<p>This report contains a lot of things you would expect regarding socio-economic status, race, etc. and educational attainment and compares the U.S. (unfavorably) with other countries. It is kind of interesting to me because there are just statistics here, no conclusions, yet the statistics suggest conclusions that I don't think are totally accurate. For instance, the U.S. has lower test scores than other nations and the U.S. has a larger income gap than other countries. Therefore, if we brought up the income level of our poorest citizens (or brought down the income level of our wealthiest), our kids' test scores would be better??</p>
<p>One interesting tidbit I came across here is that 12% of the highest earners graduated in the bottom third of their college classes. Comforting.</p>
<p>Well, you’re probably right about that, but I was thinking of those of us parents who might have offspring in the bottom third. Hopefully they are partying with the inherited wealth folks.</p>
How would either of those change the fact that the top 10% of American students are severely undereducated, compared to their international peers? Our high achievers, which statistically are over-represented by those in the upper income levels, can’t even come close to other countries’ high achievers. Money isn’t the problem, the refusal to educate each student to the best of their ability because to do so would mean that some would learn faster and more than others, is. I don’t see that changing any time soon, even though undereducating our top students results in a huge economic loss. Notice how Obama has no plans whatsoever to address this problem in our country’s education system.</p>
<p>“Severely undereducated”? You mean those Rhodes Scholars from Univ. of Chicago that are also PBK? (educated entirely in this country) You mean some of the fine grads of CC fame that have been admitted to illustrious med, law, and grad schools already? Those pathetically, severely undereducated nare-do-wells? </p>
<p>Or are you referring to highschoolers? Those 10% of top achievers are apparently so severely undereducated that a good percentage of those get admitted to insanely demanding places like MIT.</p>
<p>Gee, it’s too bad that our colleges have to settle for so little.</p>
<p>(I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.) Now, if you were talking about the bottom slice of some educational systems in Europe being equivalent to many of our B students, sure, I buy that.</p>
<p>How do they decide who’s tested (specificly, how is it decided in America).</p>
<p>If it’s an actual representitive sample of America, then it’s no suprise America does poorly. The test would be administered in English, which isn’t the native language for a large number of Americans. </p>
<p>Anyway, I’m trying to find it and don’t want to search though the entire thing. Page 43 talks about the gap between the “below basic” amongst free lunch and paid lunch students for Mass. Does anyone know where they say what the average gap is between all states?</p>
<p>For instance, the U.S. has lower test scores than other nations and the U.S. has a larger income gap than other countries
You are kidding right? </p>
<p>Ever heard of China or India?
[India</a> has developed incredible wealth for a tiny minority. Indias economy, Asias 3rd largest, has grown at 9% per year for past 4 years. The top 10 percent of Indias population owns between 33 to 50 percent of the countrys wealth, Some 1.8 million households earning $100,000 or more a year, spend a tenth of that on luxury goods. [1]</p>
<p>Actually, if you look at GINI coefficients, which are a pretty standard method of measuring income inequality, India is still far more equal than the US. China is about on par. That said, the report is only comparing OECD countries, so the statement seems fair to me.</p>
<p>Whatever the facts are at the elite level, I’d be pretty surprised if on average either China or the India could outperform the US. China’s and India’s poor are a lot poorer than ours, and I’d bet their “achievement gap” is far worse than ours.</p>
<p>I think the disparity in health status impacts the acheivements of American children ( as well as Indian- )
Pretty hard to concentrate if you are hungry or hurting and the USA needs to take a hard look at increasing the level where families qualify for FRL status along with inflation-</p>
You’re talking about a very, very small percentage of the college bound population, not to mention the fact that many students who are admitted to top colleges are educated in private schools.</p>
<p>The facts stand. America’s top 10% compares very poorly to their international peers. There really is no other way to spin it.</p>
<p>It is a no brainer. One can say we are better educated, no we are not. We have just moved the bar of achievement higher(terminal degree) as the gatekeeper of achievement. Why do schools (HS) love to state they have a 96-98% graduation rate when 1/4 is not even remotely capable of college level work? those will never obtain a college degree, no different than those 25 years ago unable to obtain HS diplomas.
