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<p>Oh yes, the great American excuse, the ultimate crutch for non-achievers - freedom. The freedom to be underachievers, the freedom to be slackers, the freedom to coast through life, etc. Oh, there’s nothing wrong with being the scum of the earth - nobody should stop you. But please don’t try to pretend it’s something noble and something to be proud of. No wonder non-Americans can’t figure this out.</p>
<p>La Contra:</p>
<p>"The grounds upon which you consider the study flawed do not stand up to scrutiny. "</p>
<p>just because you do not understand something, or disagree with it, does not mean that it does not stand up to scrutiny.</p>
<p>“This misapprehension that somehow other OECD countries do not have their share of minorities, migrants, students who do not speak the national language . . .”</p>
<p>That is not an illusion from which I suffer - you just made that up. I commented on the diversity of high school districts in the USA and I commented that there is significantly less diversity in Norway - I am correct, by the way.</p>
<p>"Your blas</p>
<p>glido you’re so funny HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA. that WAS another joke wasn’t it?</p>
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<p>Of course - what a great skill that you’ve learned - to begin with a hypothesis instead of examining the evidence, and when the evidence doesn’t help you, defend your hypothesis to the death and label the evidence as bogus. Very American, I must agree. No wonder so many Americans are trying to flush evolution and good science out of the classroom.</p>
<p>
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It innacurately protray s all American high schools as substandard. Some of the best high schools in the world are in the U.S.A.
[/quote]
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<p>Are you sure about that? As far as I can see, it says that American high schools on average are mediocre. It doesn’t say they all suck.</p>
<p>Notice that them sucking on average is perfectly compatible with there being a subsection of great ones, which I’m sure there is the case.</p>
<p>The US doesn’t train student to take test, the US trains students how to think.</p>
<p>That’s why we have the lowest test scores k-12, yet everyone around the world wants to go to our Universities.</p>
<p>I wonder how many study drills those poor chinese kids had to go through :(</p>
<p>311710rvmnt wrote: A list of top college majors in the USA is telling, being dominated by business/administration, education, nursing, social sciences, and psychology. What will be the economic driving force of a nation of business administrators, nurses, historians, and psychologists? </p>
<p>Problem: A good few of those people won’t be working in the fields they studied. A degree is history, for instance, can lead to work as a:</p>
<p>advertising executive, analyst, archivist, broadcaster, campaign worker, consultant, congressional aide, editor, foreign service officer, foundation staffer, information specialist, intelligence agent, journalist, lobbyist, personnel manager, public relations staffer, researcher, teacher…from historians.org </p>
<p>A lot of people with psychology degrees don’t become psychologist. I have a relative who majored in psych and works with Downs Syndrome families to guide them through the maze of insurance and medical care. Another friend has a Masters in Psych and she’s a fellow writer (much more successful than I am!) after spending her early years as a cop. </p>
<p>A degree is a stepping stone to the rest of your life. The individual still chooses the path.</p>
<p>There is always room for discussion and debate…
For instance, earlier Brooklynborndad and I disagreed regarding the implications of the PISA report and that’s fine, his points were a coherent and rational call for more information regarding the methodologies utilised in the rankings.</p>
<p>I can respect that.</p>
<p>But glido doesn’t need rationality, coherence, or evidence apparently, by making a contribution which demonstrates that it is a mere hop, skip, and jump from American Freedom to American Ignorance. </p>
<p>No evidence offered for using any of the following well worn clich</p>
<p>Sorry all,
Messed up my cut and paste.
