>>9525337I experienced the same phenomenon and I imagine any anons here that went through public school in America did as well. I'd be reluctant to allow those compliments to go to your head. It's easy to have unrealistic confidence in your abilities. Excelling in American public school doesn't mean much. The standards are lowered a whole lot, it isn't so impressive to be ahead of the lowest common denominator.
People give public education a bad rep for a lot of (valid) reasons, but I think sometimes the criticisms are unfair. The situation is such that they HAVE to get a certain number of students through 12th grade, many of which are virtually incapable of being educated. They either lack the intelligence or the motivaton to care about school. We in America tend to not value education highly as other nations. The public schools are a mix between the circus and the prison system. The teachers deal with a lot of BS. The behavioral issues they have to deal with are unfair.
I would only improve education by placing more emphasis on identifying on kids with higher potential and placing them in accelerated programs. Many intelligent students have poor grades due to boredom or lack of enthusiasm, or maybe personal issues in their home lives. Often teachers don't notice or don't have the opportunity to do much for kids who are clearly ahead of the rest of the class. My teachers realized I was out of the scope of their class and mostly just let me read books instead of listening, as long as my scores were still good.
Standardized tests are a decent compromise imo. Usually if you scored high enough, the system will take notice and try to move you to accelerated programs. I didn't do it because I didn't want to work that hard, but I from what I saw AP and IB classes had much better quality education and moved at a more reasonable pace.
The best solution is to separate those with potential and higher capacity from the rest, and that is already happening.
