Children's Education - Where is Best? - China or the West?

Quote from: elzoog on September 10, 2011, 04:45:55 AM

As to drawing straws or flipping coins that is exactly what some people do to try to get into a good school.  Unless you want to quibble that entering a lottery is not exactly the same as drawing straws or flipping coins

My lovely daughter just started 7th grade at the best public middle school in Dongguan.  Admission to the 3 choices of public middle schools (one good, one sort-of ok, and one really bad) was based solely on lottery.  I tried to ask for drawing straws, but the local Bureau of Middle School Assignments didn't want to change the procedure.

Happily, she'd also passed the admissions test to a decent private school, so we were covered if her assigned public school hadn't turned out to be the good one.  Considering how much the tuition would have been, I'm even more glad she ended up in the best public school.

EL, the post you quoted was talking about public schools in America. Good Chinese public schools are much harder to get into, the process often involving some sort admissions test. Guanxi also helps, as does bribery. Random is never truly random in China.

zero, decent Chinese private schools (not real international schools or even Chinese "international" schools) here in Beijing generally run in the 20k-50k rmb a year range at the primary and middle school level. They get a bit more expensive in high school. I imagine where EL lives the rates are probably similar.

The OP asked the question about international schools vs schools back home, so I'm assuming he can afford international schools and is not working on an ESL teacher's salary. If he can afford international schools I'm assuming he doesn't have to resort to fraud to make sure his kids end up in a good school district. I stand by my statement -- someone who can afford between 10-20k USD a year in tuition is not going to go back home and have to send their kids some shithole of a school.

What does that say about a country that people have to resort to fraud to try to get their student into a good school?   Did you know that school administrators will not only visit houses, but will actually go into bedrooms to make sure it looks like the child in question actually lives there?

The thing is, the US is ranked kind of low compared to other countries in terms of education.   

It ranks number 14 in math
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_gra_12_adv_stu_mat-grade-12-advanced-students-math

As just an example.

Aside from that, if you want to stick around this forum you really ought to consider the way you address people. Calling people deluded is not really getting yourself off to a good start.

The things I am saying about the situation in the US as far as education are not that obscure and can easily be found by anyone doing research into it.  To reiterate

1) Having lotteries for students to get into good schools is not a good sign.
2) Being put in jail for trying to get your student into a better school is not a good sign.
3) Having school administrators look into the bedrooms in houses to make sure the potential student actually lives there is not a good sign.
4) Putting teachers in the "rubber room" instead of firing them (or putting them in there just because someone doesn't like them) is not a good sign.

Quote from: elzoog on September 10, 2011, 04:45:55 AM

As to drawing straws or flipping coins that is exactly what some people do to try to get into a good school.  Unless you want to quibble that entering a lottery is not exactly the same as drawing straws or flipping coins

My lovely daughter just started 7th grade at the best public middle school in Dongguan.  Admission to the 3 choices of public middle schools (one good, one sort-of ok, and one really bad) was based solely on lottery.  I tried to ask for drawing straws, but the local Bureau of Middle School Assignments didn't want to change the procedure.

Students being chosen by lottery happens in the US too.   

Congratulations for getting your daughter in a good school this way.   Not everyone is so lucky.

Elzoog, no idea why you're so hell-bent on this particular rant, but the point is more than made.
And you're way off-topic...quoting admittedly disturbing big-picture stats in no way affects the fact that there are good schools to be found, both in the USA and in the internationals

You certainly seem ready to assume that EL's daughter's Chinese public school is good.
And for a Chinese child born in China to Chinese parents, planning to be in China long-term, it's probably fine.
Personally, though, I'd send my kid to school in inner-city Detroit before I'd send her to a Chinese public school.

Now, let's take a pill. Let it go. Allow this thread to go back on-topic. Please don't make me lock it down.

You certainly seem ready to assume that EL's daughter's Chinese public school is good.
And for a Chinese child born in China to Chinese parents, planning to be in China long-term, it's probably fine.
Personally, though, I'd send my kid to school in inner-city Detroit before I'd send her to a Chinese public school.

Agreed. American schools may have their problems but there are far worse places to be. I myself went to a regular public middle school in a rough neighborhood in Charleston, South Carolina, and then a magnet high school in the same city (that I got into because of my academic record, not through a lottery) before moving to Texas, where I went to my local public high school for my last year. I am not ignorant about public education, and that's a pretty big assumption to make based on a few comments on an internet forum, comments which assumed we were answering the OP's question about his specific situation, not having a discussion on the state of American education in general. I don't deny there are problems with the American educational system, I don't think anyone here has said it was perfect or the answer for everyone.

