5 ms·

Oh come on, every study puts the US in a mediocre position in education within the OECD. That's not a debate.

smsm42 9y ago
What is "position in education"? I notice that's the third person making claims without backing them up or even substantiating them enough to be verifyable ("US school sucks" is not verifyable, "US schools ranked number N according to metric M published by organization O" is). I don't know where these people are educated so not sure whether I can take it as anecdotal evidence to either side... Also protip: "this is not a debate" doesn't make you automatically win a debate.
- pnutjam 9y ago
  The US is also exceptional in how bad its bad schools are, this drags our averages down. While it's a tragedy for the kids who are not being served, it's a distortion to say all US schools are bad when most are not.
  - vilmosi 9y ago
    That's how averages work unfortunately.
    - smsm42 9y ago
      Conversation looks like this: A: X is true. B: Please provide proof. A: Here is metric using averaging over large populations. B: Using averages over large populations is hiding important details about X. A: How else we could compare large populations?! We must use globals averages! B: Averages have the effect of very small number of very bad instances distort the result of large population which would have much better results, thus making it appear bad results are much more common than they are actually are. We know specifically this is the case for the question we are discussing. A: Well, that's how averages work, nothing can be done about it. Don't you think something is missing here?
      - vilmosi 9y ago
        No, not really. If your job is to compare countries, how else would you do it? Seriously. PS: you know medians exist and those studies account for it, right? Nobody is saying YOUR school is mediocre.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        Aside from population-wide sums or “averages” (in the specific sense of “arithmetic mean”), there's also models, medians, various distributional measures, etc. Which subset (which may include more than one selection) of these are most appropriate for a particular comparison depends on the specific purpose of the comparison. Arithmetic mean and/or sums are usually the easiest measures, but quite often not the most relevant.
        vilmosi 9y ago
        I know, I'm trying to understand what studies contradict PISA and why is it faulty.
- vilmosi 9y ago
  When I say it's not a debate, I don't say that to "win a debate". I mean it in a "debating the flat earth hypothesis is not a debate" sense. There's many studies about this, it's not a controversial topic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_...
  - learc83 9y ago
    Averages often say very little about a population. There are states and metro areas in the US with (and this is the important part) populations as large as many high ranked European countries that rank at the very top of the world in any educational metric.
    - vilmosi 9y ago
      Every country has good and bad parts. That's the point of averages. How else would you compare countries? The study only compares averages and that's all that people are saying. It's totally possible that the best secondary school in the world is in the US but that's not the point. And I don't see how population size is important, as you say. Schools in the US are locally funded, no?
      - learc83 9y ago
        >Every country has good and bad parts. That's the point of averages. How else would you compare countries? Surely you understand that averages are often misleading and can be worse than useless. The US is the most diverse large country in the world. Averages do not work well when comparing highly varied populations. >And I don't see how population size is important, as you say. There are many smaller countries with better average educational outcomes than the US. But none of the countries with higher scores are anywhere near the size and diversity of the US. The only country even close to the US in population is China and you'll note that test scores are only available for the highest performing provinces. If you want to make a proper comparison, you'd need to compare the US with something like the entire continent of Europe. Finland is more analogous to say Massachusetts than it is to the entire US.

What is "position in education"? I notice that's the third person making claims without backing them up or even substantiating them enough to be verifyable ("US school sucks" is not verifyable, "US schools ranked number N according to metric M published by organization O" is). I don't know where these people are educated so not sure whether I can take it as anecdotal evidence to either side... Also protip: "this is not a debate" doesn't make you automatically win a debate.

pnutjam 9y ago
The US is also exceptional in how bad its bad schools are, this drags our averages down. While it's a tragedy for the kids who are not being served, it's a distortion to say all US schools are bad when most are not.
- vilmosi 9y ago
  That's how averages work unfortunately.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    Conversation looks like this: A: X is true. B: Please provide proof. A: Here is metric using averaging over large populations. B: Using averages over large populations is hiding important details about X. A: How else we could compare large populations?! We must use globals averages! B: Averages have the effect of very small number of very bad instances distort the result of large population which would have much better results, thus making it appear bad results are much more common than they are actually are. We know specifically this is the case for the question we are discussing. A: Well, that's how averages work, nothing can be done about it. Don't you think something is missing here?
    - vilmosi 9y ago
      No, not really. If your job is to compare countries, how else would you do it? Seriously. PS: you know medians exist and those studies account for it, right? Nobody is saying YOUR school is mediocre.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        Aside from population-wide sums or “averages” (in the specific sense of “arithmetic mean”), there's also models, medians, various distributional measures, etc. Which subset (which may include more than one selection) of these are most appropriate for a particular comparison depends on the specific purpose of the comparison. Arithmetic mean and/or sums are usually the easiest measures, but quite often not the most relevant.
        vilmosi 9y ago
        I know, I'm trying to understand what studies contradict PISA and why is it faulty.
vilmosi 9y ago
When I say it's not a debate, I don't say that to "win a debate". I mean it in a "debating the flat earth hypothesis is not a debate" sense. There's many studies about this, it's not a controversial topic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_...
- learc83 9y ago
  Averages often say very little about a population. There are states and metro areas in the US with (and this is the important part) populations as large as many high ranked European countries that rank at the very top of the world in any educational metric.
  - vilmosi 9y ago
    Every country has good and bad parts. That's the point of averages. How else would you compare countries? The study only compares averages and that's all that people are saying. It's totally possible that the best secondary school in the world is in the US but that's not the point. And I don't see how population size is important, as you say. Schools in the US are locally funded, no?
    - learc83 9y ago
      >Every country has good and bad parts. That's the point of averages. How else would you compare countries? Surely you understand that averages are often misleading and can be worse than useless. The US is the most diverse large country in the world. Averages do not work well when comparing highly varied populations. >And I don't see how population size is important, as you say. There are many smaller countries with better average educational outcomes than the US. But none of the countries with higher scores are anywhere near the size and diversity of the US. The only country even close to the US in population is China and you'll note that test scores are only available for the highest performing provinces. If you want to make a proper comparison, you'd need to compare the US with something like the entire continent of Europe. Finland is more analogous to say Massachusetts than it is to the entire US.