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> You cannot conclude that USA has excellent educational system if it delivers the great outcomes for certain advantaged subgroups. To the contrary, you could

by xyzzyz 2y ago

> You cannot conclude that USA has excellent educational system if it delivers the great outcomes for certain advantaged subgroups. To the contrary, you could totally conclude from this that US has excellent educational system at least with respect to these, as you call them, “advantaged” groups. At best you could argue that the system is not so excellent for other, less well performing groups. However, these less well performing groups still perform better in US system than matched groups outside the US, so it is indeed the case that for both higher and lower performing groups, US educational system beats all other systems around the world.

aerhardt 2y ago
Why would you compare the advantaged US groups versus the entirety of other populations?
- xyzzyz 2y ago
  Can you clarify what you mean by “advantaged”? I am not exactly sure what you are talking about.
  - aerhardt 2y ago
    I am talking about the leading group, whatever that may be, why would you split only the United States by a certain dimension and compare it to the entirety of other populations?
    - xyzzyz 2y ago
      Ah, I get it now. Yes, it would be more apples-to-apples to, for example, compare white Americans with ancestral Europeans, by disaggregating scores in European countries by ethnic/ancestral group of origin. However, this would not affect comparison greatly, because in European countries, the children of ancestral Europeans comprise 80-90% of the total, compared to <45% in US, so taking the whole aggregate instead of this 80-90% doesn’t change that much. Same is true for East Asian countries: immigrant population in Japan or Taiwan is pretty negligible, as these countries are fairly homogenous. Finally, for countries with highly heterogeneous populations, like eg India or Indonesia, none of the large ethnic groups is ahead of US whites.
      - aerhardt 2y ago
        I think I've found the answer and it's simpler than that. There is no analysis splitting whites or other ethnic groups because PISA has national variations of questionnaires (source on the US one below), and in all likelihood no other country splits by race. It's still weird, probably lacking rigor and methodological soundness, to split American races out and compare them to the bulk of other populations. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/data/datasets/pisa/pisa-2022-datasets/national-versions-pisa-2022-datasets/United%20States.zip https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/data/datasets/pisa/...
        xyzzyz 2y ago
        It might not be super sound methodologically to only do it for US in PISA, but I don’t think that it affect results significantly. Other high performing countries have highly homogenous populations, so the aggregate score of the entire country is very close to the score of the top performing group. On the other hand, in countries with heterogenous populations like India, Indonesia, Afghanistan or Nigeria, even the top groups are not performing very well. If you know of a country other than US, where the top performing group does significantly better than country average, and their performance is on the level of, say, European average, I’d be very curious to learn about it!
        aerhardt 2y ago
        The main methodological problem is how one can leave out like 40% of the United States, and say that the US comes on top (which it still doesn't!). Like, I'm not even questioning the racial split data, but selecting the two groups and saying that the US is the best is a weird flex that wouldn't pass muster in Stats 101.
        xyzzyz 2y ago
        I’m not leaving out anyone. What I’m saying is that each American group individually comes out out of top, relative to matching groups elsewhere, and the fact that overall we don’t, is just an example of Simpson’s paradox. American blacks and Hispanics are ahead of foreign blacks and Hispanics too, it’s not just whites and Asians.
ivan_gammel 2y ago
> However, these less well performing groups still perform better in US system than matched groups outside the US If you pick random data points you can support with them any theory. Comparing white Americans (a random group of people defined by a subjective criteria, rather than by anything scientific) to a whole European country is random. Now, speaking of the choice of subgroups. If you select best performing subgroups to see which country can support the best talent, why are you not looking at the results of international olympiads? IOI - China, Russia, then USA. IPhO - China dominates the list of winners. IMO - USA has some wins, but China won more.
- xyzzyz 2y ago
  > Comparing white Americans (a random group of people defined by a subjective criteria, rather than by anything scientific) to a whole European country is random. “White Americans” is very much not a “random group defined by subjective criteria”. Self-identification as white is extremely highly correlated with objective, measurable metrics like percent of European ancestry, and this also makes US whites directly comparable to population of European countries, which as it happens still are overwhelmingly comprised by people of European ancestry. I am not selecting best performing group for the sake of comparison, I’m just comparing various natural and obvious population clusters that have been understood and distinguished by everyone completely unrelatedly to the discussion of educational outcomes. The category of white Americans has not been invented to show how great US education is. I am totally interested in comparing educational outcomes of white Americans with other major ethnic or ancestral populations in other countries, it’s just white Americans come out ahead almost every single time.
  - ivan_gammel 2y ago
    Self-identification on the basis of race is not objective. Races do not exist, it is a scientific fact. There are many other more reasonable ways to cluster American population. Ancestral angle is important, but only from cultural proximity perspective if you talk about people who are 5-10th generation Americans. Black Americans that are descendants of slaves may have higher proximity to Europe than to Africa, so they should be included in the group that you compare to Europe and anyway that comparison must be based on some theory, otherwise it’s just cherry-picking for building a convenient narrative.
eitally 2y ago
I'm with you (just to be clear): the educational system is perfectly fine in the US. The problem is that the educational system in the US is designed to be fine for the subset of kids who come from families that 1) speak English, 2) are educated themselves, 3) hold full time employment. Whenever these debates about the US education system arise it's important to clarify that when people who complain about the system do so, they're really complaining that the lack of a social safety net is keeping the doors open in public schools for kids whose families (and themselves) don't see value in formal education, can't maintain daily attendance for various reasons, may not have internet access at home, don't have food safety, may have health and developmental issues, and may not even have one parent caring for them. I don't care whether science shows a differentiation in IQ between racial groups, because that is so much less important than addressing how well a kid will be able to learn when they are being raised in poverty by a single parent without a college education who doesn't speak English natively and may not even be in the country legally. That is the problem.
- xyzzyz 2y ago
  > The problem is that the educational system in the US is designed to be fine for the subset of kids who come from families that 1) speak English, 2) are educated themselves, 3) hold full time employment. I think that, to the contrary, the US educational system goes to great lengths to accommodate students for whom English is a second language. Second, I can scarcely think of a way the US education is designed for the children of educated parents. Obviously they do better than children of uneducated parents, but it is hard to even imagine the system where this would not be true; certainly it’s not true anywhere else in the world. Finally, I think that regarding the full time employment of the parents, literally the opposite is true: it’s designed with the opposite assumption. For example, elementary school is not 10 hours long, as it would have been if it assumed that both parents are occupied for 8 hours every day.
sophacles 2y ago
> To the contrary, you could totally conclude from this that US has excellent educational system at least with respect to these, as you call them, “advantaged” groups Wouldn't the educational system being geared towards these groups be an advantage granted to those groups?
- rendang 2y ago
  > the educational system being geared towards these groups What does that mean?