My last post was supposed to end at the line:</p>
<p>Ignorant by Choice.</p>
<p>First and foremost, let’s compare apples to apples, not oranges. Germany always used to score higher than it does now, since it started educating everyone. Once it changed its system to test everyone, its scores dropped, too. Many of the countries that test kids only test the kids that they educate - i.e. the cream of the crop. If you tested out cream of the crop against theirs, I believe the results would be equivalent. And, quite frankly, in many countries, the students are driven to learn because if they don’t they won’t get anywhere. Instead, we face parents who complain we are too hard, and we must make all students successful, rather than putting any onus on the students to learn. We have stopped making kids read at home for homework, because they simply don’t do it. Instead, they listen to tapes in class. And many times, they sleep. I know this doesn’t apply to CC kids, but you wouldn’t believe how many there are that are just like I described. I teach in an exemplary District and the teachers laugh at that. We have watered things down so much in order not to incur the wrath of the community that wants things easier for Johnny. If more parents told kids they had to work hard for their grades, things would be better, too. I know of a teacher in my former District that taught AP Government - she demanded a LOT, but she had a 100% passing rate on the AP test. There was so much flack at how hard the course was, that when the new school was built and people had to be shifted, they offered her an 8th grade teaching position in the worst school in the District. She left for another District that has placed her on a pedestal. Those parents at least see the results and respect what she does. She also tutored my daughter (whose AP government teacher was not of the same caliber) for two one-hour sessions and my daughter said that everything on the AP test was what she had learned from the tutor. Score: 5. No surprise to me. And what I have seen too many times is that the parents don’t care if their kids learn anything as long as they get an A. They are playing the college admissions game. The parents in my area have formed a not-for-profit organization to “help the schools.” Instead, they give new parents a notebook that lists who is a hard grader, who makes class easy, etc. Parents do all they can to get their kids into the easy classes. I know that telling this to CC parents is preaching to the choir, but, quite frankly, you really don’t know how this has affected what we can do.</p>
<p>BTW, I also listened to one of our experts who has a contract with Japan and China to help0 them revamp their educational procedures because they are finding that they have a lot of students who can spout facts, but have no creativity or ability to trouble-shoot. They can pass the test, but can’t think outside the box. He is trying to get them to inculcate higher ordered thinking skills into the curriculum to help with this problem. So, high test scores don’t necessarily mean terrific productivity.</p>
<p>Question:</p>
<p>When contributors write about comparing apples, oranges, etc…and state that when comparing the ‘cream of the crop’, that the ‘best of the US’ students would be equal to the ‘best of the other countries’ students…(A position with which I agree)</p>
<p>What measure would you use to define ‘cream of the crop’ or ‘the best of the US’ students?</p>
<p>I would consider the top percentile band, the top 10% to be equal to the top 10% from anywhere.
But
Since the US sends approx 60% of high school graduates to college then of what relevance is the ‘our best is as good as their best’ argument?
(unless your definition of ‘best’ encompasses the top 50%?)</p>
<p>[HigherEdInfo.org:</a> College-Going Rates of High School Graduates - Directly from High School](<a href=“HigherEdInfo.org: ERROR”>HigherEdInfo.org: College-Going Rates of High School Graduates - Directly from High School)</p>
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</p>
<p>This hurts my eyes.</p>
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</p>
<p>Indeed, they teach Calculus in first year of college, very much like colleges here. You are right that they go much more into depth. For example, in geometry and trigs, we deal with only 2-D objects and move on. In China, they give 3-D objects, some of which look so complex that make you dizzy. lol</p>
<p>Some thoughts on this article: 1) The study seems to use a very small sample size: “Some 470,000 students took the test in 2009 in 65 countries,” and 2) Why are we comparing ourselves to other nations with vastly different systems and populations?</p>
<p>Here is a comprehensive but politically incorrect look at the PISA results:</p>
<p>[VDARE.com:</a> 12/19/10 - PISA Scores Show Demography Is Destiny In Education TooBut Washington Doesnt Want You To Know](<a href=“http://www.vdare.com/sailer/101219_pisa.htm]VDARE.com:”>http://www.vdare.com/sailer/101219_pisa.htm)</p>
<p>^Thanks Canuckguy. Those data were exactly what I expected for I saw similar data before. When I lived in LA, the Los Angeles Times would publish API scores for different school districts; the Chinese newspaper (Sing Tao Daily), printed those and more by ethnicity within each district and school. You got Asian (mostly Chinese/Korean) kids from similar neighborhoods with similar socio-economic background and going to the SAME schools with the SAME teachers as African American/Latino kids; yet you see the familiar disparity in scores when they are broken down by ethnicity. I can talk about it here on an on-line forum but out in the public, I can’t really talk about it for fear of sounding racist. I think places like Sunset in San Fran or Alhambra in East Los Angeles were somewhat like ghettos before and schools got “turn-around” when Asian enrollments rose. </p>
<p>One of the ways to keep schools in compliance in San Francisco was to break up the Asian kids and have them commute a long way to other schools. That’s probably more effective than anything else to keep more schools in compliance…
[San</a> Francisco](<a href=“http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/306179/]San”>http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/306179/)</p>
<p>When I came here, my math/science classes were easier but they didn’t make me dumber than my peers back home. I believe I got stronger as I became more interested in what I was learning. Based on my experience, the curriculum here is fine. I just wish people are more open to talk about the real problem.</p>
<p>Cannckguy.</p>
<p>Whether the graph is politically correct of less importance that whether its complete of not.</p>
<p>All that graph does is break down the US sample into ethnic groupings WITHOUT doing the same for all the other countries.</p>
<p>There is a pervasive yet wholly incorrect idea in the US (and on this forum) that foreign OECD countries are homogeneous entities or more successfully integrated and multicultural than the US.</p>
<p>Please feel free to post the results of that sample again but next time try including:</p>
<p>Turks in Germany.
