Comparison school system

Taken from: http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html#edu NOTE: this is a subjective opinion written by a German professor who teaches in America. This one person’s opinion, while not necessarily overly critical of either culture, may not be your own opinion, nor does it represent the opinion of your instructor. That being said, there is nothing overtly offensive in the language or imagery of this excerpt.

Educational System The American system of high school education, where all students regardless of talent attend the same school for 12 years, has been tried in Germany as "Gesamtschulen". Conservatives are usually opposed to this model, calling it egalitarian and socialist. (It appears less socialist however if one takes into account that US schools are financed locally and hence poor communities generally have bad schools; the rich avoid the public school system altogether and send their kids to excellent private schools.) The traditional German public school system divides the students at age 10 into three groups. The pupils in the three groups go on to different schools, only one of which, the Gymnasium, leads to the Abitur, which is the sole entrance requirement for universities. It is possible to switch schools after age 10, but it is difficult and relatively rare. The division into three groups is supposed to be based on performance alone, but appallingly often the parents' social status plays a role. Private schools are almost irrelevant in Germany.

US pupils get a lot more vacation: 12 weeks during the summer, plus one week for Christmas and one week of Spring Break. German pupils get 6 weeks during the summer, 2 weeks in the fall, 2 weeks for Christmas, and 2 weeks Spring Break. On the other hand, German school is usually over at 1pm, while US school lasts till 3 or 4 pm.

While teaching in the US is often considered to be just another "job", teachers in Germany are highly regarded professionals and are much better paid. The training required to become a German teacher is quite a bit longer than that for US public schools.

In the U.S., parents may elect to school their children at home; this is sometimes done by religious conservatives who don't agree with evolution or sex education being taught to their kids. In Germany, home schooling is not allowed (though some US-inspired evangelicals have tried).

The system of early childhood education is much more comprehensive in the U.S. than in Germany. Kindergardens are not free in Germany, and there are not enough spots for all kids. By contrast, the U.S. has a universal and free "Head Start" program targeted at disadvantaged kids. On the other hand, American women often work until several days before giving birth, and start to work again a couple of days later; there is no financial support for parents, except for tax breaks. In Germany women are not allowed to work from 6 weeks before until 8 weeks after giving birth and receive their full salary during this time; after that the mother or father

can take one year off, receiving 66% of their net pay and a job guarantee. Parents also receive $200 Kindergeld per child and month, until the child is 18 and often longer.

The German public (including me) generally assumed that the German school system is far superior to the US one -- until the devastating results of the PISA 2000 study came out. It showed that the knowledge and skills of German students were consistently below the performance of US students (which typically hovered around the international average). Since then, more German parents have begun to send their children to private schools, which had performed better than public schools in the study. (Some Germans have criticized the PISA study, claiming that students were told that the results didn't affect their grades and they were free to leave once finished with the test.)

When I arrived in the United States, I believed that all universities there were private, that professors could be fired if they didn't work hard enough, and that in any case only the rich or the exceptionally smart could go to college due to the high tuitions. Wrong on all counts.

Many states maintain public universities supported by taxpayer's money, and these have very low tuition for residents of the state. In addition, virtually all universities, public and private, are heavily subsidized by grants from the federal government. All relevant private universities are non-profit institutions and scholarships are given freely. Professors earn tenure after having been employed and shown a good record for about five years. Their jobs are then virtually guaranteed just as in the German system. The tenure system exists at public and at private universities alike. (In Germany, all but one university are public; professors have tenure from day one.) Surprisingly, public universities and schools pay significantly higher salaries than private ones.

In general, the German system places much more emphasis on big examinations while degrees in the US are automatically granted if the student has passed a sufficient number of classes. This is true both for the high school diploma, which doesn't involve any exam in the US and consists of several big written and oral exams in Germany, as well as for college degrees, which in Germany require passing several oral exams and producing a thesis.

It turns out that professors in the US are a lot freer than their German colleagues: for about four months of the year, they can do what they want, without any obligations of presence whatsoever. While Germany also has long semester vacations, professors still have to report to work every day (except for their regular vacation time). On the other hand, German professors usually have personal secretaries and post doctorial academic assistants, which most US professors lack. Professors in Germany are very highly regarded in the public opinion and accordingly full of themselves.

If you go to a college town in the US, you will see students studying in libraries, coffee shops, book stores etc. In Germany, it's rare to find students studying in public.

It is very interesting to compare the accessibility of academia in the two countries. On the face of it, Germany wins hands down. Attending a university is cheap (they introduced tuition in 2007; typical tuition is about 5% of a typical tuition in the US) and (except for overrun fields such as medicine or psychology) prospective students don't have to apply anywhere: they simply sign up at their school of choice and start studying, provided they have the Abitur. On top of that, the German government pays a fellowship to every student without affluent parents. Only one half of this grant is paid out as a loan and has to be paid back later.

It is not very well known that a much larger proportion of the population attends college in the US than in Germany. Almost one half of all Americans acquire a college degree during their lifetime, compared to only one third of Germans. (University degrees in Germany used to be worth more than US college degrees however; an American four-year Bachelor of Science degree is roughly equivalent in knowledge to a German Vordiplom while a German Diplom, which took 5-7 years to acquire, roughly corresponded to a Master's degree. In the last couple of years, Germany and most other European countries have switched to the Bachelor/Master system. Much of the material of German Gymnasiums is taught in the "general education" part of the first two years of American colleges.) Many more jobs require a college education in the US than in Germany. Families in the US start saving money early on in order to be able to afford the college education of their kids later; many students work during their college years and most take out substantial educational loans. In American colleges, you constantly meet people between the ages of thirty and forty who have decided to go back to college in order to get a better education and have a chance at a better career; this is exceedingly rare in Germany. Germans can in principle earn the Abitur later in night school, but few do. Once you've got your job, you've got your job, and that's that.

There can be no doubt that the American system is much more friendly, open and accessible to immigrants with insufficient preparation.

While the elite universities in the US do give out scholarships to very talented students from all over the world, there is still an extremely disproportionate number of rich people's kids at these schools. It is clear that students of medium talent have no chance to enter these schools unless their parents are extremely well off.

When looking at higher education in the US (graduate school and research universities), one notices a very high proportion of foreigners, to an extent where the system would almost stop to function if the foreigners were to leave. In Germany, foreign professors are very rare, probably because of the language barrier and more restrictive immigration laws, combined with a lower overall attractiveness of the country to foreigners. Furthermore, the old fashioned German universities require a "Habilitation" before someone can teach; this is an additional thesis and exam after the doctorate that doesn't exist in the US. There are however quite a few foreign students and post-docs in Germany.

Generally speaking, the average American Ph.D. is less capable and less broadly educated in their field than the average German Dr.rer.nat. Specialization occurs earlier in the US, the time

is shorter and many more people of only medium talent pursue a doctorate. Most Ph.D.'s become college teachers with minimal research tasks; such teaching jobs are much rarer in Germany.

The US university system is very prestige oriented; whenever you state your degree, you immediately add the name of the school where you obtained it. The better universities can afford to maintain high entry requirements, while schools lower on the list have to take all students they can get. By contrast, the German university system is largely homogeneous and degrees are perceived to be equivalent.