<p>It is always interesting when reading a debate to see that most people inspired to comment have very polarized views. There are definitely issues with the testing data that people are looking at to bash the United States Education system. One for instance is the fact that while China (Shanghai in particular) is atop of the rankings this go round is it fair to take one affluent city’s results and compare it to the results of an entire country? I don’t think so. HOWEVER that is not to say that we should not be constantly evaluating our education system and comparing it to what others are doing around the world. I believe it was mentioned above that many other countries (I know Finland in particular) segregate their students after a certain point in time prior to high school and determine which students are capable of a college education and which belong in vocational education type schools. If our students who are all in the same high school are competing on this testing against countries where the lower performing students have already been weeded out, again not fair. So testing aside we should be having a dialog about what we are seeing in our own school systems. I live in a town with a very good public school. I would be confident stacking our “best and brightest” against the children in China and Finland or elsewhere. Where I think we are falling behind is with our middle of the road children. It is not that we are not trying to educate them we are, they really just do not care. They feel that the things they are learning are unimportant. They do not understand how evaluating literature or learning algebra is going to help them in their life. The interesting fact is that although they feel this way their goals are still to go to college; and they expect to go to college. The thought that any of them would take up a vocation like plumbing or electric is not even a conversation. This is where we are failing our US students. We have so many colleges and universities in this country where these students who achieved sub par results in high school can go we have taken away the incentive for these children to work hard in high school. While this alone does not stop them from figuring it out in college many go without the skill set necessary to succeed. So then at age 20 or so they realize they cannot make it in college and find out they need a trade or something and they are unskilled. So while I am not alarmed that other countries are somehow smarter than us I do feel we should look at their education model and decide if there is something to be said for making sure that our citizens, each and every one of them, have a skill set upon which they can rely that allows them to live productive lives. Maybe we should be identifying children earlier who would be better served in vocational type high schools so we can teach them things they can understand why they are learning and learning a skill that they can use through out there lives. Every country needs all types to continue working.</p>
<p>On a population-adjusted basis is the US #1 at ANY objective measure of achievement, whether intellectual, sporting, or whatever else?</p>
<p>Why on earth should the US be at the top? The human potential isn’t better, the schools are not top, the work ethic is not the best, the social problems are not the least.</p>
<p>To come around 20th is actually pretty good under the circumstances.</p>
<p>I see a huge problem with math education in this country’s early grades. We seem to accept that there are math types who easily get A’s and non math types are struggle and are tracked into lower level math classes later on. There is no reason why EVERYONE can’t become proficient in math - I know there are anti-test people out there, but what we need is more intensive rote learning in the early grades. In the third grade, it was pretty much left to us parents to make sure your child learned their multiplication tables. Those who did not, were left behind in math. This is inexcusable - the schools should make sure all children can do math even if it takes worksheet after worksheet until it is drilled into them. It’s difficult for teachers to ratchet up math instruction, because this is the way we’ve always done it. But if we want to keep up with the rest of the world, this is what we must do.
While it is true that most people will not use calculus in their work, getting to calculus in high school gives students more options and they will be more likely to study subjects in college which lead to higher paying jobs.</p>
<p>As much as I love this country, the academic expectations continue to drop each year in high schools. In New York alone, the regents exams have become a joke. Rather than striving for educated citizens, the government would rather it look like we were educated by giving higher numbers through grade curves. I’m sick of seeing someone who failed a test pass by a substantial amount do to curves while I don’t get any points because I already did well. In the chem regents alone there is a negative curve! This makes the people who do terrible get higher grades, while the people who score high LOSE POINTS!!! I was so angry when I saw that two points had been taken off my test because they want to fit with a certain curve. That is crap.</p>
<p>I used to be part of the crowd that complained it was the schools fault. The teachers fault etc etc So while there are some budget issues, and perhaps complacent lazy teachers who may not really be well qualified… I can say</p>
<p>I’ve spent enough time in public schools in the last 3 yrs --it starts at home.
