An intersting article, written by Edward Cody at the Washington Post, describes the uproar brewing in France over a proposed mandate to require educators to put in extra teaching time for slow and underperforming students. It seems that teachers there feel it would violate the deep-rooted tradition of egalitarianism should some students receive extra learning time and at different hours than their compatriots. A growing fear is that the French system could one day end up looking like its British or American counterpart. But are they correct in their idea of educational equality?
I wanted to know if perhaps the American system is as bad as French teachers are making it out to be. TIMSS puts France ahead of the US in Advanced Mathematics and Advanced Science. In fact, France was the number one country in the world regarding Advanced Mathematics. But France generally scored better in the grade 12. In the elementary and middle school years, America came out ahead of France. If we take into account the best universities in the world, the U.S. holds at least a third of the top one-hundred best schools. It looks like we do well in the early years of education and at the tail-end.
Here is the link to the article. http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/detail.jsp?key=410059&rc=wo&p=1&all=1
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