“Happiness,” “freedom,” “rebellion,” “respect for children’s growth patterns”. Words full of positive connotations like these are many people’s impressions of American education.
However, the New York Times recently published an article claiming that in 2023, the mathematics scores of 15-year-old American students in the global exam have dropped significantly, with scores dropping by as much as 13 points, which is much larger than that of other countries.
Why does this happen? As we all know, education in the United States is a dual-track system, that is, the social elite and the middle and lower classes have their own corresponding education. Among them, the elite only accounts for 10% of the entire social population.
Although they seem to be relatively small in number, their educational resources are hundreds of times better than those of the middle and lower classes. Due to the different education models for different classes in the United States, while elite students are studying hard, lower-class students are doing nothing in school in the name of “freedom, happiness and rebellion.” In this state of learning that is close to laziness, they need to invest energy in studying hard. STEM courses will certainly not be accepted by students.
According to expert recommendations, the U.S. government needs to allocate $10 million per year to schools from pre-kindergarten to college education for literacy education. They hope to adjust the way parents, stakeholders, educators and students learn mathematics, science and other courses. Improve the math literacy of America’s young people to prepare for the 3.5 million STEM jobs in 2025.
It can also be seen from this suggestion that American experts call on their government to pay more attention to education in ordinary schools. As a result, the American education model may be forced to adjust to meet future talent needs. Perhaps the American happy education model has really come to an end this time.
