re: #64 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Only problem I have with the German system is that students are tracked very early, starting with the fifth grade. If you are not selected for study in a Gymnasium, then you have little chance of going to to a university.

I used to teach English at a school that trained kindergarten teachers and home health care workers. I pointed out to them that in the US, they would all be attending a university or community college and majoring in education, child psychology or health care.

On the flip side in our system, it didn’t matter how well I did in school. I didn’t have the money. (My family is going in reverse: I was the first person in three generations not to go to college, followed by my sister and all my cousins.) Scholarships and such would not come close. Continual gutting of state education funds so we can fund Wealthcare for Billionaires pretty much ensured that the military was my only choice. (I don’t regret the military, which is why I was in the Navy so long. But that was the only real choice I had.)