[Mike0001]

Just read an article in the Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle4568243.ece

"In sport, Britain couldn't ask for the oars to be made larger or the swimming pools shorter, for races to be turned into continuous assessment for those who couldn't take the pressure."

[Bubba]

For about 3/10's of a nanosecond I was glad to see the headline and read the article because if you changed the names and the schools it could have been written about the U.S. But after that 3/10's of a nanosecond I realized in this instance misery does NOT like company and i was saddened that the same problems in education that plague us, plague you. We share the same problem and that is what we call here "political correctness." Here it is based upon the color of one's skin, over there, you luckily don't have to deal with that, though the underlying factors are the same. IE: Excuses being made for under achieving humans based upon irrelevant factors, and standards being lowered to compensate for poor educators.

I could write an essay on this but I won't. Suffice it to say, I feel your pain. Our public school system is broken DESPITE the the tons of money we throw at it, as it would appear yours is. As a result, I spent around $20,000 to send MY 5 year old child to a good private school here in my home State of Georgia (Georgia ranks LAST in the US for public schools). I'm not rich, I do without many things to make this happen, but I fear the alternative more. I wrote a check in June for the same amount for this years school for my now 6 year old. This is on top of the taxes I pay for the public schools we don't use. The public schools cut funding for the arts, for computer and math classes, but increase them for football (not what you call football, we call THAT soccer lol), baseball, and other sports programs. Universities actively recruit and give "scholarships" to so called student athletes that can barely write their own names while deserving scholars have to attend inferior schools or fore go college because they don't have the money.

Just damn, I'm rambling. Sorry. It just is one of my hot buttons.

[Mike0001]

Yes, there has been much talk here about whether standards have been lowered or teaching improved!

As a maths lecturer, we were all well aware of how standards had slipped and how much basic understanding dropped from the one size fits all syllabus. Physics is the same.

Private education here is out of the reach of most of us. Even a family of two uni lecturers could not afford day fees for two children, let along boarding school! Fortunately we were in a good area of a major city, so found a decent state school, but even at a private school everything is driven by the same SATs and GCSEs and GCEs designed by politicians.

I don't think things have slipped so much in arts subjects, though spelling is a problem!

Apparently you can progress to a high standard in music now without being able to read a note of music or recognise any composers. One of my daughters did music at GCSE and attained A*; she reads music but had no clue about styles or composers.