
Why does engineering/math/science education in the US suck? - getp
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/11/why_does_engine.html
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technoguyrob
For anyone who missed it, there was a beautiful exposition written on the
quagmire that is mathematics education in the United States:

<http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf>

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nazgulnarsil
it doesn't suck. our standards continually get higher as globalization makes
the number of people we are competing with larger.

in 1900 you were competing with someone down the block in 1925 you were
competing with a city of people in 1950 you were competing with the nation in
1975 you were competing with japan in the year 2000 and onwards you're
competing with the population of china and india

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yters
I think it is because America isn't meant to produce smart people. It is meant
to make an environment hospitable for smart people. Cynical as it may sound,
this means a consumer based worker population, which entails dumbing down.

Our economy runs off of mass production, so the products need to meet the
greatest common denominator. You get a big common denominator by leveling
society.

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dangoldin
There has been a lot of articles/papers written about the lack of the
creativity element in modern education although it is used in almost every
high level field. I think that the problem is all these standardized tests
where student performance is directly related to the teacher's and school's
funding.

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yummyfajitas
>I think that the problem is all these standardized tests where student
performance is directly related to the teacher's and school's funding.

Teacher and school funding has little to do with it.

Student performance is directly related to parental income, which is (often)
related to school funding. But parental income is the driving factor, not
school funding.

As an example, take Hoboken NJ. The main people attending the public schools
are kids from the housing projects at the back of the city. They rank in the
bottom 18% of NJ:

<http://hoboken411.com/archives/11398>

School funding: _$24,949_ per student.

[http://www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ssf/2008/04/boe_challenge...](http://www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ssf/2008/04/boe_challengers_district_spend.html)

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dangoldin
But that's a correlation relationship, well off families tend to have higher
performing kids. A reason for that may be that in order to become successful
you need to value an education.

I'm trying to find the underlying causation of why things got that way and I'm
sure it's much more complex than I'm making it out to be.

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Maven911
I agree, there is a complete disconnect between what industry wants and what
is taught at engineering school. 5 years down the line, most people can't
recognize the equations used in school.

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pixcavator
5 years down the line, most people can't recognize the French used in school.

