DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - USA & Uk bottom of Unicef child well-being table

**Enjoymmsq** · 02-17-2007, 02:31 PM

Have you any proof that they left out private schools... I presume this being UNICEF it was a cross sample....

I would think that, in Ireland, if the head of the Education Department decided to participate in the study, they would tell all the schools to participate and the schools in the country would pretty much fall in line, right? (Yes, that's a brash generalization, but the point I'm trying to make is that in Ireland there is such a thing as a "national head of education".)

It doesn't work that way here in the US: each of the schools are localized, with each local school's level of autonomy different from State to State. You could very well have the head of education in the State of NY be able to order his/her schools to participate in the WHO survey, but the situation could be very different in, say, Illinois or Florida.

The situation is far more murky at the Private school level - the level of control is so greatly reduced that in many States the main interaction the state has with the schools are yearly inspections and tracking student development through a series of tests. A private school would have (at least prior to No Child Left Behind) very little interaction with the Federal Government, unless the school was receiving grants or other aid.

To be honest, I would be shocked if most homeschooled parents learned about the existence of the survey. And I can guarantee you that 99.999% of them would've thrown it away had it even been mailed to them - it's the nature of the beast. You homeschool because you don't want your kids in government schools... submitting yourself to a UN survey?

To get this survey into every school in the US, UNICEF would have to get the approval of 50 states, 14,000 school districts, 27,000 individual private schools, and 2 million sets of parents.

I'm just not seeing it happen, especially for the private schools and homeschoolers.

In case you're interested in some comparative numbers, here is a list of the private Kindergarten-Secondary (1-12 year) schools in Knoxville (37 of them, not counting colleges and universities, including 12.5% of all school-age children in the county). Compare the number to the entirety of post-Primary fee-paying schools in Ireland (57, including colleges and universities, which aren't included in the Knoxville count).

Anyway, my point is since the number of fee-paying pre-Tertiary schools in my county of 400,000 people exceed the number in your country of 4,000,000, there are obvious organizational differences between the two countries, differences which must impact the actual distribution of the WHO survey.

My little girl is going to St. John Neumann's.

02-17-2007, 02:31 PM	#24
Enjoymmsq Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 380 Senior Member	Have you any proof that they left out private schools... I presume this being UNICEF it was a cross sample.... I would think that, in Ireland, if the head of the Education Department decided to participate in the study, they would tell all the schools to participate and the schools in the country would pretty much fall in line, right? (Yes, that's a brash generalization, but the point I'm trying to make is that in Ireland there is such a thing as a "national head of education".) It doesn't work that way here in the US: each of the schools are localized, with each local school's level of autonomy different from State to State. You could very well have the head of education in the State of NY be able to order his/her schools to participate in the WHO survey, but the situation could be very different in, say, Illinois or Florida. The situation is far more murky at the Private school level - the level of control is so greatly reduced that in many States the main interaction the state has with the schools are yearly inspections and tracking student development through a series of tests. A private school would have (at least prior to No Child Left Behind) very little interaction with the Federal Government, unless the school was receiving grants or other aid. To be honest, I would be shocked if most homeschooled parents learned about the existence of the survey. And I can guarantee you that 99.999% of them would've thrown it away had it even been mailed to them - it's the nature of the beast. You homeschool because you don't want your kids in government schools... submitting yourself to a UN survey? To get this survey into every school in the US, UNICEF would have to get the approval of 50 states, 14,000 school districts, 27,000 individual private schools, and 2 million sets of parents. I'm just not seeing it happen, especially for the private schools and homeschoolers. In case you're interested in some comparative numbers, here is a list of the private Kindergarten-Secondary (1-12 year) schools in Knoxville (37 of them, not counting colleges and universities, including 12.5% of all school-age children in the county). Compare the number to the entirety of post-Primary fee-paying schools in Ireland (57, including colleges and universities, which aren't included in the Knoxville count). Anyway, my point is since the number of fee-paying pre-Tertiary schools in my county of 400,000 people exceed the number in your country of 4,000,000, there are obvious organizational differences between the two countries, differences which must impact the actual distribution of the WHO survey. My little girl is going to St. John Neumann's.
	Quote