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Excellent observation. The Pisa study data shows one conclusion about education in America: Different racial groups perform at different levels. We are succe

Excellent observation. The Pisa study data shows one conclusion about education in America: Different racial groups perform at different levels. We are succeeding with some minority groups and failing with others. Whites in America test higher than Finns in Finland. Where we are failing is in educating our African American kids. The entire article relies on people not reading the data from the Pisa study, and for those who have read the data to ignore what it shows, from some misplaced desire not to seem racist.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
Whites in America test higher than Finns in Finland. No. You should read the blog post I linked to. American whites scores 524 (tied with Belgium for #6-#7 in the white world), Finland is #1 at 546. Immigrants in both the US and Finland score roughly the same, about 500 pts. Finland has a larger gap, since their non-immigrants score considerably higher. Make no mistake - the inequality is caused by Finns scoring very high, not by their immigrants scoring very low.
- fdschoeneman 15y ago
  You're right, I interpolated "finns" for "Western Europeans," which is what was said in the first paragraph of the link you chastised me for not reading: "American students outperform Western Europe by significant margins and tie with Asian students." The article you linked goes on to clarify: "The mean score of Americans with European ancestry is 524, compared to 506 in Europe, when first and second generation immigrants are excluded." The correct comparison is European ancestry to European ancestry, excluding first and second generation, not "American whites" vs. Finns. In any case, I've seen this study pop up for a while now, and more recently on facebook a lot of my friends have been linking The Atlantic's piece.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    The correct comparison is European ancestry to European ancestry, excluding first and second generation, not "American whites" vs. Finns. True. But since the number of European immigrants to the US and non-white native Finns is very low, the correct comparison is unlikely to differ significantly from the numbers given. So technically you are right, but I don't think there will be much difference in practice. Do you disagree? It's also the best comparison currently possible, since I don't know of any data set that provides more granular data than what Sanandaji used. Do you?
droithomme 15y ago
A really interesting finding in studies of homeschooled kids is that blacks and whites do pretty much the same, whereas in school blacks do much worse. This is also completely decorrelated from whether the parent teachers have any background in education, how much they spend, or even whether they have college degrees. I see this as evidence that outcomes are not because of intrinsic genetic factors but because of systematic bias within institutional education. Bias is unlikely to be intentional, but it likely does exist and has significant influence on results.
- jaredmck 15y ago
  Wonder If this is explained away by huge gap in socioeconomic status of average black home schoolers, compared to the average black public school family; while status differences for white homeschool compared to white public school fama wouldn't be that pronounced.
- drumdance 15y ago
  ISTR several years ago seeing a study showing that racial differences are practically nonexistent for students at military schools (that is, children of military parents who go to schools on base).
- Game_Ender 15y ago
  That follows the studies in cited in Freakanomics showing it's the parental involvement which is the real factor. If the parent cares about education the child is much more likely to end up well educated.

yummyfajitas 15y ago

Whites in America test higher than Finns in Finland. No. You should read the blog post I linked to. American whites scores 524 (tied with Belgium for #6-#7 in the white world), Finland is #1 at 546. Immigrants in both the US and Finland score roughly the same, about 500 pts. Finland has a larger gap, since their non-immigrants score considerably higher. Make no mistake - the inequality is caused by Finns scoring very high, not by their immigrants scoring very low.

fdschoeneman 15y ago
You're right, I interpolated "finns" for "Western Europeans," which is what was said in the first paragraph of the link you chastised me for not reading: "American students outperform Western Europe by significant margins and tie with Asian students." The article you linked goes on to clarify: "The mean score of Americans with European ancestry is 524, compared to 506 in Europe, when first and second generation immigrants are excluded." The correct comparison is European ancestry to European ancestry, excluding first and second generation, not "American whites" vs. Finns. In any case, I've seen this study pop up for a while now, and more recently on facebook a lot of my friends have been linking The Atlantic's piece.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  The correct comparison is European ancestry to European ancestry, excluding first and second generation, not "American whites" vs. Finns. True. But since the number of European immigrants to the US and non-white native Finns is very low, the correct comparison is unlikely to differ significantly from the numbers given. So technically you are right, but I don't think there will be much difference in practice. Do you disagree? It's also the best comparison currently possible, since I don't know of any data set that provides more granular data than what Sanandaji used. Do you?

droithomme 15y ago

A really interesting finding in studies of homeschooled kids is that blacks and whites do pretty much the same, whereas in school blacks do much worse. This is also completely decorrelated from whether the parent teachers have any background in education, how much they spend, or even whether they have college degrees. I see this as evidence that outcomes are not because of intrinsic genetic factors but because of systematic bias within institutional education. Bias is unlikely to be intentional, but it likely does exist and has significant influence on results.

jaredmck 15y ago
Wonder If this is explained away by huge gap in socioeconomic status of average black home schoolers, compared to the average black public school family; while status differences for white homeschool compared to white public school fama wouldn't be that pronounced.
drumdance 15y ago
ISTR several years ago seeing a study showing that racial differences are practically nonexistent for students at military schools (that is, children of military parents who go to schools on base).
Game_Ender 15y ago
That follows the studies in cited in Freakanomics showing it's the parental involvement which is the real factor. If the parent cares about education the child is much more likely to end up well educated.