3 ms·

What are some external comparisons?

by gpawl 9y ago

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".
    - wahern 9y ago
      > Basically, you measure things that you can measure, even if they're imperfect measures of "I want to make the world a better place". Yes, of course. But the question is precisely about the significance of what we're measuring, and the conclusions we can draw. The current derisive narrative is that American schools teach to the test. The article points out that despite test scores staying the same or getting stronger, the opinion of American schools has stayed the same or dropped. Part of the narrative is that the tests are too narrowly focused (which, as you point out, isn't a coincidence or for lack of effort). This derision is echoed by the poster I replied to. At the same time, the poster points to PISA test scores. But as I pointed out, the PISA is just another multiple-choice test and, AFAICT, fairly subject to all the same criticisms as the American standardized test. Basically, the whole debate--national and international--suffers from confusion, ignorance, and in some cases outright irrationality. (I do not mean to imply anything about the poster to whom I replied.) On the one hand we have more data points than ever. On the other hand there's little data about what all this new data is actually telling us, if anything, about the quality of our citizenry and workforce. But given what we do know, such as how quickly a skills gap can be bridged, all other things equal, or how critical it is to develop both knowledge acquisition skills and opportunity, there's reason to believe that a lot of the data--particularly the standardized test data--is meaningless at the macro scale and in isolation. Much like nutritional science, I think we'd all do well to emphasize how little we actually know. As it currently stands we're merely weaponizing data in contexts where we have little reason to believe it has significant meaning. That doesn't mean gathering that data is pointless; just that it might not be as easily applied as we'd like.

What are some external comparisons?

by gpawl 9y ago

What are some external comparisons?

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".
  - wahern 9y ago
    > Basically, you measure things that you can measure, even if they're imperfect measures of "I want to make the world a better place". Yes, of course. But the question is precisely about the significance of what we're measuring, and the conclusions we can draw. The current derisive narrative is that American schools teach to the test. The article points out that despite test scores staying the same or getting stronger, the opinion of American schools has stayed the same or dropped. Part of the narrative is that the tests are too narrowly focused (which, as you point out, isn't a coincidence or for lack of effort). This derision is echoed by the poster I replied to. At the same time, the poster points to PISA test scores. But as I pointed out, the PISA is just another multiple-choice test and, AFAICT, fairly subject to all the same criticisms as the American standardized test. Basically, the whole debate--national and international--suffers from confusion, ignorance, and in some cases outright irrationality. (I do not mean to imply anything about the poster to whom I replied.) On the one hand we have more data points than ever. On the other hand there's little data about what all this new data is actually telling us, if anything, about the quality of our citizenry and workforce. But given what we do know, such as how quickly a skills gap can be bridged, all other things equal, or how critical it is to develop both knowledge acquisition skills and opportunity, there's reason to believe that a lot of the data--particularly the standardized test data--is meaningless at the macro scale and in isolation. Much like nutritional science, I think we'd all do well to emphasize how little we actually know. As it currently stands we're merely weaponizing data in contexts where we have little reason to believe it has significant meaning. That doesn't mean gathering that data is pointless; just that it might not be as easily applied as we'd like.