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I have listened to a great deal of hand wringing since the PISA reports dropped and I think it is easy to concentrate on the negative and overlook the positive

by bilbo0s 13y ago

I have listened to a great deal of hand wringing since the PISA reports dropped and I think it is easy to concentrate on the negative and overlook the positive news from these results. Three points I think we should keep in mind. One, the results were VERY uneven among the states. More importantly, if you look at the Northeast, (Massachusetts, NY, NJ etc), and the western Midwest, (Minnesota, Wisconsin), the scores were pretty competitive relative the top performing nations actually. For instance, in Massachusetts, even if you only counted the scores of black students, the Math and Science average was higher than Finland, which is continuously touted as a model of educational efficiency! Two, teens in Mississippi, Texas, California and Washington are pretty much the same as teens in Minnesota, New Jersey and Massachusetts. This is good news, as it indicates that there are models out there that can be employed to better the performance of students in other areas of the country. Lastly, something about the US creates an openness in its citizens that drives a good deal of activity beneficial to society. The article references, for instance, "... America's entrepreneurial energies, its openness to innovation and creative destruction ...". This "Creativity" has some value, which I would admittedly be challenged to quantify. It is the sort of thing tests will overlook. Which is curious, because in the future I think it will be one of the most important skills, (or, 'traits' perhaps), of the high value worker. My last point had only a tangential relevance to the PISA, I just thought it was an important point to make. That aside, I think the first two points are clearly cause for a cautious optimism here.

smcl 13y ago
"even if you only counted the scores of black students" This is the sort of thing I can never really swallow when reading stuff about education rankings in the states. There's a lot of what seems to be really casual\accidental racism along the lines of the quoted text above as well as things like "controlling for race" and excuses pinning the US's low scores on being "more multicultural". Perhaps this is not the intent but it's sort of painful to read.
- rayiner 13y ago
  It's not "casual racism." It's simply a recognition of the fact that blacks in the U.S. face unique challenges that are not just economic, but social. Those challenges, while important, have effects that can obscure whatever it is that you're actually trying to study. If you're trying to evaluate school quality, it makes no sense not to control for race and socioeconomics. It wasn't the schools that enslaved blacks, segregated them into ghettos, then subjected them to disparate treatment in a violent drug war. And schools won't be the solution to those things either. This isn't an "excuse" it's a recognition of reality. Education by itself cannot be America's salvation for its past sins. Failing to control for race and sociology-economics leads you to the wrong conclusions. If you look at the test scores of students in Chicago, ignoring race, you might be tempted to conclude that Chicago has a problem with its schools. Maybe they need more funding or better teachers. That's the wrong conclusion. The reality is that 90% of kids in Chicago public schools are black or hispanic, and almost 90% are low-income. The schools are in areas of strong gang presence, and gang activity has infiltrated every one of the schools. The gangs have replaced parents and teachers as authority figures and the bedrock of social order has crumbled. Schools, no matter how well funded, and teachers, no matter how qualified, aren't going to fix those root causes. My wife taught in a school on Indian land in eastern Washington. She had an awful experience, because she realized that these kids didn't need teachers with degrees from good schools, but fathers who weren't alcoholics, or indeed fathers in the first place. Schools and education cannot replace these things.
  - smcl 13y ago
    So then why not control for low income or poor social conditions? Why make the connection from black\hispanic to "bad"?
    - rayiner 13y ago
