Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
washingtonpost.com
Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
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Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#2Actually, I'm just surprised that the U.S. is ahead of Germany in both categories. Naiveté on my part?
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#3I'm never sure what to think about these articles. I've been seeing these since I was a kid (20 years ago), and yet, U.S. adults seem to do fine; the U.S. continues to be a hotbed of innovation. Not only is SV an unrivaled center of gravity for CS/EE type innovation, the U.S. also has world class ME, ChemE, biotech, etc. innovation.
Furthermore, U.S. students seem to do fine on exams that require creativity (IMO, Putnam, etc.).
If you want to dig into the data itself, there's a passable interface to it here: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/ide/
A large part of the "problem" seems to be because we're comparing a very large country to much smaller nation-states. Massachusetts outperforms almost the entire world [1]. Ignoring variance and how it relates to group size is a well-known problem. It is, for example, the reason the Gates Foundation erroneously spent $1 billion funding small schools [2]. It's a reasonable thing to think about doing, because small schools outperform large schools. But, small schools aren't only at the top, they're at the bottom, too! Small schools have higher variance. Small countries do, too.
[1] http://nces.ed.gov/timss/pdf/results11_Massachusetts_Math.pd...
[2] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/the...
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#4This is purely anecdotal, but it seems like kids are held back in the US primarily by the curriculum. I immigrated to the United States having grown up in a couple of commonwealth countries and I was shocked to go from a school where I had been learning basic trigonometry to a school where basic algebraic principles weren't even taught until the next year. So whenever I see a discussion about all the social issues that impact education, I have to roll my eyes and wander why people just aren't seeing the kids are capable of more. Thoughts?
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#5I'm never sure what to think about these articles. I've been seeing these since I was a kid (20 years ago), and yet, U.S. adults seem to do fine; the U.S. continues to be a hotbed of innovation. Not only is SV an unrivaled center of gravity for CS/EE type innovation, the U.S. also has world class ME, ChemE, biotech, etc. innovation. Furthermore, U.S. students seem to do fine on exams that require creativity (IMO, Put…
How much of that innovation and world-class industry is created from immigrants? The business-friendly policies of the United States can be thanked too, but those business run on the labor of immigrants.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#6This is just hyperbole to pry more tax dollars for education and I appreciate the sentiment behind it.
However, US is the driving engine of innovation and creativity and will continue being so. Asian societies prize conformity over creative thinking ; they are good at Math/whatever-subject because they are forced to be good at those subjects because proficiency in those subjects is seen as the ticket into middle class. In America, every kid has a choice to do whatever with his/her life. The American society nurtures its rebel thinker and lone wolf ; it prizes creativity over conformity. This choice gives us Beyonce, Vint Cerf ,Steve Jobs / Bill Gates , etc. etc.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#7This is purely anecdotal, but it seems like kids are held back in the US primarily by the curriculum. I immigrated to the United States having grown up in a couple of commonwealth countries and I was shocked to go from a school where I had been learning basic trigonometry to a school where basic algebraic principles weren't even taught until the next year. So whenever I see a discussion about all the social issues th…
We have a subculture of anti-intellectualism and cottling our kids that is perhaps a little less prominent in the countries that out-perform us? Fitting in socially is also heavily emphasized in the US system, so early advancement for high performers is generally frowned upon.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#8Silicon Valley has so many tiger moms. Yet I bet that the Americans who succeed here, on any measure of success including just plain fun, were raised in America's lax educational system. I'd be surprised if anyone showed a correlation between standardized test scores and life success; in fact, I'd be surprised if people actually tried to look for such a correlation, instead of worrying that it is an important indicator.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#9Sheer size has to play a major factor here. Comparing the US to city-states like Hong Kong and Singapore or relatively tiny countries like Finland is really suspect because there is so much difficulty in the managing and improving an education system as large and diverse as the US has.
Unfortunately, there isn't a great country to compare to: the countries with the closest populations are Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc. and comparisons there have other problems. I'm guessing the best possibly comparisons are probably Brazil or China.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#10Is this averaging the education system as a whole? If so, then that is a ridiculous way of studying how well the US education system is doing. It's already been pointed out that MA outperforms most of the world. How are you going to compare an education system for 100MM people to the education system of Singapore, Hong Kong, and "the Flemish region of Belgium"?
The US is huge and disparate; the fact that the country that has HONEY BOO BOO is in the top 15 should point out that by and large the US has a decent educational system.