OECD calls US educational standards mediocre

Parents Forum
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<p>In the Economist.com, there was a mention of Pisa Report". It seems that this report calls the educational standards of the United States -and sorry Marite- France as relatively mediocre.</p>

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At the upper end of the scale, in Belgium, Japan and Korea between 8 and 9 per cent of students - more than double the OECD average - were able to perform the highly complex tasks required to reach Level 6, the top performance level, in mathematics. At the other end of the scale, over a quarter of students are not proficient beyond Level 1 in Italy, Portugal and the United States, over a third in Greece and over half in Mexico and Turkey.

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<p>I'll see if I can find links to the full report. A possible explanation of the poor performance of french-speaking schools in Belgium could be found in the fact the almost all of the 1,000,000 immigrants are attending school in French. Flemish -aka Dutch- is an arcane language only spoken in Northern Belgium, Netherlands, and by a handfulof people in South Africa or South America. </p>

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Leaning Belgian
The latest edition of the OECD?s ?Pisa report??the biggest comparative study of educational standards around the world?has thrown up a curious Belgian anomaly. Schools in the more prosperous Dutch-speaking half of the country are among the best in the world: Flemish standards in mathematics rank close to those of top-performers like Hong Kong and South Korea. But standards in French-speaking Wallonia and the Francophone schools of Brussels are much lower. The schools there achieve the relatively mediocre levels shown by neighbouring France, or the United States. </p>

<p>Since pay and conditions (eg, curricula and class size) are broadly similar in Flanders and Wallonia, there is no obvious explanation for this difference in performance. OECD officials suspect it has something to do with the academic ethos. Flemish schools tend to have much more autonomy than French-speaking ones, and teachers proudly behave like members of a respected profession. In contrast, Walloon teachers tend to see themselves as downtrodden (and ready-to-strike) civil servants.

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<p>Here's a full link to the Pisa Report: <a href="http://www.oecd.org/document/28/0,2340,en_2649_201185_34010524_1_1_1_1,00.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.oecd.org/document/28/0,2340,en_2649_201185_34010524_1_1_1_1,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Thanks for the link. I wonder if cutting out the $50 million a year the US taxpayers give to this French-based "think-tank" wouldn't be a good place to trim budgetary waste?</p>

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<p>I-Dad, 50 million dollars seems to be a pittance compared to the absolute waste of US funds at the United Nations and especially at the IMF. I am not sure what the OECD does, but it would be hard to be worse than the IMF.</p>

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<p>I'm a regular on an email list that discusses mathematics education (that's where I met Marite) and the experts there think that the TIMSS study is actually better at identifying best practice in mathematics education than the PISA study. The TIMSS study </p>

<p><a href="http://timss.bc.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://timss.bc.edu/&lt;/a> </p>

<p><a href="http://nces.ed.gov/timss/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://nces.ed.gov/timss/&lt;/a> </p>

<p>reaches the same sad conclusion: United States schools are laggards in educational performance compared to those of most countries, despite more lavish funding. </p>

<p>I take great care to look at textbooks from other countries as I gauge how well my children's education is going.</p>

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<p>That's funny. They seem to like our colleges and universities pretty well.</p>

<p>Maybe the think-tankers need to stop to think about the United States public education system. While the quality of our schools varies, we do not restrict access to only the priviledged. In fact, we provide free education for every child, even for a large number of illegal aliens.</p>

<p>Does Japan's wonderful school system do this? Does Finland's great school system do this? Is there even universal education in China or India? Or do these "think-tank" studies focus on only the creme de la creme in these countries because only a small percentage of kids even get to the point of studying math as they pass through the rigid examination system?</p>

<p>Hmmmm?</p>

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<p>sry to burst your american bubbles but it is really a question of standards. there are much higher standards in other countries than here. and there's obviously de facto restriction via property prices. want to go to new canaan high? can you buy a 1.5 mil mansion? fairfax? china is not a good example because it has such a large population, but if you look at japan and other OECD countries, you'll see a marked difference in standards. in fact it's far more accurate to say that the US produces many top minds but that there are huge lags in certain areas. these lags are not as prevalent in other countries and the gap is in fact smaller there.</p>