      First, because there is more to it than just income. My wife grew up in a town of about 3,000 people in Iowa. The town had poor people and rich people, but was ethnically homogenous (98% white), and everyone went to the same schools, same churches, their kids played together, etc. I've been to a similar-sized town in Illinois that is ethnically mixed (about half hispanic, half white). The hispanics in that town are poorer than the whites, as a group, go to their own church, don't speak English at home, their kids play with other hispanic kids and not so much with the white kids, though they all go to school together. Then you have places like Chicago, where a neighborhood might be 95% low income hispanic, where kids only play with other low income hispanics and go to a school that is 90%+ low income hispanic. A child with the same family income is going to nonetheless have a dramatically different experience in the three cases. They will have dramatically different experiences not because "hispanic = bad" but because the segregation is bad, and race is a powerful driver of segregation in American communities even today. I agree that it would be better to break things down into the relevant elements, instead of using race as a crude proxy. Adjust for whether parents speak English at home, adjust for educational status of parents, adjust for level of gang activity in the community, adjust for whether father figures are present, adjust for level of social integration between economic classes within the community, etc. Considering all of those things, together, would be better than using race as a proxy. But we don't keep the data in a way that would allow us to measure things that way. We keep track of racial demographics, but not things like the degree to which kids of different economic backgrounds play in mixed instead of segregated groups.
- dionidium 13y ago
  There's also a lot of what seems to be really casual/accidental accusations of racism in contexts where it clearly doesn't exist (i.e. recognizing and accounting for racial differences isn't racist). That different racial groups score differently on IQ tests, for example, is a fact that can be stated without any judgement of value, or, indeed, without any attempt to explain its causes (which are numerous, I'm sure.)
  - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
    A true fact stated in a certain way can lead to false impressions e.g. Group A is poorer than Group B, or Group A have less years of education than Group B. If however, Group A is on average younger than Group B, then the differences may disappear. Is is still "true" to state those "facts" without the extra context?
    - dionidium 13y ago
      You'd obviously want to control for age in exactly the same way as the comment that started this thread mentioned controlling for race. That's exactly what we're talking about. I'd hope nobody would call you ageist for doing so.
      - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
        I don't really have any issue with the original comment, but it was someone rushing to provide context for the apparently misleading fact that "Finland does better than the US" so the thread itself shows that facts do not stand alone, and that people care about that context when it's the US as a cultural whole that is low-ranked, in fact it's basically a cliche in these discussions.
tokenizer 13y ago
Thanks for the context. These statistics favor monocultural societies and collectivist societies over individualist ones. Your point on innovation is but one overlooked factor that these stats don't account for. I'd love to get some global statistics on educational knowledge of 18 year olds in all of these countries, and also get statistics on the per capita numbers on new businesses opening up by this age group in these countries as well. Just a thought that IMO may not skew these stats so much towards monocultural/collectivist societies so much.
- lolcraft 13y ago
  These statistics favor monocultural societies and collectivist societies over individualist ones. eyeroll. You know what's typically American? This kind of masturbatory pop sociology bullshit. Something in US culture makes its citizens specially prone to this kind of hasty over-generalization: a Blue/Red outlook on civilization, the globe neatly divided on the Entrepreneurial City on the Hill (i. e. the United States) and Conformist Worker Bee cultures (i. e. everyone else). You have no idea of how condescending this particular national meme comes across to the rest of the world -- specially when talking about primary education test scores, of all things. History seen as nothing but war between economic classes indeed, it's just we're taking the side of capitalists. Of course, mention to this kind of americano that the most vibrant economy in the world is Japan, and they'll blush. As they should. Or that Germany's much praised labour reform in the Schroeder era actually gave to unions seats in the management board. Not easy to frame in Reaganite shades of grey. Or the economic status of Sweden, and its leadership in many industries. Try to think about that, next time you find yourself saluting the flag or something.
- quinnchr 13y ago
  The U.S. actually ranks pretty low among OECD countries in terms of rate of entrepreneurship. There is a strong correlation between a strong safety net and entrepreneurship.
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    And I'm sure innovation in general is even harder to monitor. Well I still stand by my observation that the top rated countries are on average more monocultural and collectivistic (which would lead to better safety nets I'd hope).
carlosgg 13y ago
bilb0s, where did you find the report by state?

