<p>I find the integrated approach more interesting. This way; You don’t forget the first science in order to work on the second one 
and after 3 years you can take one or two advanced classes.</p>
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<p>This is not the case in our California unified school district. It may be the case for specific high schools elsewhere in the state.</p>
<p>I skimmed over the integrated science briefly. “Students know proteins can differ from one another in the number and sequence of amino acids.” comes a year after “Students know how to apply the genetic coding rules to predict the sequence of amino acids from a sequence of codons in RNA.” Really, it should come before, or perhaps it should come about 5 minutes after. There is nothing “integrated” about ripping a lesson into shreds–tearing apart things that are part of the same lesson and teaching them in different years. In addition the combination/progression of topics from chemistry, physics, bio etc, struck me as mish-mash. Not a fan at all, you have my sympathy, californiaa.</p>
<p>mathyone , Thanks</p>
<p>If that’s how “integrated science” is done, then, I agree, it makes no sense. :s It sounds like the hodge-podge approach taken for “general science” in middle school.
My vision of this is a progressive curriculum over 2-3 years, possibly starting in 8th grade and ending in the 10th, with the possibility to take AP’s or IBSL/HL’s in 11th and 12th after having learned the first level of all sciences, seeing how they relate to each other (chemistry/biology, physics/earth science, technology/CS, perhaps?)</p>
<p>I’m not saying it cannot be done well in theory. The question is how it’s implemented. I just skimmed over the CA implementation, but it didn’t look encouraging to me, whereas the traditional separation of the sciences works pretty well. If anything, I think it would be more profitable to focus on integrating history with science and math with science. I know in my history classes, wars and treaties were the only subjects studied and the development of scientific ideas, the inventions they made possible and the impact of all this on history were largely ignored.</p>
<p>I decided to take a closer look at the Chinese score from 09 and see if they are a good representation of the country as a whole.</p>
<p>Here are the provinces and municipalities tested and their respective ranking on the 2012 Gaokao: Tianjin (15,12), Shanghai (16, 10), Beijing (26,24), Jiangsu(21,11), Zhejiang(9,5), Jilin(22,21), Hubei(8,4), Hebei(4,3), Hainan(12,23), Sichuan(25,17), Yunnan(24,27), Ningxia(29, 29).</p>
<p>There are 31 jurisdictions in total, and the ranking is based on the grades required to get into a first tier university within the province. The first number is for arts, and the second number is for STEM.</p>
<p>My rough conclusion is that based on the numbers, the Chinese score of 520 is not inflated. If anything it should be a bit higher.</p>
<p>Anyone else wants to take a shot at the numbers?</p>
<p>I’m not sure how applicable Gaokao rankings would be to (overall) China PISA scores. You have to take into account the significant amount of corruption tied to the Gaokao testing. Whatever questions we may have with the validity of PISA testing in China, it pales in comparison to the Gaokao. </p>
<p>[Riot</a> after Chinese teachers try to stop pupils cheating - Telegraph](<a href=“Riot after Chinese teachers try to stop pupils cheating”>Riot after Chinese teachers try to stop pupils cheating)</p>
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<p>That, and it’s hard enough trying to figure out the underlining details of the PISA test, trying to do the same with the Gaokao would take a major effort (if it’s at all possible).</p>
<p>You would also have to take into account the population in each province. For example, Zhejiang has 54 million people, while Niagxia has 6 million. And…and…lol…way too much work :)</p>
<p>I only use Gaokao scores to compare one Chinese jurisdiction with another. Their relative performance should give me an idea how those jurisdiction perform on the PISA with respect to Shanghai and Zhejiang. You are not suggesting level of corruption varies from place to place in China as it is in Europe, are you?;)</p>
<p>[Corruption</a> Perceptions Index 2013 - Results](<a href=“http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/]Corruption”>http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/)</p>
<p>Actually the PISA is well respected internationally. We certainly are not surprised with our performance up here. Personally I am more impressed with our score on the corruption index </p>
<p>I did take population density into consideration; that is why I think their true score is higher.</p>