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Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#11

Post by joshuahedlund »

roasm wrote: post #9

Sheer 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,…

I would love to see a comparison of individual states with these European and Asian countries instead of just the "US". It's statistically difficult for a group of 50 country-sized states, with its high outliers and low outliers, to have an average that beats all of the high outliers of other countries.

Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#12

Post by pflats »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #4

This 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…

Curriculum shouldn't be an issue for much longer. The vast majority of the states (http://www.corestandards.org/in-the-states) have adopted the Common Core. The holdout is publishers: currently, textbook companies have nominal "core standards" texts, but the vast majority of them are old textbooks with minor changes to get out the door quickly. Once actual alternative surface, we can expect a bigger change.

Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#13

Post by pflats »

redcircle wrote: post #8

Silicon 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 indicat…

How on earth can you define life success?

SATs correlate positively with family income and negatively with incarceration rates. That seems like a start to me.

Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#14

Post by tdfx »

flatline wrote: post #7
TallGuyShort wrote: post #4

This 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.

I think the biggest cultural problem we have is the constant search and glorification of the prodigy/wonderkid and the consequent obsession with "natural talent", as if everyone has some special innate skill that they're destined to discover and be the best at.

If you don't understand calculus the first time around, it doesn't mean you're not a "math person", it means you need to sit down and RTFM for a few more hours. Likewise, if you're really uncoordinated and can't hit a baseball, go outside and practice for 2 hours every day. I guarantee you'll improve dramatically. There's not many things that humans do that can't be improved through practice and discipline.

For some background, I say all this as someone who was told up and down during his childhood how smart and gifted he was, all of which came crashing and burning during high school and college when I realized there were actually things I needed to put in effort to learn. I'm still trying to repair my study habits and fill in knowledge gaps to this day, and I truly wish people had congratulated me more when I had put in a lot of effort into something than when I appeared to grasp a concept quickly with no effort.

Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#15

Post by pyre »

flatline wrote: post #7
TallGuyShort wrote: post #4

This 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.

I seem to recall that, at least in the Chinese system, unless you meet a certain bar, you are kicked out of school at specified intervals. This would tend to lead to a school system only filled with top-performers.

Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#16

Post by Shivetya »

flatline wrote: post #7
TallGuyShort wrote: post #4

This 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.

I would not call it anti-intellectualism, we have a culture which no longer celebrates success over one's peers. For some reason it is offensive to many that some students are better than others and any celebration of such is frowned upon. How do you breed success oriented children who consistently strive to be improve in a system like that?

There are of course other issue, where many students are categorized based on race and/or upbringing and this effectively curtails their educational opportunities.

Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#18

Post by pflats »

adjwilli wrote: post #5
luu wrote: post #3

I'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.

Glibly, all of it. Immigrants make up 98.9% of the United States population as of the latest census.

Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#19

Post by jsdalton »

tdfx wrote: post #14
flatline wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the biggest cultural problem we have is the constant search and glorification of the prodigy/wonderkid and the consequent obsession with "natural talent", as if everyone has some special innate skill that they're destined to discover and be the best at. If you don't understand calculus the first time around, it doesn't mean you're not a "math person", it means you need to sit down and RTFM for a few more hour…

Great points. My background growing up was similar to yours.

If it makes you feel better, in raising my daughter I'm trying to do things a better way. I do believe my daughter is gifted, but I spend little if any time praising for that. Instead, I talk about how things like hard word, perseverance, and practice are the key ingredients of success, and I point out and discuss examples wherever I can.

I'll let you know in about 10 years or so whether it made a difference. :)

Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

#20

Post by joshdick »

luu wrote: post #3

I'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…

The U.S. looks bad compared to other countries because we have more poor children than they do. If you compare our middle-class and upper-class children to theirs, we look a lot better.

The U.S. does not have an education problem; it has a child poverty problem.

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