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Several of the comments here have asked how we compare the United States "top" students to students from other countries. The TIMSS tests (a different data set,

Several of the comments here have asked how we compare the United States "top" students to students from other countries. The TIMSS tests (a different data set, also based on international sample surveys with consistent methodologies among countries) suggest that there is a lot more "top" in some countries than in others. Take a look at the very well constructed data chart "Distribution of Mathematics Achievement" for eighth graders in Exhibit 1.2 of Chapter 1 of the TIMSS report from the 2011 testing round.[1] This issue is familiar to Americans like me who have lived overseas and have learned the local language of another country and have read the math textbooks available there. Better instruction can produce better educational results--and for less money besides. The top student issue is illustrated also by results from the International Mathematical Olympiad[2] and other international academic competitions. The United States has a huge population base, and it has many families in which the children are brought up by parents who are first-generation immigrants who received their own primary and secondary educations in other countries. (Such children do conspicuously well in academic competitions in the United States.) And the United States is wealthy, a heritage from the good governance structure set up by the United States federal Constitution. But even at that, the United States national team can be beat at the International Mathematical Olympiad by countries that have many fewer people and much poorer economies. Some countries have a very impressive group of top students. Is America rich enough that many young people here feel they can be complacent about their futures? Sure it is. But isn't it an especially good use of wealth to gain more knowledge and more ability to make the world better for everyone? Why can't the young people of the United States grow up with a sense of purpose about improving themselves and the world around them, as earlier generations of Americans apparently did? As to the public policy point, Minnesota (where I live) was the first state in the United States to have public school open enrollment, the first to have any charter schools (and it still has more charter school places per capita than most states), and the first state to have a comprehensive, state-funded program to allow dual enrollment in colleges or universities by students completing the last two years of high school.[3] (We also have a flexible homeschooling statute, which I take advantage of as a parent.) Even at that, we here in Minnesota have a long way to go to reach the level of the top-performing countries. But any state that doesn't have as much flexibility in schooling choices for families needs to follow Minnesota's example right away. More choice and flexibility in the state education system is definitely a good idea and worth imitating in the other states in the United States. [1] http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2011/downloads/T11_IR_M_Chapter1.pdf http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2011/downloads/T11_IR_M_Cha... (You can also download the full report for more context, but that download is slower.) [2] http://www.imo-official.org/ http://www.imo-official.org/ [3] http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/CollReadi/PSEO/ http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/CollReadi/PSEO/

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>Why can't the young people of the United States grow up with a sense of purpose about improving themselves and the world around them, as earlier generations of Americans apparently did? Because there are no jobs in that. Cynicism and snark aside, nowadays the purpose of education in America is to get you a job: for a lower-class student, to get a job at all, for a higher-class student, to get a cushy job. Actually, doubling back, the purpose of education in most of the world is to get you a job. The number of people who learn just to improve themselves and the world is, well, really tiny, actually.
- avmich 12y ago
  That doesn't explain the difference between US and the rest. Either the rest of the world has other, more noble purposes, which helps their children to learn better. In this case, should we think about purpose? Or the rest of the world has the same goals and just reaches them better than in US. In this case - should we learn how to pursue them properly? This all is in case US still believes the real education is important. May be it isn't? May be better education doesn't lead to a better life?
WorksOnRobots 12y ago
Shouldn't we celebrate that the U.S. is rich enough and stable enough that their students do not have to study for 14 hours a day in their prime of their youth to acquire a stable career? Why should we want to emulate East Asia's pressure cooker environment?
- tokenadult 12y ago
  students do not have to study for 14 hours a day in their prime of their youth to acquire a stable career Students don't have to do that anywhere. And they don't do that anywhere. I have lived in east Asia (and my three older children all have) and I challenge your assumption that pupils there study for fourteen hours a day (they most certainly do not) or that everything about schools there is a "pressure cooker environment." There are trade-offs involved in living anywhere, rather than living somewhere else, but you really owe it to yourself to find out more about how effective primary teaching is done before concluding that it shouldn't be tried in the United States. As they say in Chinese-speaking countries, "百聞不如一見" (hearing about something a hundred times isn't worth seeing it once). I offer for your reading pleasure a reading suggestion, full of food for thought, namely Liping Ma's book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States.[1] Reviews of this book appear below the book link. Anyway, we can get other reality checks on this issue by seeing what people who have studied the United States school curriculum say about secondary schools here, for example "What’s Holding Back American Teenagers? Our high schools are a disaster."[2] The last federal sample survey on the issue resulted in news reports such as, "School is too easy, students report,"[3] suggesting that a lot of learners here don't appreciate dumbed-down school lessons that waste their time without providing a return in new knowledge and skills. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0415873843 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic... http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall1999/amed1.pdf http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall1999/amed1.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2695436?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104164728683 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2695436?uid=2&uid=4&si... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/02/high_school_in_america_a_complete_disaster.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/02/high_sc... [3] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-07-09/school-too-easy/56120106/1 http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-07-...

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>Why can't the young people of the United States grow up with a sense of purpose about improving themselves and the world around them, as earlier generations of Americans apparently did? Because there are no jobs in that. Cynicism and snark aside, nowadays the purpose of education in America is to get you a job: for a lower-class student, to get a job at all, for a higher-class student, to get a cushy job. Actually, doubling back, the purpose of education in most of the world is to get you a job. The number of people who learn just to improve themselves and the world is, well, really tiny, actually.

avmich 12y ago
That doesn't explain the difference between US and the rest. Either the rest of the world has other, more noble purposes, which helps their children to learn better. In this case, should we think about purpose? Or the rest of the world has the same goals and just reaches them better than in US. In this case - should we learn how to pursue them properly? This all is in case US still believes the real education is important. May be it isn't? May be better education doesn't lead to a better life?

WorksOnRobots 12y ago

Shouldn't we celebrate that the U.S. is rich enough and stable enough that their students do not have to study for 14 hours a day in their prime of their youth to acquire a stable career? Why should we want to emulate East Asia's pressure cooker environment?

tokenadult 12y ago
students do not have to study for 14 hours a day in their prime of their youth to acquire a stable career Students don't have to do that anywhere. And they don't do that anywhere. I have lived in east Asia (and my three older children all have) and I challenge your assumption that pupils there study for fourteen hours a day (they most certainly do not) or that everything about schools there is a "pressure cooker environment." There are trade-offs involved in living anywhere, rather than living somewhere else, but you really owe it to yourself to find out more about how effective primary teaching is done before concluding that it shouldn't be tried in the United States. As they say in Chinese-speaking countries, "百聞不如一見" (hearing about something a hundred times isn't worth seeing it once). I offer for your reading pleasure a reading suggestion, full of food for thought, namely Liping Ma's book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States.[1] Reviews of this book appear below the book link. Anyway, we can get other reality checks on this issue by seeing what people who have studied the United States school curriculum say about secondary schools here, for example "What’s Holding Back American Teenagers? Our high schools are a disaster."[2] The last federal sample survey on the issue resulted in news reports such as, "School is too easy, students report,"[3] suggesting that a lot of learners here don't appreciate dumbed-down school lessons that waste their time without providing a return in new knowledge and skills. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0415873843 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic... http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall1999/amed1.pdf http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall1999/amed1.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2695436?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104164728683 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2695436?uid=2&uid=4&si... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/02/high_school_in_america_a_complete_disaster.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/02/high_sc... [3] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-07-09/school-too-easy/56120106/1 http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-07-...