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!

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. 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).

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Wrong. Poverty is still the problem. http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2014/02/pisa-its-still-poverty-not-stupid/

Poverty Rate   PISA Score

Finland     3.4%               536
Poland.     14.5%             500
Norway     3.6%.              503

For American schools:
Poverty Rate               PISA score
below 10%                        551
between 10 and 25%         527

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You are looking at the numbers the wrong way around. No one has fixed poverty in one decade, whereas many countries have shown us they could do this with education (look up the graphs). Education has to be fixed despite poverty. If you wait to fix poverty, you will never fix education. So what this country needs is to first demand a higher standard from education colleges, those that train teachers. Make it harder to become a teacher, and the job will attract smarter people. Pay them better, and retain them longer. The reason education was not respected in this country is because the USA was so wealthy as a country that most people did not need to be educated to live above the poverty line. Now this isn't true anymore, and the need for a rigorous education is slowly coming to the fore, with one huge obstacle: Americans had it drummed into them that children's psyches are fragile and need to be supported otherwise they develop self-esteem issues. That one can never tell a child their work is god-awful and they better work harder. The truth is that for most of us normal folk, success is a function of WORK, not innate intelligence. Parents, school boards and organizations across the country rebel at the slightest hint of harshness in scoring. Let's worry less about children's confidence and more about their critical thinking skills. It's only when you fail, and fail, and finally succeed that you build resilience and confidence in who you are, and can collectively build a more productive society.

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