<p>and OECD is very respectable. it's constituency is synonymous with industrialized and prosperous in international economics.</p>

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<p>ITA interested dad
While I think the kind of math they teach in many american schools is contributing to more kids needing remedial math when they get to college, we do educate everyone, ( although some are more equal than others) :(</p>

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<p>Japan also has perhaps the most homogenous society of any country on the face of the earth, something that did not evolve by accident.</p>

<p>Most certainly, the open-door melting pot culture that is perhaps America's greatest strength leads to a wider range of academic achievement.</p>

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<p>Interesteddad, I have lived in one of the countries and visited some of the other countries mentioned in the TIMSS study. I speak one of the predominant languages of that part of the world, and I know hundreds of people from those countries. The short answer is that a lot of countries are doing better, a lot better, at providing good school education to the masses than the United States is doing and at less cost besides. </p>

<p>One country that stands at the top of the list in most of these international studies has FOUR official languages--and the typical parent in my generation is not a native speaker of ANY of those languages--and yet all of the children learn well in a language of instruction that only a tiny minority in that country spoke regularly at the time of the country's independence. Nearly the entire population of that country is the descendants of indentured agricultural laborers from lands far away. To argue that the United States has trouble making schools perform because of recent immigrants, or a non-"homogenous" society simply illustrates that United States schools also do an appallingly poor job of teaching geography and recent world history.</p>

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<p>Token Adult, Why be so cryptic? Of which country is it that you speak? I'm curious.</p>

<p>Obviously, there are tremendous disparities in educational quality across the board here in the U.S. It's a wonder we are even able to compete in global economy. But as far as I can ascertain, there have ALWAYS been wide disparities in our educational system, going back to even before public schools were common place. In light of the fact that we do such a poor job of educating our masses, how is it that our colleges and universities are the envy of the world? There's a disconnect somewhere.</p>

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<p>tokenadult
Does the government run the schools in your adopted country?
Who pays for the education?
Does the "masses" include students in rural areas as it would in this country?
Do the schools provide transportation and are the teachers certified and unionized?
I am interested in improving funding for schools in my state and am eager to hear how other districts do it.</p>

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<p>One astute observer has pointed out that the reason many foreigners come to the United States to go to college is not that the colleges are so appealing in themselves, but that the country they are in is richer and more peaceful than the countries they are leaving. Foreign student visas are a convenient kind of visa for people who desire to spend years in the United States while figuring how to obtain a status that lets them remain permanently. I remember a conversation I overheard in the 1970s while waiting in line at my state university between a Nigerian and Algerian student. Both of them were quite afraid of going back to their home countries, because they feared deadly civil strife--a remark which surprised me about Algeria at the time but has since proved prophetic. </p>

<p>A lot of United States universities that do have international renown have that renown precisely because they have many professors who obtained their primary and secondary educations ELSEWHERE. At least since the days of Jewish refugees leaving Nazi Germany, other countries' losses have been the gain of United States higher education. Certainly many of the "hard" disciplines (math, science, and the like) in most of the most highly rated United States universities have quite a large number of foreign-educated teaching staff members, especially among the teaching assistants and junior professors. </p>

<p>If the thread stays alive I'll certainly let people know which country I was mentioning in my last post. I've given ample hints to identify it to anyone who knew a lot of international students in his or her own undergraduate education. </p>

