Dallas Morning News: Study shows suburban students lagging (Plano, Allen: tech jobs, best schools)

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by ganongrey

Not completely. Some schools did, some still do have 6-year programs (Inteflex being a well known one, that's now just 4 years college and guaranteed acceptance to med school). But med school's not the place to have a crisis of conscious or be asking yourself 'who are you?' when you're only 18...a fair amount of those kids flamed out...emotionally not academically.

I suppose there are pros and cons to each system...the only thing about the American system is that it is truly a long haul...think about a surgeon; 4 years undergrad + 4 years med school + 3 years residency + another 2 or 3 years for specialization...yet the UK and Australia are able to produce fine surgeons without that same amount of time spent in school.

Though by far the biggest difference is the cost...British and Australian doctors do not end up $250K in debt at the end of their studies...granted they dont make as much either so I suppose it's a wash.

[GreyDay]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

I suppose there are pros and cons to each system...the only thing about the American system is that it is truly a long haul...think about a surgeon; 4 years undergrad + 4 years med school + 3 years residency + another 2 or 3 years for specialization...yet the UK and Australia are able to produce fine surgeons without that same amount of time spent in school.

Though by far the biggest difference is the cost...British and Australian doctors do not end up $250K in debt at the end of their studies...granted they dont make as much either so I suppose it's a wash.

The slick ones sidestep into the U.S. after med school and do residency here and stay. It's a smooth move if you can pull it off.

[tyanger]

I believe residency programs for general surgery in the US are 5 years (1 transitional/internship + 4 categorical)
so 4+4+5+(?)

All this discussion reminds me of a story my wife told me recently. She is a pediatrician and one of the nurses that works in the office had her daughter volunteer a few times. The volunteer had just graduated from high school and was helping in the front office one day when my wife needed to know the age of a patient whose mom was on the other line I think, or something like that - anyway she asked the age. The girl had the chart open in front of her but had no idea how to translate the birth date into a numerical age. I couldn't believe a graduate from any US high school was not able to do that. Keep in mind it's a pediatric office with a maximum patient age of 18 - it's not like there are a bunch of geriatric patients in the practice.

[GreyDay]

Originally Posted by tyanger

I believe residency programs for general surgery in the US are 5 years (1 transitional/internship + 4 categorical)
so 4+4+5+(?)

All this discussion reminds me of a story my wife told me recently. She is a pediatrician and one of the nurses that works in the office had her daughter volunteer a few times. The volunteer had just graduated from high school and was helping in the front office one day when my wife needed to know the age of a patient whose mom was on the other line I think, or something like that - anyway she asked the age. The girl had the chart open in front of her but had no idea how to translate the birth date into a numerical age. I couldn't believe a graduate from any US high school was not able to do that. Keep in mind it's a pediatric office with a maximum patient age of 18 - it's not like there are a bunch of geriatric patients in the practice.

Routes are

4 years of undergrad (or however long it takes to get the degree)
4 years of med school- assuming no research done.
5 years general surgery (transitional doesn't apply to general surgery- categorical means you are expected to graduate from the surgery program- transitional means you're going to transition to say Urology or Ortho...)
Any research years needed (The Duke Decade- most residents do 2-3 years of research)
Fellowship years- 1-3 years depending.

Ortho 1 transition, 4 ortho
Urology 2 years gen surg, 4 years urology
Neurosurgery- 1 yr gen surg, 6 years of neurosurgery, but most do research.

Vascular and Cardiothoracic add 2 year fellowships after general surgery but recently are called 3+3 meaning 3 years gen surg and 3 years of that specialty.

[SMS_Parent]

Back to the original topic -- the website related to this study is pretty fun to play with and is mildly addictive The Global Report Card

All in all the Dallas suburban schools didn't do too badly compared to other similarly situated schools in the U.S. Highland Park was in the top 10% internationally on reading and math and Carroll was in the top 15/20% internationally. Allen, Plano, Mckinney, Frisco, Coppell, Grapevine, Lovejoy and North Hills Prep were all basically in the top third internationally on at least one of the measures. This isn't uniformly the case for other wealthy school districts. Study Shows That Wealthy Suburban School Districts Are Only Mediocre by International Standards : Education Next

The Highland Park School district is in the top ten school districts nationally for both reading and math and compares very favorably to the national averages for schools in Singapore, Canada and Switzerland -- all of which are known to have strong educational systems.