by bilbo0s 13y ago

smcl 13y ago

"even if you only counted the scores of black students" This is the sort of thing I can never really swallow when reading stuff about education rankings in the states. There's a lot of what seems to be really casual\accidental racism along the lines of the quoted text above as well as things like "controlling for race" and excuses pinning the US's low scores on being "more multicultural". Perhaps this is not the intent but it's sort of painful to read.

rayiner 13y ago
It's not "casual racism." It's simply a recognition of the fact that blacks in the U.S. face unique challenges that are not just economic, but social. Those challenges, while important, have effects that can obscure whatever it is that you're actually trying to study. If you're trying to evaluate school quality, it makes no sense not to control for race and socioeconomics. It wasn't the schools that enslaved blacks, segregated them into ghettos, then subjected them to disparate treatment in a violent drug war. And schools won't be the solution to those things either. This isn't an "excuse" it's a recognition of reality. Education by itself cannot be America's salvation for its past sins. Failing to control for race and sociology-economics leads you to the wrong conclusions. If you look at the test scores of students in Chicago, ignoring race, you might be tempted to conclude that Chicago has a problem with its schools. Maybe they need more funding or better teachers. That's the wrong conclusion. The reality is that 90% of kids in Chicago public schools are black or hispanic, and almost 90% are low-income. The schools are in areas of strong gang presence, and gang activity has infiltrated every one of the schools. The gangs have replaced parents and teachers as authority figures and the bedrock of social order has crumbled. Schools, no matter how well funded, and teachers, no matter how qualified, aren't going to fix those root causes. My wife taught in a school on Indian land in eastern Washington. She had an awful experience, because she realized that these kids didn't need teachers with degrees from good schools, but fathers who weren't alcoholics, or indeed fathers in the first place. Schools and education cannot replace these things.
- smcl 13y ago
  So then why not control for low income or poor social conditions? Why make the connection from black\hispanic to "bad"?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    First, because there is more to it than just income. My wife grew up in a town of about 3,000 people in Iowa. The town had poor people and rich people, but was ethnically homogenous (98% white), and everyone went to the same schools, same churches, their kids played together, etc. I've been to a similar-sized town in Illinois that is ethnically mixed (about half hispanic, half white). The hispanics in that town are poorer than the whites, as a group, go to their own church, don't speak English at home, their kids play with other hispanic kids and not so much with the white kids, though they all go to school together. Then you have places like Chicago, where a neighborhood might be 95% low income hispanic, where kids only play with other low income hispanics and go to a school that is 90%+ low income hispanic. A child with the same family income is going to nonetheless have a dramatically different experience in the three cases. They will have dramatically different experiences not because "hispanic = bad" but because the segregation is bad, and race is a powerful driver of segregation in American communities even today. I agree that it would be better to break things down into the relevant elements, instead of using race as a crude proxy. Adjust for whether parents speak English at home, adjust for educational status of parents, adjust for level of gang activity in the community, adjust for whether father figures are present, adjust for level of social integration between economic classes within the community, etc. Considering all of those things, together, would be better than using race as a proxy. But we don't keep the data in a way that would allow us to measure things that way. We keep track of racial demographics, but not things like the degree to which kids of different economic backgrounds play in mixed instead of segregated groups.
dionidium 13y ago
There's also a lot of what seems to be really casual/accidental accusations of racism in contexts where it clearly doesn't exist (i.e. recognizing and accounting for racial differences isn't racist). That different racial groups score differently on IQ tests, for example, is a fact that can be stated without any judgement of value, or, indeed, without any attempt to explain its causes (which are numerous, I'm sure.)
- ZeroGravitas 13y ago
  A true fact stated in a certain way can lead to false impressions e.g. Group A is poorer than Group B, or Group A have less years of education than Group B. If however, Group A is on average younger than Group B, then the differences may disappear. Is is still "true" to state those "facts" without the extra context?
  - dionidium 13y ago
    You'd obviously want to control for age in exactly the same way as the comment that started this thread mentioned controlling for race. That's exactly what we're talking about. I'd hope nobody would call you ageist for doing so.
    - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
      I don't really have any issue with the original comment, but it was someone rushing to provide context for the apparently misleading fact that "Finland does better than the US" so the thread itself shows that facts do not stand alone, and that people care about that context when it's the US as a cultural whole that is low-ranked, in fact it's basically a cliche in these discussions.

tokenizer 13y ago

Thanks for the context. These statistics favor monocultural societies and collectivist societies over individualist ones. Your point on innovation is but one overlooked factor that these stats don't account for. I'd love to get some global statistics on educational knowledge of 18 year olds in all of these countries, and also get statistics on the per capita numbers on new businesses opening up by this age group in these countries as well. Just a thought that IMO may not skew these stats so much towards monocultural/collectivist societies so much.

lolcraft 13y ago
These statistics favor monocultural societies and collectivist societies over individualist ones. eyeroll. You know what's typically American? This kind of masturbatory pop sociology bullshit. Something in US culture makes its citizens specially prone to this kind of hasty over-generalization: a Blue/Red outlook on civilization, the globe neatly divided on the Entrepreneurial City on the Hill (i. e. the United States) and Conformist Worker Bee cultures (i. e. everyone else). You have no idea of how condescending this particular national meme comes across to the rest of the world -- specially when talking about primary education test scores, of all things. History seen as nothing but war between economic classes indeed, it's just we're taking the side of capitalists. Of course, mention to this kind of americano that the most vibrant economy in the world is Japan, and they'll blush. As they should. Or that Germany's much praised labour reform in the Schroeder era actually gave to unions seats in the management board. Not easy to frame in Reaganite shades of grey. Or the economic status of Sweden, and its leadership in many industries. Try to think about that, next time you find yourself saluting the flag or something.
quinnchr 13y ago
The U.S. actually ranks pretty low among OECD countries in terms of rate of entrepreneurship. There is a strong correlation between a strong safety net and entrepreneurship.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  And I'm sure innovation in general is even harder to monitor. Well I still stand by my observation that the top rated countries are on average more monocultural and collectivistic (which would lead to better safety nets I'd hope).

carlosgg 13y ago

bilb0s, where did you find the report by state?