<p>On the specific point of appallingly bad instruction in United States K-12 schools, I keep coming back to the Chinese-language mathematics textbooks I have at home. They are MUCH better, whichever side of the Taiwan Strait they are published on, than the textbooks most used in United States schools. The reason all children, even below-average children, in several countries of the world take algebra beginning in seventh grade, and geometry beginning in eighth grade, if not earlier, is that their elementary mathematics instruction was far better than what is found here. The definitive book on this subject is Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma, a stunning comparison of school practice in China and the United States. Taiwan, where my wife is from, was poorer than Zambia the year she was born, but she got a better general education there than I got in the suburbs of Minneapolis and Milwaukee in the same era. American taxpayers have been getting poor value from their school systems for a long time.</p>

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<p>I didn't argue that the United States has trouble making schools perform. Actually, when you look at the enormous scale of the US public education system, including the public higher education system that is second to none, I would say that it works quite well.</p>

<p>Now, if we were to limit the availability of a public education to only the top 50% of the students, the scores on some standardized math test might be higher. But, we are a very egalitarian country that offers a public education, up through a college diploma, to nearly every kid in the country. (and, yes, I realize there are some, mostly urban areas, where the opportunity may not be quite as viable).</p>

<p>Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't see a lot of Americans looking to emigrate to India or Hong Kong. Not even an option for Japan, since they basically don't allow immigration.</p>

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<p>Let's see? Do I choose higher standardized math test scores? Or living without fear of deadly civil strife? Tough call.....</p>

<p>By the way, I'm not that impressed with the Chinese philosophy of education. To be sure, it produces better math scores. Not so sure that it produces leaders with the vision and individual creativity to adapt to a rapidly changing world. For example, virtually all Asian based consumer goods companies have been forced to turn to US industrial design firms.</p>

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<p>Was there perhaps a flaw in the German education system that created the conditions for Nazi Germany in the first place? Is there something of value in the US educational system that makes totalitarian dictatorship or widespread ethnic cleansing unlikely in our country? </p>

<p>Are high math scores the ONLY measure of an educational system? Or, are there some cultural values that play a role? For example, would corporal punishment be an acceptable means to the end of achieving higher math scores? How about rigid standards of conformity? Or, is a place like MIT so successful as a direct result of a healthy dose of eccentricty?</p>

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<p>This is in reply to emeraldkity4: </p>

<p>"Does the government run the schools in your adopted country?" </p>

<p>I think you are referring to the country I mentioned earlier in the thread. I live in the United States just now--I just have a lot of friends from the other country, and have read much about it. The government formerly did NOT run most of the schools in that country, and that country was one of the last countries in the world to make school attendance compulsory (with, by the time the compulsory legislation passed, exceptions for homeschooling). The current school system there is largely funded by taxes, and largely operated by the government, and takes in ALL the varied ethnic groups of the country and people of a variety of economic and family backgrounds. </p>

<p>"Who pays for the education?" </p>

<p>In most countries I am aware of these days, taxes provide most of the funds to operate most schools, and the country I mentioned earlier is definitely not an exception to this, although historically this country had, in its colonial period (before I was born), unusually vigorous networks of privately funded and privately operated schools. </p>

<p>"Does the "masses" include students in rural areas as it would in this country?" </p>

<p>The "masses" includes everybody in the country. Some countries in east Asia, the region of the world I am most familiar with outside the United States, have high degrees of urbanization. Some, notably China, have huge rural populations. China does a very poor job of providing rural education. Taiwan, by contrast, has long done an excellent job of providing schools in the remotest parts of the country. Kids from poor peasant families in China are often severely disadvantaged educationally, but not so in Taiwan. </p>

<p>"Do the schools provide transportation and are the teachers certified and unionized?" </p>

<p>The question about transportation is a very American question. In most of the world, everyone gets around by public transportation. On any city bus or subway train in Taiwan you will find school pupils going to school--but the great majority of kids walk to school, as schools are everywhere, and the population density is enormous. </p>

<p>Teacher certification is not the irrelevant process it is here in the United States. If I want a good math lesson, I can't be sure that a United States certified math teacher is any good at giving that lesson, but in most of east Asia teachers have to know their subjects, if that is the concern of your question. Some countries have free labor unions, e.g. Taiwan, and some do not, e.g. China. But in general labor union politics has MUCH less influence on education policy and practice in the high-achieving countries than in the United States. </p>