But the question here is not which system is more screwed up, it was "where should I send my own child, a (presumably decent) American public school or an international school?" I don't think the OP was asking for our various rants about the American educational system. Obviously if he was going to have to resort to fraud or send his kid to an inner city crapfest of a school then he wouldn't have needed to ask the question. 

Exactly.

Now, let's please get back on-topic and stay there.

One thing to consider applies I think to all the variants of this thread: The quality of the student probably has more impact than the quality of the school.

There may not be many positive attributes I'd apply to myself, but well-educated is probably one of them. I can keep up in discussions ranging from bass fishin' to quantum mechanics to Russian history. But I'm sure some of those small-town country schools I went to were nuthin' special...I clearly remember staying after school to help my high school Chemistry teacher work out the problems he'd assigned for the next class.

I got a good education because I wanted it. I genuinely was hungry to learn. Better schools might have helped even more, but poor schools in no way held me down.
So one thing our OP should consider is how into book-larnin' their child is.

A growing option in China - Home schooling

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-09/05/content_13619188.htm

My 2¢:

1. If you are going to pay for an international school here, you need to do quite a bit of investigating first. Many of the "International" schools have unqualified teachers or rejects from the West. I wouldn't want either teaching my kids, no matter how little it might cost. That being said, there are also schools that seem to have excellent faculty…but you will have to pay for it.

2. If you do have the coin to pay for (excellent) private schools in China, you might as well send the kid back to the US to boarding school once s/he's old enough. Surely a diploma from Choate, Deerfield, Exeter, etc would be more advantageous than a diploma from, say, the Harrow School.

Good stuff.

El Macho makes an excellent point...high tuition costs definitely DO NOT guarantee good quality. There are some truly terrible yet high-cost international schools in China.

Is she a Chinese citizen? Also, how much would tuition have been?

Yes and a lot.

I think it was something around 20k RMB per semester.  If anyone wants the exact figure, let me know and I'll ask my wife to double check.


Personally, I don't totally get the rant on US schools.  Yes, there are bad districts and some parents will go to great efforts to get their children redirected to somewhere else.  I can't picture how that problem could truly be 100% unique to the USA.

"Desirable local schools" works well selling housing in just about any country.
 

I got a good education because I wanted it. I genuinely was hungry to learn. Better schools might have helped even more, but poor schools in no way held me down.
So one thing our OP should consider is how into book-larnin' their child is.

Do you think you would have done better in a better school though?   Even though you were willing to learn, wouldn't a teacher capable of telling you the most efficient way to learn be worth your time?

Currently The US may in general, be better than China in general.   However, it's difficult to say whether this will remain so in the foreseeable future.  For one thing, the US is cutting education pretty much across the board.   A randomly picked news article that talks about this is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/education/21teachers.html

Whereas my guess (and this is only a guess) is that China is probably either increasing education or keeping education the same.

If one country is cutting its education budget, and another is either increasing, or keeping their education budget the same, then eventually the country cutting its budget is eventually going to fall behind.   So in a few years, it's possible that the US will be behind China.

Maybe there are good schools in the US.  To know for sure you would have to investigate the school in question.   It looks like you have to do that for China as well.

Maybe there are good schools in the US. To know for sure you would have to investigate the school in question. It looks like you have to do that for China as well.

Which is precisely what we've been saying all along.
The rest? Still .
It's easy and free to start a new topic. Talking about the relative merits and directions of national school systems is perfectly valid; it just isn't the topic here.

Have you considered home schooling?

Wow .... I was away for a few weeks and just now saw how long this thread has gotten.

Thank you everyone for the comments.

Here in Shenzhen there are 4 or 4 "true" International schools ... and by this I mean they are associated with a school in the US, Canada, or Europe and are run/managed by a foreigner.  Typically they only allow children who have foreign ID's, passports, or citizenship to attend (some type of requirement by the local government).  The others are International in the sense they use International curriculum, hire some foreign teachers, but are usually run by a China staff / manager / curriculum.

That said, yes, the International schools are pricey.  Shockingly so.  And you're right, research has shown that the quality of education is not superior in any sense ... the $ pay for having foreign teachers and administration and ties to a foreign school .... and the schools mostly rely on ex-pats whose companies foot the bill so they get even more expensive.

There was a comment about not having a stable student body ... kids coming and going ... this is true also for the teachers and administration.

Our decision is this ... send her to nursery school.  See what the curriculum is and how she develops.  Wait and then decide.

Some people here put their kids on a bus in the morning.  The bus takes the kids to the Hong Kong border where they leave Shenzhen and cross to Hong Kong. Another bust to school. Spend the day and back to Shenzhen at night.  Holy smokes!

Where will she live?  If you plan on living in China, then I'd suggest a Chinese school would be best.

If you're all moving back home soonish - maybe not.


"Best" is relative (in this context).