Professor Petit-Frere
Rough Draft Informative Essay
9/25/14
American Education: How smart are we?
Have you ever wondered what rank the U.S gets in education compared to other countries? Well, being one of the top countries in the world with our economy, military, and trade, we end up ranking a measly overall score of 14. Pearson PLC, a popular learning company, calculated this by testing math, reading, and science in 15 year old students. What’s the difference between American educational systems vs. other countries, and why have our results not changed in years? American schools are quite lenient and do not have rigorous structures like many other countries, but is that enough to truly make a difference?
Initially, …show more content…
I came upon China. Pearson developed a collection of data called the Learning Curve that incorporates many other factors to use as comparison, for example the amount of money that goes into our education from the government. The public expenditure per pupil, which is the amount the government spends on primary education, divided by the total number of pupils in primary education, is expressed in a percentage per capita GDP. Pearson’s study expressed how China is at a whopping 90%, while America is 22%; the American GDP is about 52,000$ while China is 9,300$. America has more money but spends less on education. Can money really be a tool in the quality of education? Money can pay for longer class hours, tutoring, extracurricular programs, more certified teachers, and books/educational tools, like computers and equipment that might play a big role in the learning process. Another example would be Sweden, where education for students is free and essentially every person attends …show more content…
Tuition fees are fully subsidised for students from Sweden, the EU/EEA area, and Switzerland. Students from outside the EU/EEA and Switzerland pay tuition fees but scholarship programmes that cover tuition and living costs are available for a number of non-EU countries. (Swedish Institute).
Post-secondary education is just as important as primary, primary lays the foundation, while secondary gives you the opportunity to give yourself stability in the world. It’s now almost a key to survival. American students are lucky enough to get loans through financial aid, but walking out with a Bachelor’s Degree 100,000$ in debt is not really a good start. I talked to many students on the campus of FIU that say the majority of their school is paid through with financial aid, which consists of loans that they will have to pay back later. These students depend on it.
This can cause some people to become deterred by the thought of even going on to college because who will pay for