<p>^^Interesting. There’s quite a correlation between results and wealth. Might the difference between suburbs 2 and 3 also be in part attributed to the difference in average home value–property taxes?</p>
<p>^^^That makes sense as well. </p>
<p>I dislike articles such as these. Are we upset because we are ‘behind the rest of the world’ or are we upset because our students aren’t receiving a good education?</p>
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<p>Why being upset? That has not been part of our vocabulary when it comes to education. </p>
<p>That is why we are behind the rest of the industrialized world AND not receiving a good education. At least not an education as good as we think children receive. Of course, we seem rather content to compare to countries such as Slovenia and Turkey, as opposed to compare ourselves to countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, or Finland. </p>
<p>The performance of the United States is easy to track as one moves ahead in the K-12. We perform well to very well until middle school, become average to poor through middle school, and then the wheels fall off. In a way, we should be thrilled that PISA measures students’ perfomances for 15 years old. Since the longest students stay in school the more behind they get, it would be rather unappealing to measure high school seniors.</p>
<p>Again, rather than being upset, we will revert to the old set of apologies and dissect the data to demonstrate the researchers had an agenda or deliberately picked samples that would make “us” look bad. In the meantime, we still have our issues in Chicago, Detroit, or Milwaukee. </p>
<p>No reason to be upset, indeed!</p>
<p>I’ve read those articles about the parity into high school. So the bigger question is why do the wheels fall off in high school. Is it that we’ve committed to educating everyone until at least age 16? Or we’re educating to the middle of the bell curve? Or we have poor high school teachers? Until we can objectively look at the 9-12 situation we won’t find answers. We tend as a nation on believing that the strong will survive…and, for the most part that is true. I don’t think it takes much to appreciate that middle class and upper class families with college educated parents have different expectations for their children and we also have reached an apex where the no-college blue collar worker cannot expect to have two homes and a plump retirement so those arguments for not educating a broader spectrum of high school students is a fearsome proposition for many people. We are at the perfect point in history to rethink out 9-12 education system and I’m not sure I’m on the side of “a college degree for all.”</p>
<p>I grew up in one of these benchmark countries that have nasty entrance exams to get to college… No EC’s, little to no career guidance, few electives in HS, no idea what one is getting into (the entrance exam system can be pretty random), few to no courses in other things that don’t show up in national tests…</p>
<p>We had a single semester in drawing - and it was a disaster. By comparison my daughter took something like 4 years of studio art, in addition to college level classes in engineering design, architectural drafting, and the like, and serious vocational tech classes in building a house (they actually did build a 1500 sq ft house from scratch). </p>
<p>Focusing on math alone is way overdone.</p>
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<p>Yeah, why critically look at the studies to try to understand…what is really going on? </p>
<p>Apologies indeed!</p>
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<p>Well, looking critically at the study (not the media article) is paramount to understand. Most reasonable studies will explain the methodology used. In this case, the researchers added an preliminary “rebuttal” to possible (read expected) criticisms. Fwiw, this is common grounds for a special type of researchers who tend to rock the “establishment” and go against the powerful forces of the education world. </p>
<p>But here is the point. We do not have to slug through dozens or hundreds of accounts that read “My school is 80/90 and is better than those foreigners” … the study told us that 820 schools are above the 67th percentile. See below for a previous quotation.</p>
<p>So, yes, it would be totally expected for CC to have dozens of pages of similar posts (especially on CC) but none of them would belie the conclusions of the study. </p>
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<p>I don’t think this type of study will actually rock the establishment. I see it as being used as fodder for the claim that money isn’t important in education. It will just add to the conservative drumbeat that America is losing its ‘exceptionalism’, with predictable results. </p>
<p>There’s lots of interesting things going on in the little that I have read. First, why is the reading score better in most cases than the math score? What are we doing better in terms of reading?</p>
<p>Second, why are there districts like Suburb #1 that I mentioned? Is there something there, above and beyond money, that they are doing right? </p>
<p>I guess the title adds some pathos to hopefully get the public on board with some change, but I see simply a blame game being played here, rather than a public that needs some serious introspection about its values with respect to education.</p>
<p>Everyone see this?</p>
<p>[PBS:</a> wide angle: China Prep (Part 1 of 4) - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
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I’m not so sure. Until Atlanta the only case of cheating by the administration I’d heard of was from a well to do district in CT. They were caught because people wanted to replicate their results.</p>
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<p>Schools in most countries do NOT focus on math alone, they also emphasize strong literacy (reading and writing), history, science, etc.</p>
<p>I think a major weakness in many US high schools is that you can get an A mostly by busy work and multiple choice tests.</p>
