37% of Americans can't locate the U.S on a world map - Are American schools failing?

... and have been for a vary long time. We just now started to pull our big head out of our self righteous asses to realize this.

some may be really bad . & I'd know I'm a seventh grader .in my defense my schoool is really good . were like first in the whole u.s.a when my teacher told my class that like about 40% of the people didn't know where we really thought he was lying. Like none of us could ever believe that someone couldn't know where it is escpecially when they lived there ! Other schools just need a little help cuss most these schools aren't as highly educuated as my schoool is & my school is big probz. around 2000 & that's just middle schoool. us people know more than we actually think we do.

Am I the only one who realizes that this is a fake article? You should have read that this is satire. It's funny because you're all talking about how "these people in the article are all imbeciles" when anyone with common sense would see that the whole thing is BLATANTLY satire. You shouldn't believe everything you hear, it's how lies are spread.

yes, American school are failing, because a lot of school don't teach much about geography

Of the 37% I'll bet that 90% of them are minority kids.

Minority?
The one that started this rumor was a white dumb girl from South Carolina not a minority.
Minorities are smarter than those individual or groups of lower social class Caucasian for example "white trash" or "hillbillies" and especially those retards "skin heads".Those are the ones who are unable to locate U.S.A in a world map.

Your baseless and biased speculation aside, I feel pretty certain that the black ghetto garbage homie and Black Panther sorts who never goes to school because they see it as 'being white' likely comprise a good number of the idiots in question. This truth is borne over endless studies of the racial achiement "gap".

That shows how ignorant you are you dumb whitetrash! Black people are not considered a minority anymore. And Asians as a minority we are way smarter than you white people. If anything white people are the minority which fits your description that minorities are dumb

No I wouldn't say that American schools are failing. I would say that this percentage portrays the waste of America. Heres a solution, to fix two birds with one stone let's put that 37% on a boat, send it out the the middle of the ocean, and destroy it. This way our government won't have to pay for food stamps, unemployment, insurance, and housing to these degenerates and suddenly the United States economy is right again.

are we talking public or private? I go to a private college-prep school and take AP classes. My school isn't failing me.

well that person must have been a drop out
also i still dont see how having at least a few years of schooling doesnt teach you that
I don't think that schools are failing anywhere in the northeastern region cause thats where i am
but honestly i have to idea about the rest of the country
i guess if an american can be that stupid, then then must be failing
i mean come on
i'm bad at geography but not thaaatt bad...

I've been thinking this since my elementary days.
And here I'm only a senior in highschool.

But.. Geography did stop before Middle School.
So that could explain a lot.

The focus on our education resolves around CSAP perfomance. The schools are graded on how they perform by how their students score. This focus is creating huge gaps in education here and polls have shown that America education is becoming subpar to several countries. It is a system failure more then a school failure.

not failing the kids are failing to take advantage of education.

Frankly, America as a whole is failing. It's easy to blame the schools for Americans being more and more ignorant every day, but are parents teaching their kids anything? Everybody wants to complain about what school is or isn't teaching their kids, but guess what...They're your kids. If they're ignorant, it isn't just Mrs. Smith who teaches the fifth grade at the local schools fault, it's parents, too.

I agree.
It's not only the school system. It's what goes on outside of the school system as well.

This is an old issue though. I remember the same statistic when I was graduating high school, so this particular issue is "old news."

What bugs me is how many entering college freshmen I see who can't work out simple algebra problems when algebra is supposedly a requirement for graduation. How many can't add, subtract, multiply, or divide fractions, yet that was supposedly taught in 5th-Grade.

Sorry, but color me "unimpressed" with current education philosophies and methods. The older methods worked much better, and that's not saying a whole hell of a lot.

They fail because each individual local governance cuts the school zone boarders along economic lines. This causes the the schools that are within wealthy tax bases to be great while those in poor areas remain horribly lacking. Education funding should be federal, each school receiving the same amount per student irregardless of where it is located.

I find that hard to believe......... but then again we just had a VP choice who could see Russia from her yard so????????????????? hum!

State standards in most states are REALLY low.... people should read how low their state standards are.

