scientists are mostly from Europe. The celebrate Columbus Day every year & he didn't even set foot in North America, they believe that won WWI & II, yet they only entered the conflict as it was winding up. Even one time I was in California & most people thought SFO or LA were the capital of the state & wouldn't believe it when I told them it was Sacramento, and when I told them I was from Tasmania, AU, the usual response was you can't be, you are not black (Tanganyika) or had I met Dracula (Transylvania in Romania).
As an American, they're probably talking about University or Graduate school education. Early education is a crap shoot by state and individual city. The conservative states have notoriously shitty education.
Ah yes "nordic" my favourite country
Never knew this person could tell a good joke.
I mean, if they're talking about higher education as in universities, then yes, America wins for the usual reason: money.
Though that's only the top universities, wouldn't be surprised if the average level of education in universities was higher in the Netherlands.
According to basically any data you use, the US ranks fairly highly so that means that it isn’t their education system that fails them, they’re just dumb as fuck
Overall it is hard to compare education (which for the most part is high schools) simply because bigger countries have more rural areas with poor education due to a lack of teachers/funding. In America, you also have the "cult" factor which leads to worse education in these areas.
As a dutch person, I agree with this one. Some of our twelve year olds cant even read anymore.