<p>When I was at high school, we had written exams (2 hour papers, no multiple choice, long essays in nearly all subjects) twice a year for each subject. All the little exercises, homework, quizzes, essays, etc. that we did during the year were graded (for feedback), but did not count for the twice-yearly grade or report.</p>
<p>There was plenty sport, plenty ECs, and I don’t think we suffered en masse from a lack of the ‘leadership’ and ‘creativity’ that apparently comes in the US if you don’t learn much basic math.</p>
<p>Our kids do not do as well in these math tests because our math education is not routinely accelerated. If the norm is not to reach calculus until the senior year of high school or even later, most kids will not test well in concepts they have not been taught. Kids in other countries, especially Asian ones, spend long days in school followed by after school tutoring schools, and then extra study. Americans tend to value participation in sports like soccer and other extra-curricular activities like Scouts. I do not think that American born parents have the will to have our kids engage in extreme studying.</p>
<p>I have heard it argued that understanding of more conceptual math like algebra requires a certain amount of brain maturity such that most kids below a given age can’t really grasp it. For the sake of argument, let us say that this is correct. If the U.S. is behind in math for our K-12 kids, do our kids catch up in college? Based on recent history, our financial literacy seems suspect, but are our grown-up kiddies able to make leaps and bounds in math once their brains have matured?</p>
<p>^ I don’t think the issue is a lack of acceleration. In fact, I would argue that is the problem. In the American system, there are various pressures to collect the set, move up the levels, rush through, especially in math…but it ends up at a superficial level. It becomes form over content; breadth over depth. Considerable evidence that students would be much better of spending more time and quality time learning fundamental mathematics, rather than weak, fast versions of mathematical concepts. I think it might be telling that in the US, college bound kids do “AP” in highschool whereas in the rest of the world, kids just do a highschool curriculum and then college level courses when they get to college.</p>
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<p>A part of the last part above is probably because some countries cover what we consider late high school or even early college course content at an earlier stage of education. For instance, calculus which would often be a late high school/early college course is usually covered at the junior high level for those on the college-prep track in the ROC(Taiwan). This was a sore point with mom as she took calculus in the mid-'50s as a high school sophomore at a remedial high school.</p>
<p>Agree with Cobrat that teaching calculus before college is not considered accelerated in the rest of the world. In the British system, students are introduced to simple derivatives towards (what in the US would be considered) the end of 9th grade.</p>
<p>It’s not the case that the rest of the world is focused only on math. They are focused on everything. We are just too far behind in math.</p>
<p>Math doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people, but in the rest of the world, parents and teachers don’t let the kids put up with resistance. Here in the US parents and teachers are too afraid to lose the approval of their kids, so they don’t say no to them. Much easier to buy them another computer game, hire them tutors, or let them do loads of extra-curriculars, than sit down with them for half an hour and learn some math.</p>
<p>sometime in the 1900s (I forget which decade) an American philosophy rose where people started getting worried about “overworking” students. it’s not just math, it’s virtually every subject.</p>
<p>it’s sad really.</p>
<p>I’ve gone to school in Europe, Asia and America. Students have to work hard there. not so here in the US. for UK university admissions you can see how they want UK students to have at least 3 A-levels (which everyone takes) at a certain grade and 3 APs for US students (which is well aboove average if you consider every high school student in the US). AP = A-level. it’s not just math. </p>
<p>The attitiude in the US seems to be, “let them have fun and be kids.” everywhere else kids are expected to work hard. educators (i.e. teachers) are also less respected in America</p>
<p>and don’t even get me started about the rigor of Asian schooling.</p>
<p>They are not focused on everything. That is the point. In Singapore, the children in grades 1 and 2 take Math, English and Native Tongue instruction. That is it, full stop. IN Grade 3 they add Science. Everything else is secondary and may or may not be part of a school program.</p>
<p>When the only things worth teaching are those which can be tested with a test where there is only one right answer, there are going to be necessary limitations in how people learn to think ,what they value as learners and how other considerations- such as social development- are incorporated in learning.</p>
<p>^That may be the case in Singapore, but it is not true of many or most of the other countries in the control group of this study.</p>
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<p>Look at a 7th grade math textbook. Then, look at an 8th grade math text book. What differences can you find? Similarly, what is covered in Algebra 2 that you don’t see in Pre-Calculus or Algebra 1?</p>
<p>We do not have a monopoly in social development. There is no evidence that we are better than other countries in children’s social development. So we lose on the academics and are no better off in social development.</p>
<p>It is equally self-deluding to think that our kids are learning to be better thinkers than kids elsewhere. Our kids learn to ape their teachers and their latest fads. That is hardly critical thinking. You can’t do critical thinking when you don’t even have basic command of language, facts, and knowledge. Our kids BELIEVE they have good critical thinking abilities, but that comes from their carefully nurtured sense of high self-esteem.</p>