American Schools don't compare to those of Asia!!
kids are forced to go to school six days a week 14 hours a day
yea i know thats a little extreme but the U.S need to add a little more hours into school
we need to stop encouraging kids to get really passionate about sports and other activities and emphasize on education .I'm not saying sports and other activities are bad but they shouldn't be the reason the student goes to school for.
I also don't believe that student should be able to acquire scholarships because of their athletic abilities. We need a president that knows that education should be this country's priority If our schools keep lacking high educational standards,The united States dosen't face a brighter future.

Oh matty, you amuse me to no end. You truly are a peach!

Suggesting that if someone doesn't believe in your particular flavor on invisible fairy in the sky that that is the reason people are stupid.

Oh the joy.

;-)

Too bad the billion or so people in India (80% Hindu) regularly score higher in geographical questions is strange, no? Or are their particular fairies smarter than your Abrahamic God? Hmmm....

I don't participate in ANY hocus pocus, including your flavor of it (Christianity).

"Just don't expect the United States to bow down to such silliness."

It's ALL silliness to me, you see. Dancing around cauldron's is just as silly as dipping baby's in water and taking Communion. It's all voodoo BS IMO. So I don't want the US to "bow down" to ANY of it. Just because most believe in this stuff (in this Country it's Christianity, in others it may be different, as we both pointed out), doesn't mean those of us that do not participate in believing in fiction should be forced to do so. No one, and I mean NO one is going to stop you from doing so, which is a good thing in a free society, but forcing it down MY throat is the problem. In my opinion, everyone should be able to freely believe in whatever they wish no matter the level of silliness, but it ALL should be separated from public policy writ. It should be a freedom, not a foundation of a state. You may think we should be a fundamentalist state (Christian), I just know the dangers of doing so. Ick!

;-)

It's not the schools. It's teachers being expected to do it all with no help from parents or society giving them any respect. Anyone who is offended by what I say below is part of the problem.

The State of the State of Education

In some schools the bars been lowered so everyone can pass the test
There isn't any glory anymore to strive to be the best
We don't want to offend the kids or hurt their self esteem
Even those who fail are equal no need to have big dreams

Some schools have outlawed games such as the old dodge ball and tag
They keep on being politically correct sure must be a drag
Of course we wouldn't want parents to sue teachers or the schools
Can't have their darlings stub their toes that would really be cruel

I remember the pain when my team lost at sports
It as just fun competition we didn't go to court
You didn't sue teachers for bad grades or a bad hair day
You weren't exempt from being offended that was never the way

Paarents want teachers teaching but always giving them strife
Don't discipline their babies though and traumatize them for life
How about backing the teachers help them help the students along?
Cause we're not too far way from the education of America being gone.

I never had a required geography class (which is the part about failing that i agree with), and I am HORRIBLE at geography, but even I can point out my darn home country. That article was not being serious.

Oh wow, lets see it's right in between Canada and Mexico.

Some people are just (for lack of a better word) imbeciles.

37% of those Americans may be drop outs or fail to pay attention in class. Schools are teaching the materials, parents just need to follow up and make sure that their children are absorbing it.

Are you insinuating that *parents* need to take an active role in raising their kids? What about the teachers? What about television? Why can't somebody *else* do all the work while parents worry about browbeating the school system into treating their children like perfect little angels?

Yes, I am insinuating that parents take an active role in raising their kids. I didn't know that it was that much to ask.

Schools are completely failing our kids. I have 3 straight a students who have all said that they learn nothing in school after the 6th or 7th grade. 2 have graduated, with honors, and the third will graduate this year, also with honors. All of them have threatened to drop out at one time or another, not because it was too hard, but because it was too easy and they felt they were wasting their time (even with AP classes). They have completely dumbded down the process. Kids can't read well, write well, or do math well...they are tolerant though.

My kids do have very actively involved parents, and I know that that helps. A lot of kids fail because there is no challenge for them. I worked in a charter school for a few years and noticed a remarkable difference in some of the students who had been "problem" kids at their previous schools. They were forced to perform...nothing less than a C average or they would not be able to stay at the school. There was much expected from the students (and teachers), and the kids rose to the challenge. That school has the highest success rate in the area now. Oh, they also make parental involvement mandatory...if you have time to make kids then you need to take the time to raise them.