by xyzzyz 2y ago

aerhardt 2y ago

Why would you compare the advantaged US groups versus the entirety of other populations?

xyzzyz 2y ago
Can you clarify what you mean by “advantaged”? I am not exactly sure what you are talking about.
- aerhardt 2y ago
  I am talking about the leading group, whatever that may be, why would you split only the United States by a certain dimension and compare it to the entirety of other populations?
  - xyzzyz 2y ago
    Ah, I get it now. Yes, it would be more apples-to-apples to, for example, compare white Americans with ancestral Europeans, by disaggregating scores in European countries by ethnic/ancestral group of origin. However, this would not affect comparison greatly, because in European countries, the children of ancestral Europeans comprise 80-90% of the total, compared to <45% in US, so taking the whole aggregate instead of this 80-90% doesn’t change that much. Same is true for East Asian countries: immigrant population in Japan or Taiwan is pretty negligible, as these countries are fairly homogenous. Finally, for countries with highly heterogeneous populations, like eg India or Indonesia, none of the large ethnic groups is ahead of US whites.
    - aerhardt 2y ago
      I think I've found the answer and it's simpler than that. There is no analysis splitting whites or other ethnic groups because PISA has national variations of questionnaires (source on the US one below), and in all likelihood no other country splits by race. It's still weird, probably lacking rigor and methodological soundness, to split American races out and compare them to the bulk of other populations. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/data/datasets/pisa/pisa-2022-datasets/national-versions-pisa-2022-datasets/United%20States.zip https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/data/datasets/pisa/...
      - xyzzyz 2y ago
        It might not be super sound methodologically to only do it for US in PISA, but I don’t think that it affect results significantly. Other high performing countries have highly homogenous populations, so the aggregate score of the entire country is very close to the score of the top performing group. On the other hand, in countries with heterogenous populations like India, Indonesia, Afghanistan or Nigeria, even the top groups are not performing very well. If you know of a country other than US, where the top performing group does significantly better than country average, and their performance is on the level of, say, European average, I’d be very curious to learn about it!
        aerhardt 2y ago
        The main methodological problem is how one can leave out like 40% of the United States, and say that the US comes on top (which it still doesn't!). Like, I'm not even questioning the racial split data, but selecting the two groups and saying that the US is the best is a weird flex that wouldn't pass muster in Stats 101.
        xyzzyz 2y ago
        I’m not leaving out anyone. What I’m saying is that each American group individually comes out out of top, relative to matching groups elsewhere, and the fact that overall we don’t, is just an example of Simpson’s paradox. American blacks and Hispanics are ahead of foreign blacks and Hispanics too, it’s not just whites and Asians.

