<p>
<p>If you instead choose a low HS education level, such as IESCD 2 (HS drop out), then it results in the usual order for variables correlated with a low wealth:</p>
<ol>
<li>Shanghai-China</li>
<li>Hong Kong-China<br></li>
<li>Singapore<br></li>
<li>Macao-China<br></li>
<li>Finland
…
~33. USA</li>
</ol>
<p>Oh alright, thank you 
</p>
<p>I am quite up-to-date with all of the educational policies and I used to live in Canada; I just assumed that the system was the same. </p>
<p>Growing up, we had science in grades 5 and 6, chemistry and biology in grade 7, physics and chem in grade 8, and physics and biology in grade 9. In physics, we did energy/motion, temperature, light, a bit of nuclear physics and lots of calculations. Although I never had “real” physics, meaning I did not select it in high school, I still know how to calculate wave lengths/radiation curves, how to calculate gravity, how to construct an electrical circuit and some basics like that. </p>
<p>The Canadian students I talked to had science in their younger grades although I think science=collecting leaves and drawing them. </p>
<p>Probably there is quite a variation between different states and school districts. Around here, everything is standardized curriculum wise, it’s just a matter of how much the teacher decides to lean on/copy the official syllabus.</p>
<p>Asian students study and practice math much more. The tests also are harder in order to weed out the weak. It is common to have 1 or more answers to a multiple choice question. </p>
<p>This reminds me a friend from Asia did badly when taking her first exam in American university because she picked more than one answers for multiple choice question.</p>
<p><a href=“http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cde.ca.gov%2Fci%2Fgs%2Fmg%2Fdocuments%2Fmgcorstdyinstrctm.doc[/url]”>http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cde.ca.gov%2Fci%2Fgs%2Fmg%2Fdocuments%2Fmgcorstdyinstrctm.doc</a></p>
<p>California (state with largest population of the USA) Middle Grades Courses of Study and Instructional Time (recommended)</p>
<p>English / Language Arts:
At least 1 hour and up to 2 hours in grades 6, 7, 8 </p>
<p>Mathematics:
Every day all students receive at least 50 to 60 minutes of mathematics instruction, not including homework.</p>
<p>Social Science:
1 hour each day</p>
<p>Science:
1 hour daily with alternating labs</p>
<p>@coolweather, our middle school averages 45 minutes per day instruction, each, in science and social science. English and math, each 1.5 hours. Total of 4.5 hours core instructional time per day. Not sure what “alternating labs” is. Our middle school lab program is weak, few labs are done, certainly nothing like 2-3 one hour labs per week, if that’s what “alternating labs” means. It would be more like an hour every 2 weeks, and that is only for the 7th and 8th graders, 6th graders do almost no labs.</p>
<p><a href=“http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/files/nyc-instructional_time.pdf[/url]”>Change of Subject | Chicago Tribune | Blog;
<p>New York Grade 7-8 instructional time (minimum requirement)</p>
<p>English / Language Arts: 180 minutes/week</p>
<p>Mathematics: 180 minutes/week</p>
<p>Social Science: 180 minutes/week</p>
<p>Science: 180 minutes/week</p>
<p>mathyone: I understand the variation in your kid’s middle school. </p>
<p>Subject teachers in my kids’ school teach 5 periods in 5 classes per day. It’s pretty hard to deviate from the state guidelines.</p>
<p>Most middle schools in the US have “general science” and “social studies” instead of the regular disciplines, though. It can be wonderful, interactive, hands-on, interdisciplinary. Or it can be hodge-podge, repetitive, and too elementary. Depends on the school/district.</p>
<p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Interesting info but it highlights the problems of cross-cultural measurement. I don’t think that owning a car in the US is particularly an indicator of wealth. The vast majority of US households own cars because they are a necessity. Relatively few people live where public transport systems are good enough to forgo private transportation via car. Even poor people have cars in the US. They may live in them, but they have them.</p>
<p>Kids in Asia study math, well past school hours. Many participate in p.m. tutoring/cram classes at considerable out-of-pocket expense.</p>
<p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>All this metric does is measure degree of urbaness, not income. People who live in big cities don’t own cars.</p>
<p>
You seem to have left Finland out of the quote, which is not exactly known for its “degree of urbaness.” If you don’t like the measure, you can use one of the others that was listed. All the ones correlated with lower wealth all show a very similar order. For example, if I instead look at students who live in a home without a home movie player (DVD or equivalent), the order is:</p>
<ol>
<li>Shanghai-China<br></li>
<li>Singapore<br></li>
<li>Hong Kong-China</li>
<li>Finland</li>
<li>Korea
…
~38. USA</li>
</ol>
<p>
Finland has a smaller population than Massachusetts and is racially homogeneous. In fact, all the countries/cities at the top of the PISA list are racially homogeneous.</p>
