On average are public schools across the United States near the same level?

Question

My son goes to a city school and I do not thing the methods of teaching are adequate. It is a very large city and all of the schools teach about the same. Grades 1-6 the spelling tests are multiple choice. They were never really taught to write in cursive. They teach "The Test" and when the test is over they do not do a whole lot the rest of the year. Never do they have them write more than a paragraph or two. He is in 8th grade and they are still trying to memorize their multiplication tables. All in all they seem to be seriously behind where we were when I was in his grade. I graduated in 1985. Are all of our public schools similar across the country? We were thinking of moving and I am not sure he could do well, at first, in a harder school.

Answer 1

You know what, two friends of mine, one is an Army Recruiter in  Los Angeles, and one in Atlanta told me that they spoke to an Army recruiter. They told me that the kids in those schools could not have pasted the ASVAB test with a 30 point score. Two different cities on different sides of the country. Now for LAUSD, the system is so political and so unionized that the tests measure up the teacher's progress, NOT the child's progress academically. So when teacher's complain that they are not being paid enough don't forget to add in the lack of interest parent's have in their children. One teacher at Bravo Medical Magnet even told me that most of these students are a lost cause. Another teacher from an elementary school even mentioned to me that she shops on line IN CLASS than teach. Please take your child to a smaller school district or private institution. Don't let your child become UTLA and LAUSD admin. canon fodder for their pay raises

Answer 2

absolutely there are huge differences in schools across the country, and unfortunately oftentimes you will get what you pay for. research the region you are interested in living in.

i am in southeastern wisconsin in a city of about 40,000 people, and our schools are excellent. ironically, my kids spent the first several years of schooling in a small private school, and while there was alot of good one on one and their grades were very good,they are actually doing much better overall in our public school system. there are an incredible amount of classes and programs that are available to them, and they are flourishing educationally.( my son is a senior this year, my daughter a freshman, and she is presently considering doing an exchange program in the future, possibly in japan:)

the clincher is, i believe, our taxes are VERY high.i am normally against big government, but in the case of education, the system employed here works well.