In our large diverse city/suburbs where I have subbed…
there are so many kids with poor academic performance and
- they have a great cell phone
- they have the lastest “cool” clothes and
- they are all about being cool and not trying…
- they show up at class with no books, or instead with a mess of stuff and poorly done assignments, will lie to get out of class, will spend time texting.
-they have a sense of entitlement and a lack of respect for authority.</p>
<p>Parents fight the administration/teachers when the teacher penalize the kids for poor performance, behavior etc. I couldn’t even get a kid thrown out of my class for not doing work/sleeping! I had 8th graders who couldn’t pass the state tests–some had 3rd grade reading/math skills…So much of my time is spent on discipline and maintaining order.</p>
<p>I am not hopeful about the future of our nation when there are far more kids like that in my own county than the ones who are excelling. I am regularly reminded why in our family we make the sacrifices to put our kids in private schools so that they aren’t robbed of decent learning environments. Sadly my kids as adults will be paying into a system that is supporting those slackers. </p>
<p>It all starts at home.</p>
<p>I agree with fog fog, but I blame our culture as well. There are good parents who lose the battle against anti-intellectualism in America. My 8th grade daughter has parents who are always on top of her with school and homework. Additionally we have always taken her to museums and enrolled her in enriching summer activities. In spite of all that, she is in a click of students who are primarily concerned with clothes, celebrities, etc who don’t care much about school. In fact, I would say students do not want to excel in school - just slightly above average is the goal, otherwise you are labeled as a nerd. Take advantage of extra credit?- “No way, only nerds do that”</p>
<p>Let me re-post some comments from another thread on the same topic:
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<p>This is from a self-claimed teacher. Apparently he’s using his “personal experience” to validate the American system’s superiority and the status quo is fine as is. You wonder why we are lagging behind year after year. It reminds me of the China in mid 19th century, when the highly industrialized western countries were forcing into the old civilization. What was the Chinese government doing? Telling themselves and their people that China was a better civilization and those westerners were babarians… Find all the excuses you can, if the only thing you could do is “feel better”.</p>
<p>In all fairness, the above quote is merely a dramatic version of the “concerns” we have heard all the time. That somehow if students are pushed to study hard or take any sort of pressure they are being ruined. That the academically successful kids are weird, nerdy and socially dislikable… Value is in the eyes of the beholders. If academic excellence is never encouraged let alone recognized and awarded in our schools, how do we expecte our students to be motivated to pursue academic excellence?</p>
<p>Yes exactly fogfog. But the bigger problem is that we live in a country that says it is not the kids fault that the parents didn’t help them so it is societies job to fix it. The only inventive idea is pump more money in instead of doing what other countries have done which is teaching them what they can learn or want to learn and teach them a trade. That also would then create a political time bomb because if we did that or changed to that type of system now what would that do to all the existing colleges that enroll these slacker students who many times do not finish college.</p>
<p>^ I agree. I have run across so many kids who are in these high schools–that are so far behind because they have been given social promotions for being too old in the grade…
They will get a certificate of attendance from high school–a piece of paper that is worthless.</p>
<p>Not everyone needs to be in college–and we need qualified plumbers, electricians…heck our roads and bridges are so old and so much of the nations infra structure needs work…</p>
<p>Perhaps part of the problem is not given kinestetic learners the ability to be more active and hands on…</p>
<p>I also agree our culture (valuing gambling, doping sports heros, celebrities, and want- a -be.s who are famous for being famous)
does nothing to promote real world achievement, innovation etc.</p>
<p>I am all for creative work environments and working outside of the box.color outside the lines…that has to go hand in hand with critical reasoning and reading skills and every day math.</p>
<p>Give our top students the test to be accepted to one of India’s top Universities or China’s and you will see low scores… BUT the quality of a US education in college is amazing. The emphasis on tests and low emphasis on grades in China is a major reason why their test taking skills are great…</p>
<p>The most demanding part of their day is a test, not a paper. Teachers in China simply don’t have the time to test them on other things. I have a foreign room mate and one of my friends is foreign… The one foreign friend that I’m mentioning scored an 800(Sat equiv) on the English test in China… My room mate scored a 670. My room mate is almost getting to native fluency while my friend stutters and often uses odd words or can’t learn the correct word.</p>