<p>Here are the population breakdowns (in millions):
5 Finland
5 Singapore
6 Massachusetts
7 Hong Kong
23 Shanghai
50 SKorea
317 U.S.A.</p>
<p>One might keep in mind that each student tested (and the millions that were not tested) in the PISA study are individuals. Not every 15-year-old in Shanghai or Finland is better at math than every 15-year-old in the U.S.A. Not every resident will be required to perform higher math for her career. Not everyone will have a career.</p>
<p>@SophieIsrael, It’s not unusual to have physics in middle school, but it’s not high school physics. The level they teach at is extremely low because many of the kids haven’t mastered algebra1 yet. What is unusual about the story in the link is that the kids are having high school level physics in 8th grade. That’s often left until about grade 11 in US schools, because of the level of math required. High school science usually is taught in the order: earth science (sometimes skipped), biology, chemistry, physics and the reason for this is the students need time to learn the math they will need for physics. If you read the article, they are also teaching those 8th graders trigonometry. It’s very rare for a middle school to offer trigonometry. Actually this is the first one I’ve heard of. It’s a nice illustration of what motivated kids can achieve when the educational establishment supports them and challenges them to their full abilities instead of holding them back, as is more commonly the case.</p>
<p>Data10, those measures of poverty have little value. In the US, you must be poor in the extreme to not have a DVD player (or gaming system) or even a dishwasher. However, around the world not using a dishwasher is much more common.</p>
<p>[Death</a> of a dishwasher: Families around the world spurn America?s favorite appliance ? Quartz](<a href=“http://qz.com/29147/death-of-a-dishwasher-families-around-the-world-spurn-americas-favorite-appliance/]Death”>Death of a dishwasher: Families around the world spurn America’s favorite appliance)</p>
<p>In fact those measures may work well for comparing European countries, but even here it sometimes fails. Staying with Dishwashers, only 1 in 3 have them in the UK. In India, it’s less than 1% (wealthy families use maids). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Measures of poverty are often very specific to the local culture.</p>
<p>DVD players was an arbitrary example to make the point that all of the measures correlated with lower wealth show approximately the same order. The ones that have been posted include having a single bathroom, no DVD, no car, and father was HS drop out. Many others are available, which also show the same results. Sure some measures are more relevant for certain countries than others, leading to slight variations, but regardless of methodology, when viewing measures correlated with lower wealth the top 5 have little variation, and US is always ~#35. When looking at these low wealth correlation variables, the same countries always do better than their overall ranking, and the same countries always do worse than their overall ranking. For example, Finland always does especially well compared to their overall ranking, even when only compared against countries with similar infrastructure and technology usage.</p>
<p>That said, I think you might be surprised how common owning a DVD player is outside of the USA. In some countries than are lower income than US, not owning a DVD player was a so uncommon that the sample size was too small for PISA to estimate a score average.</p>
<p>
Where we live overseas, affluent people do not have dishwasher machines; they have hired-help wash the dishes by hand.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, as the number of hours with tutor/extra class outside school increased, the Asian scores went up until the group with the highest number of hours but the US scores went down if students spent time with a tutor/outside class. That to me says, Asian students used these classes to move and stay ahead of their peers while the US students use these types of classes for remedial purposes.</p>
<p>It was interesting to see how different cultures used similar resources.</p>
<p>Again, thank you! </p>
<p>It is a remarkable achievement then. </p>
<p>However, if the standard is so low that having trigonometry and physics in 8th grade is unusual, I cannot help but think that the standard is somewhat low.
I would assume that most students are perfectly able to start algebra in 7th grade and trigonometry in 7th/8th grade. The unit circle is not too difficult for a 12/13/14 year old. From my experience, sine/cosine functions and unit circle stuff was everyone’s favorite in 8th grade. Especially for more visual people, it is the last “fun topic” before all of the analysis starts. </p>
<p>Just postulating, but high school math cannot include linear algebra and multivariable calculus then? Or is that what’s being dealt with in AP math? </p>
<p>(I am sorry; I am realizing that I should have paid more attention to school curricula before dealing with college curricula :))</p>