ivan_gammel 2y ago

> However, these less well performing groups still perform better in US system than matched groups outside the US If you pick random data points you can support with them any theory. Comparing white Americans (a random group of people defined by a subjective criteria, rather than by anything scientific) to a whole European country is random. Now, speaking of the choice of subgroups. If you select best performing subgroups to see which country can support the best talent, why are you not looking at the results of international olympiads? IOI - China, Russia, then USA. IPhO - China dominates the list of winners. IMO - USA has some wins, but China won more.

xyzzyz 2y ago
> Comparing white Americans (a random group of people defined by a subjective criteria, rather than by anything scientific) to a whole European country is random. “White Americans” is very much not a “random group defined by subjective criteria”. Self-identification as white is extremely highly correlated with objective, measurable metrics like percent of European ancestry, and this also makes US whites directly comparable to population of European countries, which as it happens still are overwhelmingly comprised by people of European ancestry. I am not selecting best performing group for the sake of comparison, I’m just comparing various natural and obvious population clusters that have been understood and distinguished by everyone completely unrelatedly to the discussion of educational outcomes. The category of white Americans has not been invented to show how great US education is. I am totally interested in comparing educational outcomes of white Americans with other major ethnic or ancestral populations in other countries, it’s just white Americans come out ahead almost every single time.
- ivan_gammel 2y ago
  Self-identification on the basis of race is not objective. Races do not exist, it is a scientific fact. There are many other more reasonable ways to cluster American population. Ancestral angle is important, but only from cultural proximity perspective if you talk about people who are 5-10th generation Americans. Black Americans that are descendants of slaves may have higher proximity to Europe than to Africa, so they should be included in the group that you compare to Europe and anyway that comparison must be based on some theory, otherwise it’s just cherry-picking for building a convenient narrative.

eitally 2y ago

I'm with you (just to be clear): the educational system is perfectly fine in the US. The problem is that the educational system in the US is designed to be fine for the subset of kids who come from families that 1) speak English, 2) are educated themselves, 3) hold full time employment. Whenever these debates about the US education system arise it's important to clarify that when people who complain about the system do so, they're really complaining that the lack of a social safety net is keeping the doors open in public schools for kids whose families (and themselves) don't see value in formal education, can't maintain daily attendance for various reasons, may not have internet access at home, don't have food safety, may have health and developmental issues, and may not even have one parent caring for them. I don't care whether science shows a differentiation in IQ between racial groups, because that is so much less important than addressing how well a kid will be able to learn when they are being raised in poverty by a single parent without a college education who doesn't speak English natively and may not even be in the country legally. That is the problem.

xyzzyz 2y ago
> The problem is that the educational system in the US is designed to be fine for the subset of kids who come from families that 1) speak English, 2) are educated themselves, 3) hold full time employment. I think that, to the contrary, the US educational system goes to great lengths to accommodate students for whom English is a second language. Second, I can scarcely think of a way the US education is designed for the children of educated parents. Obviously they do better than children of uneducated parents, but it is hard to even imagine the system where this would not be true; certainly it’s not true anywhere else in the world. Finally, I think that regarding the full time employment of the parents, literally the opposite is true: it’s designed with the opposite assumption. For example, elementary school is not 10 hours long, as it would have been if it assumed that both parents are occupied for 8 hours every day.

sophacles 2y ago

> To the contrary, you could totally conclude from this that US has excellent educational system at least with respect to these, as you call them, “advantaged” groups Wouldn't the educational system being geared towards these groups be an advantage granted to those groups?

rendang 2y ago
> the educational system being geared towards these groups What does that mean?