<p>He studied for the test and neglected pronunciation and other writing skills(varying sentence structure, flow, word selection and accessibility in meaning).</p>
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<p>This is misleading information. Yes, kids select either academical or vocational path or the combination of both in Finland. But it is done at age 15-16 (after grade 9.) This study is made with younger kids so all are still at same schools also in Finland. The choice is also not made by ability but by interest. It is much more difficult to get to plumber or hairdressing school than to academic path. And of course kids can also go to universities from vocational schools.</p>
<p>Saying American kids get tested so much they are sick of taken them and that is why they performed poorly as an excuse is BS. We never were tested so much that it made sense to say “well I am just SO tired of standardized tests that I am gonna sleep through this one.”</p>
<p>I also believe more blame could be put on the parents for underperforming in school. Sure your student may have negative social influences and the celebrities may not be scholars themselves. So what, grow a pair and parent your kid. Turn off the TV, take the cell phone, whatever to get them to actually do the work and pay attention in school. And don’t drop it’s “society’s” fault excuse</p>
<p>Schools could also focus more on improving the top kids then struggling with the bottom kids. Why should these bottom kids that do not care and that are just wasting everyone’s time be able to drag the class down. We should instead put more opportunities out there for the top of the class and allow them to improve. You could also focus more on the middle of the road students because the teacher won’t be dealing with the kid in the back all day</p>
<p>What also might affect the scores is students taking the test with disabilites. Ans I don’t mean “I can’t pay attention, I don’t like to read, school is stupid” disorders I mean REAL mental disabilities. At my high school these students and their scores would factor in to our overall “grade” every year and affected the money we received. So schools that could accomodate these students would obviously suffer.</p>
<p>It may sound harsh but if there are students that just do not want to be in school and are only their to disrupt class they need to be dropped or moved or something as to allow the rest of the students to get an education. </p>
<p>Also, as for people stating that its not the top .1% that vote for our elected officials, what if we just attach an IQ test to the ballot for elections. The better you score on the test the more your vote is worth. It has the same goal as the original electoral college, saving the country for the less inteligent. And by IQ I don’t so much mean math, science, etc. I am talking about current national and world events, how our govt. works, etc. Stuff that you would hope someone getting to vote would know. It could cut down on all the inner-city Acorn voters that were picked up just to vote for the black guy and all the racist, old, and white Tea Partiers that think Obama is Muslim.</p>
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<p>With apologies to the poster who authored the full paragraph, because I wanted to cite the sections I most agreed with in my experience as a current educator.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the posts above this post brought up an important point that actually does reflect on our culture and does reflect on education itself: student disinterest in testing, lack of effort exerted in testing, and a student focus on what’s expedient. </p>
<p>Look, my public school as a child was in a district considered middle-middle-class. That school included a range of student abilities, although racially and economically it was homogeneous. Like most public schools, you had your super-students and even highly gifted ones, average and below-average. It didn’t matter. Al students, regardless of ability, took testing seriously. We knew it wasn’t part of our “grade.” :rolleyes: And we were far more heavily tested even than other local districts, and definitely far more tested than students of today are. (A minimum of one major standardized test per month for the entire class. I won’t go into the reasons.)</p>
<p>I cannot say whether education or the culture at large is responsible for this, but the disinterest in excellence for its own sake and pride in performance, for its own sake, is an epidemic. That’s an objective fact, not an opinion. I am appalled, when speaking with middle-class parents, how much they directly and indirectly support underperformance of their own children when not related to a “grade.” These are the same groups of parents who admit that their children also only study for tests at the last minute, also consider homework “meaningless” (or work on it less because “it doesn’t count.” etc.) and that they are sympathetic with their child’s attitude. Where is this appalling work ethic coming from? Sure, it’s coming partly from a laziness in the culture, but why aren’t parents opposing this culture in the home? The practical fact is that interim performance affects ultimate performance, so if for no other reason, the habit of performing well advantages the student. And overall study habits affect test performance as well.</p>
