TL;DR "because they test really heavily, or because they don't test much at all. Wait, what? There's got to be some causation here somewhere."
Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
21–30 of 55 posts
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#22Actually, I'm just surprised that the U.S. is ahead of Germany in both categories. Naiveté on my part?
As far as I know (I was born and live in Germany, but please correct me if I'm wrong) the German education system is known for a great variance in performance of pupils.
This means there are some pupils that perform very well, but also some that perform very poorly. These extremes are more pronounced than in comparable countries.
Many people say that the education system is cementing the social hierarchy: if you are very well educated, your children will mostly become the same, but it is rather difficult for children to move up the social ladder if they have poorly educated parents.
Because there are many top performers the German economy has enough skilled personnel to be competitive (what to do with the less well educated is a much-debated topic - because of the distinct German health and welfare system the status-quo leads to less social tensions than it would probably in the U.S.).
TLDR: it is plausible that the U.S. is ahead on average. The German education system is probably better on the top performers and worse on the bottom performers.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#23Earlier 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…
Spend time fixing your weaknesses or building on your strengths? Not an obvious choice in my opinion.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#24In previous years these results have been driven primarily by African Americans and Hispanics (groups which don't exist to any significant degree in Europe or Asia) dragging the US average down. European Americans do very well when compared to European nations, and Asian Americans do well when compared to Asian nations (a bit worse in math, better in reading).
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou... http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...
Do we have any reason to believe that situation has changed? (I haven't read the latest report, so I don't know.)
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#25I'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.
This is exactly right. The US system has it's flaws, but other systems are just as bad or worse.
The problem is the divide between rich, middle class and poor. Poor kids just don't score nearly as high on tests than middle class and wealthy kids.
Of course, I don't have the stats or evidence, but I suspect if you took out our (USA) bottom 20% and the other countries bottom 20%, you would see a much more even comparison.
Just a theory.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If you continue to extend your time scale, immigrants make up 100% of the US population.
(Assuming that "immigrant" != "first-generation immigrant, of course, which seems to be in line with your comment.)
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#27I'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…
IMO and Putnum are comparing the best of each nation. This article is comparing the median of each nation. I wouldn't expect a strong correlation there. Both matter.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Glibly, all of it. Immigrants make up 98.9% of the United States population as of the latest census.
If you continue to extend your time scale, immigrants make up 100% of the US population. (Assuming that "immigrant" != "first-generation immigrant, of course, which seems to be in line with your comment.)
That's true of all non-african countries.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#29I'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.
In turn, the child poverty problem is related to whether a child has both parents in the household.
Re: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
#30I'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.
The socioeconomic impact on students is definitely incredibly important.
While I know this is anecdotal, my wife is a reading/psychology teacher at a high school in Florida that is widely considered one of the worst, if not the worst, in the state. It's incredible the ways in which the students socioeconomic state plays into their ability and/or desire to learn. Everything from the students parents not being capable of or not willing to contribute to their educational growth to peer pressure from other students to not stand out (which includes appearing smarter than others, sadly).
My wife is lucky to be in a position where she can teach them in small groups of 1-3 students and get them away from that peer pressure. In these circumstances, and when someone is believing in their ability to do better, they really do excel and are incredibly bright. It's just like you said, their socioeconomic position has stacked the cards against them for a very long time and it becomes easy to fall into the same rut everyone else is in within those areas.