Dallas and Houston make the list of the biggest U.S. school districts included in the survey. It is in the performance of the nation's biggest school districts that I think the real story lies. Almost without exception across the nation the biggest school districts generally perform at significantly below the international 50th percentile -- most in the bottom third internationally. (Dallas scores in the 30th and 33rd percentile for math and reading; while Houston scores in the 34th and 40th percentile internationally.)

[GreyDay]

Originally Posted by SMS_Parent

Back to the original topic -- the website related to this study is pretty fun to play with and is mildly addictive The Global Report Card

All in all the Dallas suburban schools didn't do too badly compared to other similarly situated schools in the U.S. Highland Park was in the top 10% internationally on reading and math and Carroll was in the top 15/20% internationally. Allen, Plano, Mckinney, Frisco, Coppell, Grapevine, Lovejoy and North Hills Prep were all basically in the top third internationally on at least one of the measures. This isn't uniformly the case for other wealthy school districts. Study Shows That Wealthy Suburban School Districts Are Only Mediocre by International Standards : Education Next

The Highland Park School district is in the top ten school districts nationally for both reading and math and compares very favorably to the national averages for schools in Singapore, Canada and Switzerland -- all of which are known to have strong educational systems.

Dallas and Houston make the list of the biggest U.S. school districts included in the survey. It is in the performance of the nation's biggest school districts that I think the real story lies. Almost without exception across the nation the biggest school districts generally perform at significantly below the international 50th percentile -- most in the bottom third internationally. (Dallas scores in the 30th and 33rd percentile for math and reading; while Houston scores in the 34th and 40th percentile internationally.)

Yeah, HPISD = Geneva! Chalk a win up to the Park Cities...

[Philip T]

Originally Posted by SMS_Parent

It is in the performance of the nation's biggest school districts that I think the real story lies. Almost without exception across the nation the biggest school districts generally perform at significantly below the international 50th percentile -- most in the bottom third internationally. (Dallas scores in the 30th and 33rd percentile for math and reading; while Houston scores in the 34th and 40th percentile internationally.)

Understood and agreed.

Does this make a case for dis-banding the Mega-Districts into smaller, more accountable and responsible size?

Like say breaking Dallas ISD into at least 10 or more districts?

[Lamented]

I don't trust stuff like this. There was a thread not long ago about Woodrow being an academically unacceptable campus. What a crock.

[Ewan]

Originally Posted by getmeoutofhere

Want to know why the US lags in education? Go look at the "Education" forum here on CD. The amount of antipathy towards education and teachers is staggering.

Yep. Moved to Texas from Scotland last year - I'm absolutely amazed at the way teachers are spoken about here. People seem to grudge the fact that they're paid more than minimum wage. They treat them in conversation like dirt on their shoe. And trying to apply really half-assed management principles to public education is working about as well as one would assume, i.e. not very.

[GreyDay]

Originally Posted by Ewan

Yep. Moved to Texas from Scotland last year - I'm absolutely amazed at the way teachers are spoken about here. People seem to grudge the fact that they're paid more than minimum wage. They treat them in conversation like dirt on their shoe. And trying to apply really half-assed management principles to public education is working about as well as one would assume, i.e. not very.

I've always had minor inferiority issues with my math and foreign language skills vs. my European counterparts. There I said it. But they're not smart enough to refrigerate beer, so it's a wash.

Seriously now...

The scary thing is by and large private school teachers are not paid more than their public school counterparts. The teachers in magnet schools don't get a huge pay bump - yet in both cases the kids excel.

why?

On some levels it mirrors the system of many european nations- the kids who excel early are shunted into secondary and university education tracks and the kids who don't are shunted into the skilled trades, become journeymen etc (of course it's not that simple stateside- kids who would likely be better served and maybe happier learning a craft, plumbing, carpentry) are forced to attend school and graduate with a useless high school diploma.

Also the magnet schools and private schools have 1 thing in common- either the kids are already highly selected and intelligent or the parents are involved enough and financially fit enough to pay for that education and in some cases a smart kid and involved parents.