On the other hand, US schools' form (as distinct from the content they teach) - the schedules, the bells, the desks, the disciplinary expectations - has not been the subject of much debate or wide controversy, but it does encode and enculcate a particular value system. It was adapted from the Prussian model, and specifically intended to create docile industrial workers. That may have been a good idea at the time.
Now, of course, that docile industrial workers are not so economically important, that model doesn't make much sense. The public school system as a whole (I'm painting in broad strokes, and know myself of honorable exceptions) has shifted its purpose to (it's a spectrum, based on prevailing socio-economic conditions, and the individual kids in question) baby-sitting or incarceration.
I wish I weren't so cynical, but I've had too broad an experience with too large a cross-section of too many US public schools not to be.
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°I've seen the insides of a lot, though not so many, UK schools, and my limited impression is that their system is in a better place than the US, but bears the same flaws. (And that a special hell should await the members of the 2010 Conservative government who promulgated school consolidations.)
Fifteen years ago I taught ESL to a lot of German kids (from both University and non-U tracks), and was highly impressed with them, and with what they told me about their educational system. That impression is old, though, and I don't know how things might have changed in the meantime.
I have a good friend with a six-year old going to school in France. I like what she tells me about their system.
The vast majority of everything you learn before university isn't that useful if all you care about is creating robots for your economy.
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