<p>I will tell you that eventually this also has a direct impact on SAT performance. My students that struggle most with the “project” of even preparing for the SAT are those for whom this is the first signficant standardized test they have ever encountered and/or the first they have put effort into. One of the most important factors in SAT performance is comfort with taking tests, an understanding of how to take tests, of testing strategy, etc.</p>
<p>Separately, it’s pretty embarrassing to me, the general lack of engagement with performance and genuine academic effort, just effort. I don’t know why parents who are professionals and educated themselves, would want to embarrass themselves by being enablers of that ethic in the home. Separately, I have seen lots of teachers cave in to that home-and-national absence of work ethic, when at the least they should be doing their utmost to hold up the fragile wall.</p>
<p>Perhaps this conversation would benefit from taking into account the fact that American’s next door neighbor, Canada, comes in at 8th for science, 6th for reading and 10th for math (with some provinces, such as the one I live in, coming in 3rd and 4th places in the world on those attributes). </p>
<p>While there are cultural differences, of course, there are tremendous similarities as well. Like the US, Canada is diverse, the “popular culture” focus is the same, and I think the parents are actually less concerned about education (since it’s much easier to get into universities here and it isn’t outrageously expensive). And I assure you, the kids are no more likely to take standardized testing seriously than American kids. In addition, education is not federal and so there is quite a lot of variance across provinces in terms of their performance (as there is across states).</p>
<p>But one is left wondering why Canadian kids on average do better than American kids on average. </p>
<p>I think we would learn a lot if we could see the distribution of scores. My hunch is that the US data is much more skewed. I haven’t downloaded the report yet so maybe the data is in there, but from news report I gather than performance in Canada is not tied to socio-economic background, neighborhood or immigrant status the way it is in the US (educational funding is relatively uniform across a province). </p>
<p>I suspect that the top 20% of US students (or top 20% school districts) are on par or might surpass every district in the world but, say, the lower 50% of school districts bring the mean down. I think the problem is one of educational disparity. </p>
<p>This disparity is why these results might not resonate with Americans living in more affluent areas. It also explains why so many kids in the US have to do “AP” or “IB” instead of the regular HS curriculum (whereas the brightest kids in Canada more typically do a regular curriculum and do just fine in university). And it explains why the US has some of the most brilliant minds and universities, yet on average they don’t look so good.</p>
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<p>You totally demolished what the original article stated and started pulling words out of your bum which completely makes your argument null and void.</p>
<p>You state that there is a decline in the standardized test scores and this will effect the “future”. CLEARLY the article states “Scores are all higher than those from 2003 and 2006” which the last time I checked meant it was an increase.</p>
<p>Our “future” is as secure as it was maybe roughly 10 years ago.</p>
<p>It is not sound to argue that there is a morbid future but rather a not quite the best future.</p>
<p>You claim there are plenty of big/homogeneous countries with better scores… Please do so and point out the plentiful amount of big countries! <a href=“http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf[/url]”>http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf</a></p>
<p>Continuation: But then look at the not only plenty but bountiful that are below us. UK, Russia, Sweden, Germany, France, Turkey, UAE, Spain, Portugal, Denmark. (OH HEY LOOK THE UK AND A LOT OF WEST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES THAT TAKE SO MANY TESTS)</p>
<p>Also everyone take notice of not only size but regions together (particularly Asia does good because of their high motivation, China, Korea, Singapore, Japan (this is my perspective so this might not be the best thing to argue about)).</p>
<p>LaContra, you’re right the results can’t be altered, but they still contradict just about everything you say and support most of what has been stated by other posters.</p>
