As Maine Goes, So Goes the Nation

Everything you ever wanted to know about the state of American schools, through the eyes of the Chinese:

A school district in the deep woods of Maine that sought out Chinese students to help boost its enrollment and its finances fell far short of its ambitious goal of bringing in 60 students.

Only six Chinese students will attend high school in the northern Maine town of Millinocket this fall.

The target of five dozen was probably overly ambitious, officials said. The efforts also were hindered by a recruiter in China who failed to deliver any students and a writer who told readers of a national Chinese newspaper that the school was merely "mediocre" and that Millinocket children hang out in parking lots for fun.

Each student attending will pay $24,000 in tuition, room and board.

But school officials found it a harder sell than expected.

An opinion column in June in the Global Times, a national newspaper in China, took aim at U.S. public high schools in general and Millinocket in particular.

The author, an adjunct instructor at a law school program in China and a former high school teacher and prosecutor in the United States, wrote that "the first thing to understand is that the average U.S. public high school isn't very good." He went on to call Stearns a "run of the mill" school and said the "biggest kick for (Millinocket) kids is hanging out in a supermarket parking lot."

A good experience, yes. A good education for a year, maybe.  Depends on how you define it.  But a hard sell at $24,000 year is understandable.