Algerians and Central Africans in France.
Romanians in Italy
N Africans in Spain.
Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands
Somalis and Pakistanis in Britain
The Roma in all of the above.</p>
<p>These are all comparatively under performing minorities (educationally) which represent demographically younger populations than than their host countries.
For example Turks are the largest single minority in Germany at 2.7% of the population.
But students of Turkish descent make up nearly 9% of the student population at age 15.</p>
<p>NB. …(while China has over 50 officially recognised minorities I don’t know the ethnic composition of the Shanghai sample which was in the PISA study)</p>
<p>The idea that countries outside the US do not have ethnic diversity compounded by age demographics and population density is incorrect.</p>
<p>And as far as the nonsense graph from the racialist site to which you linked is concerned: The idea that splitting the ethnic diversity for the US but not for the other countries demonstrates ANYTHING at all…is also simply incorrect. </p>
<p>And even if the minorities in the US do under perform compared to their white counterparts the aims and results of the PISA test still stand…
It is testing the academic skills of 15 year old students which of course reflects on the academic system of each country.</p>
<p>If minorities are scoring lower than than white students then the PISA test is only demonstrating that the educational system is failing the minority students …and that could be for or any number of socio/politico/economic reasons.</p>
<p>The PISA test is an academic skill test, not an IQ test or a Wechsler test.</p>
<p>La Contra- you fail to acknowledge that culture plays a big role in education. It isn’t racist to accept that White/ Asian cultures emphasize education more than Black/ Hispanic. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Asians dominate the rankings whether they be in America or Shanghai?</p>
<p>OrganicGreenTea</p>
<p>So culture plays a big role in education?..I do acknowledge that.
However I go a little further though and acknowledge that education has a role in determining culture.</p>
<p>What’s your contention?
That ‘culture plays a big part in education’ so that’s it?
Dead end? Cul de sac? Done? Finished?
This is as good as we can get?
You think ‘culture’ is static?</p>
<p>What part of ‘culture’ in the US prohibits better educational standards?
What part of US ‘culture’ inhibits the raising of academic standards beyond this current level?
Laziness?..Drugs?..Rock&Roll?..General Stupidity?..Monday Night Football? …Playstation?..Reality TV?.</p>
<p>Education shapes the future cultural perspective.
Every generation of students since 1945 have generally become more inclusive, less discriminatory, more accepting, and less intolerant over cultural issues of race, creed, sexual orientation.
Education has either instilled cultural change after legislation (as in Civil Rights) or it has been a generational vanguard after which legislation has followed (as in GL Rights).</p>
<p>Cultural differences do indeed influence education but not with any finality.</p>
<p>Can you give any example of why US students could not apply themselves in the manner that Asian American students seem apt to do?
Do Asian Americans have bigger brains? Larger skulls? Do they possess a genetic disposition towards a dedicated work ethic?..Do you believe in eugenics? </p>
<p>I wrote in my previous post that if the an identifiable sample of students fail it is a reflection of the educational system that either supports them or does not…
Education and culture are interdependent…
You can’t just blame ‘culture’ for the failings and you shouldn’t consider ‘culture’ as a barrier to improvement.</p>