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<p>Studying too much causes “gender confusion”? WTH? Even apart from the fact that that particular term is both ignorant and offensive, that’s one of the silliest contentions I’ve seen in a long time, and certainly casts doubt on everything else that was said by whoever wrote it.</p>
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<p>Starbright, I was educated in Canada. My son attended school in Canada until grade 7, at which time we moved to the States. I have pondered this phenom endlessly, and it is all so interconnected, it’s very difficult to sort the variables, as much as the U.S. would benefit from so-doing. I will share with you some of the principal differences that I personally believe to cause this staggering disparity in outcomes.</p>
<p>In Canada, there is more or less a social safety-net, plus a willingness (if reluctant) to pay as you go – aka pay your taxes, fund education equally for the haves AND the have-nots. By stark contrast in the US, there are far fewer programs supporting the poor and the education funding in most states is NOT equal among urban and suburban areas. In Ontario, for example, the funding formula was equalized a decade ago, as was collective bargaining provincewide. That said, it is interesting that Ontario and Michigan each spend about the same – just over $9,000 a year per student – so in theory, the outcomes should be similar (if it was just the money). However, in Michigan, because there is not universal healthcare, at least 20% of negotiated payroll goes to providing healthcare for staff – a cost that is not borne provincially, and a cost that is rising exponentially in the US. So more money makes it into the classroom in Canada, I suspect, as a result. Also, in Michigan, the URBAN areas, such as Detroit and Grand Rapids, only average about $7,500 a student – when typically urban areas need MORE funding to look after special needs and students at risk. That disparity comes from the economic structure and that all too familiar “don’t tax ME” attitude. In Michigan, the taxpayers will apparently not tolerate revising the personal income tax rate (not touched in 30 years) or changing the sales tax to reflect the increase in service-based economy of the last several decades – or so the politicians tell me when explaining why it is OK to have an exponential structural deficit in the education budget. (Meanwhile, as you know, Starbright, Canada figured out the economic shift to services with a fed VAT tax in 1988, etc.)</p>
<p>What all these factors mean is that students from a challenged socio-economic status in Canada have a running chance to conquer illiteracy (because urban schools are funded EQUALLY to affluent suburban schools, with extra money allocated to at-risk kids); they have a running chance to conquer their social ills as well because there are a variety of programs that seek to help break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. Canada spends more money on early education, and does not support ‘charter’ or ‘private’ schools in the interest of ensuring that resources are divided evenly among citizens. </p>
<p>In terms of parenting, having universal health care and a year’s maternity leave means that children are at least in theory healthier and more readily parented in their formative years – whereas in America, if you do not have health care, you may not develop proactively, and with 6 weeks maternity leave, children are often bottle fed or handed over to caregivers by necessity instead of receiving the kind of early-life care that best fosters physical and mental development. Some aspects of the capitalist system are so focused on profit for the few in power that the emphasis for most folks, even the “middle class” is on “work-all-the-time” instead of “work-life-balance-society.” The “every man for himself” attitude that I see far too often negates the “village raises the child” notion that creates a stronger society. But people develop those kinds of uncharitable feelings not because they’re inherently nasty or necessarily uninformed – but because they themselves are led to believe they never have enough, or they work their fingers to the bone to eek out an existence and always seem to fear that someone else is going to “take” what they “have”. It’s easy to say “it’s not my problem” when you’re stressed and overworked and feel someone is out to get you – which characterizes some aspects of American life more than I’d like to admit. </p>
<p>The lack of cohesive governing policy plus the highly preferential treatment of capitalist interests flows through to other areas. Due to the governing system (freer than Canada in ways, yet perhaps less effective) partisan politics tend to mire/weigh down effective leadership and policy making in terms of having a cohesive strategy over a long enough term to achieve actual goals. Letting private, for-profit enterprises deliver sub-standard “online core curriculum” to public schools (this is happening this year to “save money” in grand rapids) facilitates pedagogical deterioration. Cheap food provided by profit-motivated vendors in schools influences both the development of environmental-style ADD and poor neurological development in children. The list goes on.</p>
