An Educational Crisis in the US. Really?
Panama City Downtown Rotary – Juliann Talkington< In the past, US parents had little to worry about. The US had a huge lead on other countries. Americans could graduate from college and be assured of a good job. This is no longer true. The world has changed and the US children are academically behind children in many parts of the world (often more than 2 years by the end of high schools). Many US companies are looking for talent outside the US. For US children to be competitive, they must have an education comparable to children in other parts of the world. The Panama City Renaissance School is trying a new approach. The school has adopted curricula and approaches used successfully overseas. The school uses a math program developed by the Singapore Ministry of Education, because Singapore consistently outperforms the rest of the world in international math testing. In addition, the school has adopted a language immersion model, so the children can fluently communicate in Mandarin Chinese and Spanish as well as English. Dialog is very important for successful change. Please join the discussion. Does your school have unique programs that help close the gap between what children are learning in the US and what children learn overseas? Have you seen any positive changes in US education recently? Do you have any other recommendations about how we might be able to encourage change? How can we get more immediate feedback about how our children are performing relative to children in Europe and Asia? Do you know of other language immersion programs? If so, how are they working? Do...
