Not so great. A lot of the schools are gross and run down. I remember my elementary school often being infested with lice and at my high school, roaches would frequently fall out of the ceiling.
It depends on which area. Toledo Public has a very poor rating, whereas some of the others have excellent ratings. One village, completely encircled by the city is in the top 5 in Ohio. If you have the money, you can get to the best schools.
They vary widely in this area from some of the (comparatively) best in the nation to some of the absolute worst. But that's not a very high benchmark. My own county reputedly has reasonably decent schools but we did that "non-traditional" "home" schooling thing with ours "chillens".
They are generally pretty good as far as I can see as a non-teacher, non-parent. The problem faced by British schools (and other public services) is endless tinkering and cheese-paring by successive Governments from a mixture of cost-cutting and well-meaning but ill-considered experiments.
The latter, intended to improve education by wholesale change rather than improving what existed and generally worked well, has led to an ill-matched assortment including so-called "academies" of very variable quality and value form excellent to desperate, and has opened in places a partial doorway to cynical manipulation by religious self-interests with a calculated hatred of intelligent children.
The major problem with all this, and one no politician or teachers'-union official seems willing to address, is just who is affected most by it all....
However, many so-called "failing" schools have been turned round by changes of management and staff, to everyone's benefit. The cynic might say it was not the school that was failing, but the pupils - especially in areas where they genuinely see no hope or purpose in bothering to learn.
In my own area of Southern England, one academy has gone through turmoil apparently based on commercial more than academic difficulties; while a school only 12 miles away has continued to be a shining example. The latter - Hardye's School, in Dorchester - has a very good reputation for its science teaching, enhanced by its annual series of public lectures, and recently by an after-school project in conjunction with, and support from, Exeter University to carry out what I would think degree-level research, involving DNA analysis, into ticks and Lyme Disease. It also seems to have an excellent arts record.
So when you read the chilling headlines, hear the ritual moans about all-ignorance-and-no-discipline, ask, "Really? Is that true? Everywhere?"
++++ Footnote:
A friend who is a Primary-school teacher told me recently of a bizarre conversation with her school's Headmistress:
HM, encouragingly: "Tracey, I'd like you to be an 'Outstanding' teacher!"
T: "I don't. I am happy just being 'Adequate'."
HM, disappointed and surprised: "Why?"
T: "Because I have a life outside of my work!" (She does too, as wife and mother with active leisure and social life.)
I asked what that was about. It transpired the UK Government's schools-assessment agency, OFSTED, grades good teachers by just two steps: Adequate and Outstanding. Nothing in between, like Good and Excellent. And to be Outstanding, my friend explained, you have to leave, eat and breathe your work - I'd think an attitude to life hardly ideal for the genuinely best teachers!
