4 ms·

The thesis seems to be "School's are really not that bad". But the article compares only from within the same system. If you look at other countries it's clear

The thesis seems to be "School's are really not that bad". But the article compares only from within the same system. If you look at other countries it's clear the USA is falling behind and public perception is correct.

nanistheonlyist 9y ago
Because the usa has significant racial minority groups, inter country comparisons with more racially homogenous countries are vulnerable to simpson's paradox. If you compare the usa's white kids score to any other country's white kids's scores we do alright. http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm
gpawl 9y ago
What are some external comparisons?
- gumby 9y ago
  PISA is the best, administered by the OECD: Examining the US results: http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/USA?lg=en http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/USA?lg=en The PISA site: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/ http://www.oecd.org/pisa/ Just an example: my son went from a California school to Berlin -- he needed tutoring in English to catch up. He went back to a highly ranked competitive private ("college prep") school in Silicon Valley and found the math he was given in grade 8 was stuff he'd had in German in grade 6. History was much rote and dogma, just like my mother's Asian education. True questioning got in the way of meeting the all-important UC curriculum requirements. And it's worse in the Palo Alto public schools (which are, shockingly, considered some of the best): from talking to my friends and their kids, it's all "teach to the test". If I wanted that I'd have sent my kid to school in Singapore.
  - wahern 9y ago
    > PISA is the best, administered by the OECD: "PISA uses multiple-choice testing as the primary feature of its assessments...". http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisafaq/ http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisafaq/ > If I wanted [teaching to the test] I'd have sent my kid to school in Singapore. AFAIU kids in Singapore also score better than Americans in both math and English. Perhaps curriculums in both Germany and Singapore are tailored toward better PISA scores. Perhaps PISA testing is more segregated or those countries have less income inequality such that their PISA test-takers are generally more relatively wealthy. And I've yet to see any evidence that more advanced curriculums ultimately result in a smarter, more efficient workforce. (What with diminishing returns and all.) Even within a country, elders always lament how the current curriculum is easier or less strict then when they were in school. Never do they provide data showing a worse work force; merely data showing a difference in scores for a very narrow and specific set of skills. AFAIK, kids in Switzerland don't start a normal academic curriculum until age 7, as opposed to age 5 in the U.S. Yet the initial skills gap (such as it is) is quickly erased. That to me suggests the only reason to worry about how advanced is a curriculum is if you have a particular reason to believe it would result in a serious impediment that couldn't be easily overcome. When might that be a real issue? By your account, certainly when changing schools between jurisdictions with significantly different curriculums, like when moving to a different country. Otherwise, it's really quite hard to tell. Americans always lament how kids are unprepared for college, but that cry often sounds like the typical cry of the older generation. Certainly I don't think I've ever heard a professor praise his foreign students over similarly situated native students, particularly by the 4th year.
    - cbhl 9y ago
      > I've yet to see any evidence that more advanced curriculums ultimately result in a smarter, better workforce. Nobody is going to do a study where they change something for a 5-year-old and see the impact twenty or thirty years later. Studies on education focus on specific, measurable outcomes at most three to five years out -- for example, seeing the impact on a cohort between Grade 3 and Grade 6, or measuring the percentage of students that "go on to college", or "graduate with a Bachelor's", or "had a job within 6 and 12 months of graduating". Basically, you measure things that you can measure, even if they're imperfect measures of "I want to make the world a better place".

nanistheonlyist 9y ago

Because the usa has significant racial minority groups, inter country comparisons with more racially homogenous countries are vulnerable to simpson's paradox. If you compare the usa's white kids score to any other country's white kids's scores we do alright. http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm

gpawl 9y ago

What are some external comparisons?

gumby 9y ago
PISA is the best, administered by the OECD: Examining the US results: http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/USA?lg=en http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/USA?lg=en The PISA site: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/ http://www.oecd.org/pisa/ Just an example: my son went from a California school to Berlin -- he needed tutoring in English to catch up. He went back to a highly ranked competitive private ("college prep") school in Silicon Valley and found the math he was given in grade 8 was stuff he'd had in German in grade 6. History was much rote and dogma, just like my mother's Asian education. True questioning got in the way of meeting the all-important UC curriculum requirements. And it's worse in the Palo Alto public schools (which are, shockingly, considered some of the best): from talking to my friends and their kids, it's all "teach to the test". If I wanted that I'd have sent my kid to school in Singapore.
- wahern 9y ago
  > PISA is the best, administered by the OECD: "PISA uses multiple-choice testing as the primary feature of its assessments...". http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisafaq/ http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisafaq/ > If I wanted [teaching to the test] I'd have sent my kid to school in Singapore. AFAIU kids in Singapore also score better than Americans in both math and English. Perhaps curriculums in both Germany and Singapore are tailored toward better PISA scores. Perhaps PISA testing is more segregated or those countries have less income inequality such that their PISA test-takers are generally more relatively wealthy. And I've yet to see any evidence that more advanced curriculums ultimately result in a smarter, more efficient workforce. (What with diminishing returns and all.) Even within a country, elders always lament how the current curriculum is easier or less strict then when they were in school. Never do they provide data showing a worse work force; merely data showing a difference in scores for a very narrow and specific set of skills. AFAIK, kids in Switzerland don't start a normal academic curriculum until age 7, as opposed to age 5 in the U.S. Yet the initial skills gap (such as it is) is quickly erased. That to me suggests the only reason to worry about how advanced is a curriculum is if you have a particular reason to believe it would result in a serious impediment that couldn't be easily overcome. When might that be a real issue? By your account, certainly when changing schools between jurisdictions with significantly different curriculums, like when moving to a different country. Otherwise, it's really quite hard to tell. Americans always lament how kids are unprepared for college, but that cry often sounds like the typical cry of the older generation. Certainly I don't think I've ever heard a professor praise his foreign students over similarly situated native students, particularly by the 4th year.
  - cbhl 9y ago
    > I've yet to see any evidence that more advanced curriculums ultimately result in a smarter, better workforce. Nobody is going to do a study where they change something for a 5-year-old and see the impact twenty or thirty years later. Studies on education focus on specific, measurable outcomes at most three to five years out -- for example, seeing the impact on a cohort between Grade 3 and Grade 6, or measuring the percentage of students that "go on to college", or "graduate with a Bachelor's", or "had a job within 6 and 12 months of graduating". Basically, you measure things that you can measure, even if they're imperfect measures of "I want to make the world a better place".