<p>Until America decides the the collective rights of our society are equally important to the individual rights presently entrenched to at-times obsessive proportions, I’m not sure the country can see its way to provide a humane and egalitarian place to live and learn for all of its people. The irony is that unless it DOES, it may not be able to reverse the decline of the American empire, or even staunch the flow of highly skilled workers to places such as Brazil, which “gets it.”</p>
<p>There is room for concern about education in the US, I would be one of the last ones to argue that we have issues here, including the fact that we have a very strong “ignorance is bliss” culture, where we are more and more catering to the less and less well educated (sorry, teaching Creationism as science or taking out evolution in science curricula is not building well educated students). Likewise, things in some ways have been dumbed down, and there are major problems with access to quality education. For example, one of the biggest problems we have is education in the US is treated as a local matter, literally down to the town/city someone lives in, while every other country I can think of treats education as important to the whole country. In the countries that are beating us on these tests, I can almost guarantee you that education is controlled by the central government, especially funding, whereas in the US quite frankly it is a mess. It is why you can have a school district like Scarsdale in Westchester County, NY, that is really well off, that consistently produces kids with incredible test scores, and you have schools in rural or inner city areas that consistently are at the bottom of things. You also have schools being paid for with local property taxes, that in many places, especially here in NJ, that are crippling, and then you end up with people complaining about schools not keeping up, but then cutting funding… You have places in this country that produce schools where 90% of the kids go onto college, and schools where no one does…so yes, there are problem we need to address.</p>
<p>But I openly question whether these standardized tests really mean anything, in terms of where we want to go. These tests measure knowledge, specifically knowledge to pass a standardized test, which can be taught to, and in fact that is what a lot of countries do to get those high test scores (along with reporting scores from selected schools, etc)…but there is a price to be paid for doing that, and China, the focus of these articles, is as good an example as any. </p>
<p>There was an op ed discussion piece in the NY Times a couple of days ago, that talked about Chinese college graduates and why after college their fate wasn’t all that great, compared to what was going on with ordinary workers in the country. Part of it was lack of opportunity in a country that is basically right now manufacturing stuff for other people, but one thing stood out in the article, and that was the ‘teaching to the test’, ‘the test means everything’ mentality that is still the dominant form in china and produces those scores, doesn’t necessarily produce students who can excel doing real work. McKimsey and Company, for example, was quoted in the article saying that something like 1 in 10 Chinese college graduates coming out of their universities were capable of working for multi natiional corporations in the country, that they simply lacked a lot of the skills and trainign needed to succeed. McKimsey if anything would have a reason to lie the other way (put it this way, in their management consulting business, they have been one of the biggest pushers for offshoring jobs to places like China). </p>
<p>The point being that being able to spit back memorized facts, which is still the dominant mode in China and other places who score high, doesn’t necessarily mean someone is well educated or particularly fit to ‘take over the world’. My problem with our education system is even with proof positive that that approach is not necessarily beneficial to creating educated, productive people for the work force, is heading that way, with everything being based on standardized tests…and there is real evidence of that.</p>
<p>Want some examples? In the 70’s and 80’s, when I was in school, people were saying the same thing about Japan, that their education system was superior (which, like China’s, was based upon everything being based on tests, on 'moving up the line), and that they were going to ‘take over the world’…even back then, there were questions about that, while a successful manufacturing nation, which especially in autos dominated, the real question was about innovation and creating new paradigms…and when it came to that, Japan basically failed, they were excellent at taking ideas created elsewhere and iimproving them, but when it came to basic innovation and new paradigms, they basically failed (anyone remember the Japanese 5th generation computing inititiative, that was going to put them on top? It failed, dismally). And Japan today has shrunk, it is a shadow of its former self, its GDP is half of what it once was…and part of the reason cited was that the Japanese couldn’t come up with the new ways of doing things, to change the way their system worked, and they got eaten alive because of that (and yes, in one sense the US is faced with that today, in some ways it is scaringly similar, if for different reasons). </p>