<p>Does that help answer your questions? For more reading on this subject, see any writing by Harold Stevenson or James W. Stigler (both of whom have made extensive studies of schools in other countries). </p>

<p><a href="http://www.aft.org/topics/sbr/downloads/trns.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.aft.org/topics/sbr/downloads/trns.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>"Was there perhaps a flaw in the German education system that created the conditions for Nazi Germany in the first place?"</p>

<p>I think there was: compulsory attendance. The earliest countries in the world to make school attendance compulsory are precisely those countries that later formed the Third Reich. Many of my ancestors left one of those places as Germany was being "reunified" under Bismarck precisely because they disagreed with that policy. Everyone in my family for centuries has cherished education: I have German-language books at home that have been in the family since at least the 1630s. But my freedom-loving ancestors refused to put up with totalitarian compulsion of one-size-fits-all education. They operated church schools on the wind-swept prairies of the Great Plains, where my American-born ancestors still learned to read and write first in German (until they lost that freedom, even in America, during World War I) using curricula of their choosing. </p>

<p>The fragmented nature of United States education policy has somewhat been a strength, in that it has slowed the spread of political control of schooling. (I say "slowed" because you can still tell instantly where a person attended elementary school by whether he refers to the "Civil War" or the "War between the States," for example.) But sheer unawareness of what is going on in the rest of the world has let United States schools slide into mediocrity in the postwar half century. Just because the United States beat the Nazis--and my uncles of German ancestry were participants in beating them, with alacrity--doesn't mean that the United States should assume its schools are better for all time. China, which is still a wretchedly poor country and is not a good political example to any country, nonetheless really is doing a better job in primary math instruction than the United States, which helps young people there have better job prospects than one would expect knowing how poor their parents were a generation ago.</p>

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<p>I'm not sure that we can really compare the challenge of an education system in Taiwan to that of the United States. Taiwan is less than half the size of South Carolina and 98% of the population is from a single ethnic group.</p>

<p>They also have compulsory education for nine years instead of 12. The US education system would be very different if the standard school stopped at age 15.</p>

<p>Would Taiwan even exist as an independent country were it not for the military umbrella provided by the United States? I don't think so. So, lets not lose sight of forest by looking to closely at one or two trees.</p>

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<p>interesteddad, you really need to read The Economist magazine more to pick up some facts about countries elsewhere in the world. (I recommend that as one of the more factual magazines about countries I know best.) The school completion rate through high school is HIGHER in several of the countries you mention than it is in the United States. I'll just mention one fact about Taiwan that everyone ought to know: in 1949, less than 10 percent of the population knew the KMT regime's newly declared national language--it was the home language of even fewer households than that. But today, everyone in Taiwan my age or younger can speak that language. Try to imagine the excuses we would have for poor academic performance here if the sole language of school instruction were suddenly made a language that no more than 10 percent of the whole country speaks. I don't point to the KMT regime as an example of good general governance: it was not until Lee Teng-hui encouraged Taiwan to democratize, after my first three-year stay there. But Taiwan has been a good example of effective primary and secondary education with limited resources in a diverse country for as long as I have been alive. </p>

<p>Do you really intend to make the case that the United States schools are doing BETTER without at least reading through the whole TIMSS report that I have already referenced earlier in the thread?</p>

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<p>Simply segment out American public schools by the income of families surrounding the school (TIMSS did just this) and, guess what? An aggregate of schools (almost all virtually segregated) lying in areas with incomes above the median finish in the top 3 in the world. Consistently. And those below the median? Don't finish in the top 50. The U.S. does NOT finish 28th. It finishes 2nd or 3rd, and 95th or so.</p>

<p>Three guesses how, in aggregate, education spending breaks out? In aggregate, and over time (roughly 3 generations), you get what you pay for.</p>