Why does school matter

The seemingly obvious answer is, Of course it matters! How could it not? Ivy League and equivalent institutions provide more than world-class instruction. Elite schools seem disproportionately responsible for minting the American elite. Read: The absurdity of college admissions. But what appears obvious may not be true. In November , the Quarterly Journal of Economics published a landmark paper by the economists Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger that reached a startling conclusion.

This finding suggests that the talents and ambitions of individual students are worth more than the resources and renown of elite schools. The takeaway here: Stress out about your habits and chill out about college. It also implies that all the angst and time devoted to the infamous admissions process is a wasteful pageant for the vast majority of its participants.

Could that really be true? Or were Dale and Krueger off somehow? This month, economists from Virginia Tech, Tulane, and the University of Virginia published a new study that reexamines the data in the Dale-Krueger study.

Among men, the new study found no relationship between college selectivity and long-term earnings. Or if my first plan failed I'm just gonna be a hunter and at least I could spend my time outside, Also could learn some skills like marksmanship and bushcraft.

In my opinion, School after 5th or 6th grade doesnt matter. They never teach us the things we actually need to know in life like how to d taxes, How to buy a house, How to buy a car, Basically things we need to know when we grow older.

Also, Homework. The point of school is to do all of your work during school, Not at home. They also give us too much homework. There are other things i need to do during my day other than homework. Like for example, Some kids play sports, And they need time to maybe go to a practice or a game.

When they do these extra activities, They shouldnt need to worry about homework. At this point school isnt about learning. Its about how fast you can turn in assignments before midnight. I don't want to go there, Literally take me home, Everyone there is mean blah blah blah. So many things there don't matter to me! The teachers there don't care about me, They only care about my grades. They want my writing to sound like its coming from a 36 year old that hates their life and works in cubicle.

Lol hopefully that makes sense. They hate creativity, Personality, And they hate you in general. Anyways that is my opinion and if you can hate it if you want i don't care. It's and people still think that you need a degree to have a successful life. That's completely false. People fail to understand the difference between education and intelligence. School doesn't teach anything useful or valuable in life.

I agree that basic mathematics, Spelling and grammar are essential for everybody. However, Reading Shakespeare and novels that nobody enjoys reading is very frustrating. I can tell that nowadays, Students fail to answer questions that require common sense or little to no education whatsoever.

Instead of learning, Students care more about a letter than learning because school is just a test to see who has the best memorization, Not who understands the subject and can remember it for a while. By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Google Search. Post Your Opinion. Create New Poll. Sign In Sign Up. So, is it really fair to blame our educational system?

Isn't the real issue poverty plus the problems boys and minorities are having? It's a fair question -- and a point made often by the teachers unions and others who defend the current educational system in our country.

So I look the time to answer him. Here's what I wrote:. You are correct that today, demography is destiny for most kids. In an increasingly knowledge-based world, getting a good education -- in particular, earning a four-year college degree -- has become more and more important see median real earnings over time on page 5 of my presentation , yet only children in high-income families have responded by earning more college degrees -- everyone else, especially the poor, have largely stagnated.

The key question is why? Are poor kids especially poor black and Latino kids failing our schools, or are schools failing our poor, minority kids? First of all, even our highest-scoring and wealthiest students do poorly when compared to their international peers, ranking 23rd of 29 nations in math among year-olds see pages As for the poor academic performance of low-income and minority students in the U.

There is no doubt that children from troubled communities and families, in which few people have completed high school, much less college, are a challenge to educate. So let's be clear: parents and family background matter -- a lot! So much so that today, sadly, demography is destiny for most children. In fact, if I could fix either all of the parents broadly defined, meaning ending childhood poverty, making sure every child had plenty of books and both parents in the home, etc.

But I'm not sure it's possible to fix the parents -- and I know it's possible to fix the schools. Here is the key thing to understand: if you take 1, disadvantaged kids and put them in mediocre or worse schools with mediocre or worse teachers, they will follow their parents' life trajectory in lockstep. However , if you take the same 1, kids and put them in a high-quality school with excellent teachers, you can dramatically improve the life outcomes of a large number of these children.

But today I can prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt, both with statistics and with my own eyes, as I've visited over schools that are generating extraordinary academic success with the most disadvantaged children. Most are public charter schools that select students by lottery, have comparable students and spend roughly the same per pupil as nearby chronically failing schools, and, in fact, sometimes share the same building.

These numbers far exceed the national averages for all students across all demographics.