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I was a B student in a Russian school from 1 to 8th grade and started in an American High School in 1999. If you factored in ungodly amount of mandatory summer

I was a B student in a Russian school from 1 to 8th grade and started in an American High School in 1999. If you factored in ungodly amount of mandatory summer break reading everyone had to do in Russian schools, you'd probably end up with 3 times the material covered in a span of a year compared to American schools. This basically allowed me to just coast through all 4 years of High School with all kinds of stupid awards and a GPA of 4.0. The same amount of effort would've probably turned me into a dropout back in Russia. Kids here don't learn anything and I think lack of quality material both in and outside of school is to blame. Ironically, I hear they don't learn much in Russian schools either these days.

maoistinquisitr 9y ago
These anecdotes from smart foreigners contemptuous of Americans never make any sense against the stats. White Americans outperform all of them in the PISA tests. America only performs poorly in the PISA tests when you don't exclude non-whites.
- eat_veggies 9y ago
  Non-whites are Americans too, and I don't see a reason to exclude them. The fact that non-white students perform so poorly as to drag down the average so much speaks of a massive systematic failure in education.
  - txcwpalpha 9y ago
    If whites have high test scores while non-whites don't, it might mean that the system does work for some groups, but not for others. This indicates as problem not with the curriculum, but rather with the way the curriculum is "distributed" (aka: the massive disparity between schools in wealthy areas vs poor urban areas). This is a pretty important distinction to make, given that this entire discussion is regarding the content of the curriculum.
    - maoistinquisitr 9y ago
      The system works for all groups. Russian-Americans outperform Russians. Nigerian-Americans outperform Nigerians. And so on. There is ultimately a problem of the students involved that is not going to change on the scale of a single generation or two. Across multiple generations of concerted effort, who knows. But ignoring what might be 200 years from now the American education system actually works pretty well.
    - fma 9y ago
      It's not the case. Citation another commenter posted https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html?m=1 https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-in...
      - txcwpalpha 9y ago
        I fail to see how "it's not the case". That link very clearly shows that White Americans and Asian Americans vastly outperform African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Asian Americans are #4 on that list and White Americans are #16, bested only by a handful of Asian and European countries that are notorious for their stellar education systems. Meanwhile, Hispanic Americans are around #50 and African Americans around #60 on that list.
        fma 9y ago
        Your original comment said "If whites have high test scores while non-whites don't" Whites do not have the highest test scores. Are you implying Asian Americans live in wealthier areas than whites?
        txcwpalpha 9y ago
        Based on your link, it very clearly shows that some groups in America excel in America's education system while other groups don't. I'm not sure why you're so intent on splitting hairs about that. By the way, yes, Asian Americans typically do live in higher-income areas when compared to other racial groups in America. Very few Asian Americans live in rural areas or in states that are known to have poor education distributions (eg deep south). Asian Americans overwhelmingly live in LA, NYC, Massachusetts, Dallas, Houston, or the Bay Area, which are certainly more "wealthier area" than places like rural Alabama, West Virginia, or Montana where poorer whites live. Asian Americans have the highest income levels out of any racial group in America. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_American...
- smnrchrds 9y ago
  Considering that racial difference in learning outcomes is due to socioeconomic status, if you are going to use socioeconomic status to normalize or filter American results, shouldn't you also do it for the country you are comparing it to? I am sure if you exclude poor people from the results of every country (or use a proxy for poverty like race in America; perhaps religion, ethno-linguistic background, geographical location, etc in other countries) the results for all of them would significantly improve. It's not fair to compare rich people from country A with the average of county B.
  - wavegeek 9y ago
    > Considering that racial difference in learning outcomes is due to socioeconomic status Citation required
    - fma 9y ago
      For what it's worth here's a citation proving counter to the statement...I stole from another commenter. https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html?m=1 https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-in... As someone who grew up in a poor immigrant family where the first generation was uneducated and spoke no English...I always find it insulting when low education is attributed to not having money. Not just myself as a counter anecdote, but 10 out of 11 of us second generation have college degrees and doing pretty darn well for ourselves . #11 is still in college.
      - maoistinquisitr 9y ago
        Just goes to show you that school smarts don't make a successful nation. It takes a cohesive people and cultural heritage. This is why immigration is such a huge problem. I don't care how smart and high earning and proud of themselves the foreigner in question happens to be. These people are a huge problem for our future. We got where we are in substantial part on the basis of our culture and self respect. We can do without the snide foreigners. They should leave. After all, You're here. I'm not making derogatory and chauvinistic comments in your country.
- nopinsight 9y ago
  Your second sentence is clearly not accurate, especially for math: https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html?m=1 https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-in...
  - maoistinquisitr 9y ago
    The Sino nations completely game these tests. Japan is legit. The Baltics are legit. The high entries for China et al are total nonsense and should be struck from the list. They game who takes the test, and it's not tightly observed.
    - fma 9y ago
      The purpose of the link I think is not about other countries but the subset between Asian Americans, white Americans, multi racial Americans and other races. White and multi racial are very similar. Asian Americans are much higher. Unless you think the Asians Americans in America somehow game it...
    - nopinsight 9y ago
      That is often claimed without much evidence. Any citations? Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, for example are well known for their technical capabilities, which correlate well with the PISA scores. The link I posted refutes the GGP’s second sentence regardless of which countries have a higher score since there are quite a few of them in several geographic regions.
- avenoir 9y ago
  > White Americans outperform all of them in the PISA tests. America only performs poorly in the PISA tests when you don't exclude non-whites. I'm not sure that's a good metric of overall literacy levels in the country. Additionally, I think Soviet-era education, which expired around 2002, always stacked up pretty well to other leading countries.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > These anecdotes from smart foreigners contemptuous of Americans never make any sense against the stats. It doesn't seem unlikely that smart foreigners might be placed in schools with other smart kids in their home country, while getting placed in schools with average kids in the US. As a smart white American who went to an unselective American college, it was certainly easy to learn contempt for the abilities of the students there.

