Reply to Is the education 'crisis' in the USA overblown?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not at all. 
If education was on par with the top developed countries, there would be less job shortage in America.

I'm reading a lot on education quality around the world. Read The Smartest Kids in the World, by Amanda Ripley.
She followed three American high school students who went on exchange to South Korea, Poland and Finland, and lived through those education systems for one school year.

America ranks lower than the average of developed countries in most academic achievement tests, including the very interesting PISA test, which was developed to test, not knowledge, but critical thinking, a good way of measuring future financial success. This despite the fact that the USA spends more per student than most other countries!

[b]Research has found that the usual causes cited for such an astonishing discrepancy are NOT economic inequality and immigration, as many people are fond of saying. If these variables are eliminated from the data, the US still comes up behind most developed countries. [/b]The real causes are a lack of rigor and clear standards, a curriculum that's too simplified, conflict between local and national standards (local curriculums and standardized tests don't match up) and an unwillingness to treat students honestly (giving the grades they earned, instead of inflated grades).

In short, Common Core is a first step in the right direction to cut through the tangle, especially for the lower-performing states.

If you are a parent, OP, to further your kids' chances of getting a good job (not talking about college admissions!), you should expect that your kids be at least two years ahead in math. Those are the international standards.

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9:52 here.  And that's why I don't think the issue is funding.  The reason why wealthier districts do better is not because the public schools are funded better but because the parents have the resources to supplement (and, as per your suggestion, make sure their kids are two levels ahead in what is being taught at school).  So it ups the ante.

That aside, your examples of Poland, South Korea, and Finland are not comparable to the U.S.  [b]All three of those countries have very homogenous populations.[/b]  They don't have some of the challenges that we have.  While I agree that standards, critical thinking, et cetera, are important.  I think there are other socioeconomic dynamics we have in this country that the three countries you mention do not have.[/quote]

I'm the PP you quoted, and population heterogeneity is not in question according to the data education scientists have amassed and analyzed. Even when they only focus on the wealthy white students in the most affluent school districts, the US STILL lags behind. We're not even talking about Anacostia schools here - because they would be on par with South Sudan, practically.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is surely that the average American doesn't even realize US standards have fallen so far behind, AND doesn't recognize where the problem lies. Please note that Education quality can change very quickly, in a decade, for example. America used to be on top, back in the day when Finland used to be a poor nation of uneducated people, in the 50s. Now Finland is on top of of the world, with any type of test you can throw at its students, AND they don't force their students to study for longer hours than the typical American child is awake for, like in South Korea.

We need to pull our head out of the sand and observe what other nations are doing, and humbly learn from them.
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