http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32608772
Asia is sweeping the global school rankings!
Wow! The U.S. is improving. 28th is a very good ranking for the leading industrial nation on earth. Walmart must be happy.
Now if we could simply abandon all that testing non-sense! We could trade a heightened self-esteem for a 40 to 50th position.
I don’t think it’s a matter of what educators/schools are doing. I think it’s a matter of the quality of student put into the system. I have two nieces of the same age. Both very bright. One went to school in New York State and attended an elite prep high school. (the suburban publics were very good and highly ranked, but the prep school was even better) Niece # 2, also very bright, attended a C-rated public high school in Florida. Niece #1 did great, pulled a 4.0 in college and went on to get her law degree. Niece #2 also pulled a 4.0 in college, went on to med school and is now a resident.
Are Florida’s schools worse than New York’s? Yes by most measures. But I think it’s primarily a function of what kind of student you’re putting into the system. Any student can do well in an average public school if that student is bright and has family support. If the student is struggling from a myriad of socio-economic or other disadvantages, and has an indifferent or struggling family, of course they’re not going to do as well. No matter how good the school you put them into.
We can pour all the money we want into the “educational system” but it won’t fix our problems or improve our scores unless we first address the socio-economic issues.
Quack! Quack!
Canada!
I’ve thought about going over the border, too. The universities are less expensive as well.
Yes and no. The US has a bigger problem with this issue than other countries. As the OECD explains
At this same time, I think the OECD shows that about 20% of the variance in test scores (I’m assuming within the US) can be accounted for by social class. But though this doesn’t seem like a lot, it is still a powerful influence, and we can’t just discount the effects of social class.
However, there is state-by-state variation as well. I believe that MA would rank near the top if it’s its own little country. And the Upper Midwest and New England states that border or are not far from Canada, I believe, are similar to Canada in achievement.
k - 12 exists primarily for providing nice life to teachers, administration and supporting personell, it is missing the focus of providing enough education to make a productive citizens. Kids are not a focus of the k - 12 system, period, but they should be! All adults involved in the system keep forgetting they are public servants, not the masters, the taxpayers and their kids are masters/employer!
Unless, the system is “refocused”, forget removing sports, shopping or other “fun” kids’ oriented things.
A word of caution: there are significant differences between regions; as with the US, you can’t paint all of Canada with the same brush.
Poland, Estonia, and Vietnam are not economic powerhouses, but they rank higher than the U.S. The book The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way, Amanda Ripley, discusses how Poland moved up the list.
Regional differences do exist, and not only in the US. For instance, Belgium has a unified educational system but has vastly different outcomes in its Flemish region than in Wallonia (French speaking) with a number of causes. Some are based on the larger immigrant population from countries that do not value education but most are based on the difference in the organization of the system with the non-secular schools easily surpassing the secular system. The distinction of private versus public does not apply as ALL schools are part of the public system and operate with similar budgets.
If there are differences, why not explore why certain regions have better results, instead of hiding behind the canard of being an … impoverished nation. We do spend enough money to deserve better results, and there a number of schools that have done MUCH better with poor and disadvantaged students and with budgets that’d make public officials cry!
The bottom line is that our country is doing a better job at criticizing the studies, alleging all kind of biases, remaining in comatose denial than it does at assuming the deficiencies of our system that is based on hiring the mediocre, pandering to the lazy and incompetent, and extorting ever growing budgets through CBA and corrupt practices.
The argument of having to deal with poor students would be more powerful if there had been a modicum of improvement in the education of (mostly) minority students. Our numbers simply point to the opposite with alarming dropping rates and graduation rates that might dip into single digits in certain places in Michigan.
All in all, our system has proven it can educate the ones who can … educate themselves or have parents who make sure they do. That is the price we pay for having delegated our education system to the service providers and lost control of the operation, and allowed a monopolistic system to only function for a small number of insiders.
From the OECD
Here’s something else to think about. The US also compare extremely poorly in comparison to the rest of the world with respect to infant mortality-something like 27 or 28th. And we also spend a lot of money on health care. And just like the PISA scores, infant mortality varies between different parts of the country, and in an inverse relation to the PISA scores, infant mortality in the South is much higher than the rest of the country–and would rank certain states behind Botswana.
And like PISA scores, infant mortality in the US is worse in disadvantaged populations. And in a study comparing the US to Austria and Finland, infant mortality rates among wealthy Americans and wealthy Austrians and Finns are similar. However, in Finland and Austria,infant mortality of the nearly similar to that of the wealthy. However, this is not true for the US, with disadvantaged groups have much worse infant mortality rates than wealthy groups.
For whatever reason, in education and in health care, economically disadvantaged kids have it much harder than the same kids in some other countries.
Why is that?
“socio-economic disadvantage translates more directly into poor educational performance in the United States than is the case in many other countries…some countries succeed, even under difficult conditions, to moderate the impact of socio-economic background on educational success.” Because in those countries people of low SES tend to value education more than in the US. I wonder if there are any studies addressing whether the smart kids get bullied in those countries more or less than high-achieving low SES kids in this country.
I read somewhere that the PISA study tallied results by state for 3 states, MA, CT and FL. MA is at the top but still ranked #19 or something. FL is at the bottom like some 20 places behind. CT is somewhere in the middle.
What is amazing to me is that scores for the U.S. Continue to be weak, but every article I see about parenting and education is either about how high schoolers are put under too much pressure or about helicopter parents.
You would think the average student studies 24/7 for all four years of high school to earn that 19 or 20 on the ACT. For me, that just doesn’t add up.
I was fascinated by the book “The Smartest Kids in the World”. To me, one of the glaring reasons certain Asian countries stand out is the culture of education. South Korea certainly was more illiterate 20-30 years ago and has improved significantly since. They truly believe education is they key to move up in the world, both personally and as a country. Culture plays a big role in educational outcomes.
@inspiration12 In contrast, the U.S. has a huge anti-science, anti-intellectual contingent. It is hard to make progress while we are still arguing about the earth being 6,000 yes old and debating the facts of evolution. A lot of these people do not seem to even understand that what really happened does not depend on what they believe.
My least favorite phrase is, “That’s not my reality.” We can have different experiences, but there is only one reality.
Also keep in mind that in the US we have set compulsory ages (18 in CT, 16 in MA and FL, for example), and that most students attend the “academic” public high school. While in Vietnam, as an example, the drop-out rate after fifth grade is high, especially in rural and mountainous area since most students cannot afford to attend secondary school or university, due to poverty.
In another example, poor immigrates (from the rural parts of the country) to cities in China, have challenges getting registered for the public schools, since the are not “official” residents of the city.
If the poor can’t get into the high schools, or are dropping out before they would be old enough to take the PISA, then it’s has an impact on the make-up of your test group.
Just an example of why it’s never an apples to apples comparison.