My neighbor is a Superintendent of a local HS. He said he has seen the bar lowering year by year. He had 3 students in his opinion should not have passed NY regents exams this past week,(oddly enough out of 300 students only ONE failure) he did not believe that they had passed. On this exam which is a requirement for graduating with a Regents diploma out of 85 questions a child is only required to answer correctly 30/85 to obtain a pass. My d was doing Old regents exams for her Bio/Living Environment exam, she thought old exams from 1980’s/1990’s would give her extra practice. She said the exam was brutal only received a 68 on a practice exam, yet she received 98 on the NY Bio exam last week. Dumbing down is what is pushing kids thru.</p>
They do poorly on an international standardized test that is almost completely unknown in the United States. What that actually means is hard to say. The test is given to 15-year-olds, so it may mean that US high school students don’t take advanced math until later in high school than students in other countries. That may be a problem, or it may not be.</p>
<p>JiffsMom, I want to see stats that compare how the highest 10% in the US ‘compare poorly’ to the highest 10% internationlly. I just don’t believe it. </p>
<p>I do believe that the average American high schooler is undereducated in comparison to the average international high schooler. But that is largely due to the fact that the average American high schooler is just that – while his international counterpart has been tracked, and put in intense pre-collegiate program, years before. In other words, that average international kid is hardly average, by our standard.</p>
<p>The link shows a chart indicating that the top 10% of US students do worse on the PISA math test than the top 10% of students in other OECD countries. But you’d have to know a lot more to understand what that really means. Who takes the test? Is it a representative sample of all 15-year-olds in all these countries? Where is this test administered in the U.S., for example? What confidence can we have that the top 10%scorers on this test are the top 10% math students in the U.S.? How do US students compare to those in other countries on more broadly given tests, like the SAT II? How well prepared are U.S. students for college-level math and science compared with students from other countries? I’m prepared to believe that we’re falling behind, but convincing data are hard to come by.</p>
<p>Precisely! I keep hearing this conventional wisdom that American students are not as well educated as those in other countries, but these studies do not convince me that’s true. We all know about China, India, and Korea, but the countries ahead of the U.S. in these studies of OECD countries are mostly European countries (+ Korea).</p>
<p>That said, one wonders why such a large % of grad students in some disciplines seem to be international students.</p>
<p>timely, that’s because many American students don’t go into certain fields that, while demanding a great deal of work, don’t necessarily lead to high paying jobs. Math is one example. In this society, it is often more financially rewarding to go into business or law, than stay in theory-oriented fields. So many American grad students don’t. And so their foreign-born counterparts step in.</p>
<p>You didn’t previously say that. You said top 10%, period. That would include all the demanding privates, with outstanding graduates such as those featured in the Time Magazine article a year or two ago. </p>
<p>Public schools are a different story entirely. In MY region, speaking only of mine, top 10% is a joke. Very few of those are high-caliber. (Certainly less than 1%.) Grades are a joke: Students at most publics (certainly 85% of those publics) get A’s for classes they should get D’s in, at best. That’s also by admission of teachers I know, and the parents of those students. I’d like to think that highschools in Minnesota, Indiana, Colorado, Massachusetts, NY do better than that. (Not trying to discriminate among states; I’m just pulling from the top of my head here.)</p>
<p>Thanks to katliamom, Hunt, and others for the more probing statments & questions.</p>
<p>katliamom, good point. My son was an econ major and he said that all the grad students were Asian international students. Economics would probably qualify as a field that doesn’t lead (directly at least) to a high paying job. </p>
<p>S should know. He just got a job as a juvenile detention officer. Okay…there are extenuating circumstances. He enters flight school in the Air Force in November, so had to find a job for the 6 months between graduation and entering active duty. It’s kind of hard to get a “real job” for that length of time.</p>
<p>And speaking of the achievement gap, with just a week in the juvenile correction facility, S already has a whole new understanding of cultural factors at work causing the gap. He texted me yesterday that one resident had to stay at the facility because his mom didn’t show up for the court hearing and S wanted to thank me for being a caring mom. (Yeah, he’s pretty sweet) He said the judge will give these kids a pep talk/lecture about how they need to be thinking 10 years out and setting goals for themselves and figure out what their future major will be. He said, “10 years? These kids need to learn to stay out of trouble for 10 days.” He said that college is not something that’s even on these kids’ radar screens, and even if it were, they are so undereducated that they couldn’t succeed. Intractable problems, for sure.</p>
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