They are frequently not only self selected, but family selected: families pooling their money to send the one family member, usually a young man, who they think has the best chance to “make it” and then help the family who stayed behind.
5 Likes
@MYOS1634 , I don’t have to imagine because I tutored in a school you describe. My point was that, even with the best education and test prep, some students just aren’t strong test takers.
I don’t think many people in the US that support better educational beginning and outcomes, realize that the bigotry of low expectations is a HUGE part of the problem. This is the first time I’m seen someone mention it. It exists.
6 Likes
I mentioned it (not in those words) from other teachers at our school who told me, “our students aren’t capable of that” back when I asked why the bar was set so low. Most of the teachers never had a high bar themselves (in high school), so tackling some things seems really “foreign” to them.
As an aside, I just finished volunteer tutoring again, but this time was paired with an 8th grade boy - an immigrant who came over with his family. After we finished his homework, he took some time and asked me about the SAT. He also told me about his report card. He did bad in one subject (his words). I asked him to define “bad” for me. “What grade did you get?” “A B+.”
This lad is in a totally different school district (and state) from where I live, but his drive matches many of the immigrants and refugees I’ve worked with in person. The vast majority of kids in my school would never call a B+ bad. One can argue whether it is a bad grade or not - I’m solely relaying the perspectives. I spent a little time telling the young lad that one B+ won’t hurt his chances. What he was doing was tougher work (it was - chemical reactions in science) and that he would have another chance in high school to show he knew what he was doing.
At this point he didn’t know much about the SAT. He was wondering if he needed to take it to get into high school. For his school, he doesn’t.
1 Like
Here’s one of the issues: when one rates oneself as “middle class” do they mean based on that year’s income? One’s highest income? Average? Projected income going forward?
Most of these questions, and the discussions concerning them, imply a stasis that is not real for many people.
1 Like
I’m a mutt (1 US parent, 1 immigrant parent (mother)). I would bring home a report and if there were 5 As and 1 B+, her only comment was “what is this B+ doing on here?” 
“I mentioned it (not in those words) from other teachers at our school who told me, “our students aren’t capable of that” back when I asked why the bar was set so low.”
I had a friend a few years back whose kid transferred to a Title 1 school (3rd grade) and she noticed her kid had no homework, whereas previous school he did. She asked the teacher about it. The teacher said it was because there were a lot of poor kids in the class. Therefore, they had no support at home, so she couldn’t give out homework. My 80% range F&R school, we had homework every night plus occasional projects.
2 Likes
Some years ago, I fell down the rabbit hole into educational Wonderland. It’s the stuff of nightmares and why I have little hope it will ever get better large scale. You are correct. Many people have no clue, but then again many are part of the problem.
I know one district that used to (not sure if it has made a come back or not) create an “expected student growth” calculation that included discount factors for student F&R and school level F&R, among other things.
I had no idea until that point because my K-12 district did not suffer from the bigotry of low expectations affliction. I shudder to think where I would be today if it did.
Worth remembering: For all the claims that the US K–12 system is horrific, it’s widely recognized that the US postsecondary system is among the world’s best (if not the best), and the US K–12 system is the primary feeder into the US postsecondary system.
That doesn’t match well with the idea that the US K–12 system is quite so bad as we seem to like to think it is.
(And before saying that that’s because the very best K–12 systems are the ones that feed our postsecondary system, no, the numbers don’t really work for that unless you want to stretch the definition of “best” to Lake Wobegon levels.)
Disclaimer/discussion: Yes, there are some K–12 schools that do very badly, and this is not to say otherwise. It’s merely a cautionary statement that a hyperfocus on the failures of the US K–12 system overstates things, and honestly kind of distracts from how to fix the problem cases.
2 Likes
I pretty much know where I’d be minus the high expectations. It’s not really about income, it’s about having limited choices because someone else has decided what you are capable of, in their eyes.
It might be one of the reasons I abhor “common core”, and other measurements based on some new fangled idea of what someone recently dreamed up that won’t help most kids have skills they need.
1 Like
Having some of the world’s best universities isn’t inconsistent with having a poor K-12 system for an average student. Only a tiny fraction of these students go to these great universities. US education, in both K-12 and postsecondary, is among the most uneven in the developed world.
6 Likes
Not sure if you were referring to me, but I was specifically referring to impact of bigotry of low expectations on low-SES students where that exists.
My comment was not intended to apply to entire US K-12 system for all students.
However, based on your general commentary, I think if you had seen some of the things I have seen done to low-SES students, you would appreciate my point.
1 Like
You’re not responding to what I wrote.
I’m not talking about the “top” US universities, I’m talking about the US postsecondary system. A degree from a mid-range US university gets attention internationally, not just a HYPSM degree.