<p>When I was growing up, and even today, Singapore kids did really well on those tests, it is a fairly well educated society, well ordered, is a fairly well off financial hub…but in terms of innovation in the market place of ideas, it is not known as a powerhouse. </p>
<p>Richard Feynman in one of his books talked about going to Brazil, I believe in the 70’s, to teach physics in a university there, and he gave this description from a basic physics test. He said you had students, that if you said “the angle of incidence of light hitting a fluid is”…they could dutifully spit out “is equal to the angle of refraction”, and they thought that was science. They could take a basic physics problem in kinematics, given the initial speed of an object, its acceleration rate and how long a time period, they can give you how far it travelled, but if you asked them to explain what the relationship meant or break it down into its components, they couldn’t…he made the point that science is not about facts, that learning science was not about memorizing formulas to solve problems on a test, but was about questioning the how and why of something working…</p>
<p>There is also a lot more to creativity and innovation then simply what someone does in school, if everyone who got 4.0’s in high school and college was an innovative genius, the US would be out of sight…and it isn’t. I could make arguments pretty easily that one of the reasons the US has done as well as it has over the years are cultural as well, that part of the makeup of this place is that things change and it is embraced, if not always heartily. As a nation of immigrants, if not always so happily so (or necessarily in a nice way, as with slavery), different ideas are always flowing around, which is a lot different then a traditional society like China or Korea.</p>
<p>Likewise, there is the mentality in the US that if something isn’t broke, doesn’t mean it doesn’t need fixing, tinkering and playing around with things have been part of the tradition, and look at what has come out of that, the silicon valley garage, the tinkerer gave birth to a lot of things… we also have a culture that admires mavericks, that admires the individual, the people who tell conventional wisdom where to go with itself, which simply is not part of a lot of other cultures out there, and that is huge. One of the things that for example Chinese graduate students are finding is that when they go back home, instead of staying in the US, they find a lot of frustration, that the traditionalist fear of change and the fear of the new hampers what they can do (it is one of the reasons that huge corporations are not particularly agents of change, that most innovation comes from small companies or from seeded research outside the corporate sector). Doesn’t mean Chinese or Indian or Singaporean students can’t be creative or aren’t intelligent or creative, it simply is that the cultures in those places may not support the kind of things that have made the US as successful as it has been. China particularly has problems that impede creativity and innovation, it is a highly controlled society where the unknown is considered disrupting to order and the like, when you have a government that heavily controls access to information, on a very paranoid scale, that doesn’t engender revolutionary ideas or innovation, either…</p>
<p>My point is I am less worried about these test scores and more worried about what we have coming out at the end of the education process, and there I am worried. One of the reason US schools can still draw the best and brightest, especially in the real of science and technology, is they realize the opportunity is here to be able to do things (I work with a guy who grew up in China, went to college there, went to grad school here, and he would tell you that, I guarantee). What worries me is that instead of finding what worked in our system, the ability to innovate, to create, and build an education system that supports that, we are worried about standardized tests as the be all and end all (they are a tool, no more and no less). I also worry about an education system that is reverting to the three R’s style of education (maybe the Three R’s and AP’s), rote education to cram in ‘facts’ with no room to understand or question those facts, or to give students the ability to think beyond what is required on a test…that worries me more then comparing apples to oranges. I suspect if someone goes back to when these tests started being used to judge international performance, you will find the US never scored at the top of these, and that Asian countries like Taiwan and Korea, even back then, were showing the top scores…</p>
<p>Without pointing at any group in particular, there are vast demographic differences between the US and Canada that really do make them not comparable to each other. This is not to say that areas like Detroit can’t be improved, but it’s never going to be realistic to expect Detroit to perform on par with a city like Toronto.</p>