maoistinquisitr 9y ago

These anecdotes from smart foreigners contemptuous of Americans never make any sense against the stats. White Americans outperform all of them in the PISA tests. America only performs poorly in the PISA tests when you don't exclude non-whites.

eat_veggies 9y ago
Non-whites are Americans too, and I don't see a reason to exclude them. The fact that non-white students perform so poorly as to drag down the average so much speaks of a massive systematic failure in education.
- txcwpalpha 9y ago
  If whites have high test scores while non-whites don't, it might mean that the system does work for some groups, but not for others. This indicates as problem not with the curriculum, but rather with the way the curriculum is "distributed" (aka: the massive disparity between schools in wealthy areas vs poor urban areas). This is a pretty important distinction to make, given that this entire discussion is regarding the content of the curriculum.
  - maoistinquisitr 9y ago
    The system works for all groups. Russian-Americans outperform Russians. Nigerian-Americans outperform Nigerians. And so on. There is ultimately a problem of the students involved that is not going to change on the scale of a single generation or two. Across multiple generations of concerted effort, who knows. But ignoring what might be 200 years from now the American education system actually works pretty well.
  - fma 9y ago
    It's not the case. Citation another commenter posted https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html?m=1 https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-in...
    - txcwpalpha 9y ago
      I fail to see how "it's not the case". That link very clearly shows that White Americans and Asian Americans vastly outperform African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Asian Americans are #4 on that list and White Americans are #16, bested only by a handful of Asian and European countries that are notorious for their stellar education systems. Meanwhile, Hispanic Americans are around #50 and African Americans around #60 on that list.
      - fma 9y ago
        Your original comment said "If whites have high test scores while non-whites don't" Whites do not have the highest test scores. Are you implying Asian Americans live in wealthier areas than whites?
        txcwpalpha 9y ago
        Based on your link, it very clearly shows that some groups in America excel in America's education system while other groups don't. I'm not sure why you're so intent on splitting hairs about that. By the way, yes, Asian Americans typically do live in higher-income areas when compared to other racial groups in America. Very few Asian Americans live in rural areas or in states that are known to have poor education distributions (eg deep south). Asian Americans overwhelmingly live in LA, NYC, Massachusetts, Dallas, Houston, or the Bay Area, which are certainly more "wealthier area" than places like rural Alabama, West Virginia, or Montana where poorer whites live. Asian Americans have the highest income levels out of any racial group in America. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_American...
smnrchrds 9y ago
Considering that racial difference in learning outcomes is due to socioeconomic status, if you are going to use socioeconomic status to normalize or filter American results, shouldn't you also do it for the country you are comparing it to? I am sure if you exclude poor people from the results of every country (or use a proxy for poverty like race in America; perhaps religion, ethno-linguistic background, geographical location, etc in other countries) the results for all of them would significantly improve. It's not fair to compare rich people from country A with the average of county B.
- wavegeek 9y ago
  > Considering that racial difference in learning outcomes is due to socioeconomic status Citation required
  - fma 9y ago
    For what it's worth here's a citation proving counter to the statement...I stole from another commenter. https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html?m=1 https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-in... As someone who grew up in a poor immigrant family where the first generation was uneducated and spoke no English...I always find it insulting when low education is attributed to not having money. Not just myself as a counter anecdote, but 10 out of 11 of us second generation have college degrees and doing pretty darn well for ourselves . #11 is still in college.
    - maoistinquisitr 9y ago
      Just goes to show you that school smarts don't make a successful nation. It takes a cohesive people and cultural heritage. This is why immigration is such a huge problem. I don't care how smart and high earning and proud of themselves the foreigner in question happens to be. These people are a huge problem for our future. We got where we are in substantial part on the basis of our culture and self respect. We can do without the snide foreigners. They should leave. After all, You're here. I'm not making derogatory and chauvinistic comments in your country.
nopinsight 9y ago
Your second sentence is clearly not accurate, especially for math: https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html?m=1 https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-in...
- maoistinquisitr 9y ago
  The Sino nations completely game these tests. Japan is legit. The Baltics are legit. The high entries for China et al are total nonsense and should be struck from the list. They game who takes the test, and it's not tightly observed.
  - fma 9y ago
    The purpose of the link I think is not about other countries but the subset between Asian Americans, white Americans, multi racial Americans and other races. White and multi racial are very similar. Asian Americans are much higher. Unless you think the Asians Americans in America somehow game it...
  - nopinsight 9y ago
    That is often claimed without much evidence. Any citations? Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, for example are well known for their technical capabilities, which correlate well with the PISA scores. The link I posted refutes the GGP’s second sentence regardless of which countries have a higher score since there are quite a few of them in several geographic regions.
avenoir 9y ago
> White Americans outperform all of them in the PISA tests. America only performs poorly in the PISA tests when you don't exclude non-whites. I'm not sure that's a good metric of overall literacy levels in the country. Additionally, I think Soviet-era education, which expired around 2002, always stacked up pretty well to other leading countries.
thaumasiotes 9y ago
> These anecdotes from smart foreigners contemptuous of Americans never make any sense against the stats. It doesn't seem unlikely that smart foreigners might be placed in schools with other smart kids in their home country, while getting placed in schools with average kids in the US. As a smart white American who went to an unselective American college, it was certainly easy to learn contempt for the abilities of the students there.