On the PISA*, the US is 37th in math and below the OECD average.
“In the United States, 8 percent of 15-year-old students in 2018 were top performers in mathematics literacy, scoring at proficiency levels 5 and above; 27 percent were low performers in mathematics literacy, scoring below proficiency level 2.”
It’s somewhat better in science at 18th place, and better still on reading at 13th place
*The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a study of 15-year-old students’ performance in reading, mathematics, and science literacy conducted every 3 years. The PISA 2018 results provide us with a global view of U.S. students’ performance compared to their peers in nearly 80 countries and education systems.
2 Likes
I think an “average” US university isn’t necessarily better than an “average” university in another developed country. Even if it is, an average entering freshman there could still be less prepared than an average entering freshman elsewhere in the developed world. We also have to keep in mind that a US college education for an average student is significantly longer than elsewhere to produce a similar result.
2 Likes
As the OECD itself points out, “If a country’s mean scores in reading, mathematics or science are significantly higher than those of another country, it cannot automatically be inferred that schools or particular parts of the education system in the first country are more effective than those in the second”—but rather, simply that the one country has exposed its 15-year-old students to the material associated with the outcomes tested in the PISA exams to a greater or lesser degree. (And there is a lot of debate about whether the outcomes the OECD decided to test with the PISA are the right ones to be focusing on.)
But note that this thread has now made sort of a full circle (maybe better: a full circuit of a spiral), because the PISA being a standardized exam, everyone’s assumptions about standardized exams’ merits or their lack get to determine whether this is a signal that the US K–12 system is lacking comparable to other countries.
For several on this thread, it’s an obvious and wildly waving (and very accurate) red flag. For me (and, I expect, others) as a standardized testing skeptic, I see it as an interesting but even less than uncompelling statistic.
Yes, let’s agree to disagree. Everybody can have their opinion, and that is what makes this country great. Thankfully, we are almost done with high school.
2 Likes
Pisa shows some states’ average students do very very well, equivalent to the best in the world - I don’t recall which ones, perhaps Massachusetts and Iowa??, not sure–
And it shows some states’results are similar to developing world results, below average overall. That being said, some states don’t seem to think funding public K12 education matters much, or funding for all, so the results aren’t all that surprising.
I have not seen any claims to the fact that the US K-12 system is terrible. But what I talk about on CC often is the disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in the K-12 educational system. The differences are so stark and so embarrassingly massive that I often wonder how it is allowed to continue. I have come to the conclusion that since we don’t see those vast inequities every day, it is easy to ignore what others are going through. The resources, opportunities, and expectations when you go to a low performing school are less than you might even imagine.
The Niche data for my zoned neighborhood public high school which is an average high school in my hometown (5% proficient in reading, 5% proficient in math, 64% graduation rate, 860 SAT, and 1% AP enrollment) and my kids neighborhood public high school (70% proficient in reading and 66% proficient in math, 93% graduation rate, 1250 SAT, and 40% AP enrollment) are telling. Higher education going test optional can help find “diamonds in the rough”, but finding ways to improve the lowest performing school districts would have a larger impact on our society as a whole.
7 Likes
I believe only Massachusetts has done reasonably well on PISA. However, it still lacks behind in math. Massachusetts has always been the best performing state in K-12 education by a significant margin, in any state-to-state comparison. The single biggest reason seems to be the emphasis on education by residents of that state who are, on average, the most educated in the US. The lack of emphasis also seems to be the reason that US (including Massachusetts) is even further behind many other countries in math.
2 Likes
In my experience funding amount isn’t usually the biggest factor. It’s more like a shiny distraction.
It’s easy for people to feel like they are accomplishing something if they throw more money at the problem and that’s easier than digging down into the weeds of the issues. There are tons of examples where districts spend more per student yet get poor results. All the funding in the world isn’t going to fix the bigotry of low expectations ramifications if it’s spent on programs based on the bigotry of low expectations.
It’s about what districts do with funding and their policies and culture that matter. I have seen scenarios where low-SES kids would have been better off if the district had just burned the funds rather than spending them on garbage programs.
There’s an incredible amount of waste on junk programs. The educational industry is a multi billion dollar industry. Some districts spent a lot of money to train their teachers to “understand poverty” where the training says to survive poverty you need to know how to bail people out of jail, use a knife as scissors and dumpster dive. To survive middle class you need to know how to get your kid a library card and talk to them about college. Meanwhile, suggesting looking at a program that teaches low-SES kids from pre-K as if they are assumed to be gifted - deer in headlights response - well they can’t possibly be gifted.
Also, if districts put bad policies in place more funding doesn’t fix that. An example of this would be after “understanding poverty” training the policy is that determination of what kids go to advanced math track is based solely on teacher recommendation.
3 Likes