The Sky is Not Falling After All: US Schools Rank High Internationally

[Modern School]

It is commonly believed that public education in the U.S. is in miserable shape, with terrible teachers causing high dropout rates and worse educational outcomes than our trading partners. There are test scores (PISA) that confirm this, with the U.S. ranking lower than countries like South Korea, Finland, Japan and Hong Kong. And Ed Deformers have glommed onto such data as proof that the system needs a dramatic makeover and use the data to justify everything from privatization schemes to the dismantling of teachers’ unions.

A new analysis of international data by Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution suggests that the U.S. may not be as far behind their counterparts as previously thought, according to U.S.A. Today.

The rankings tend to be given in raw numbers such that countries with statistically indistinguishable scores appear to have different rankings. Thus Hong Kong (607) and Singapore (599) were listed has 1st and 2nd place for fourth-grade math scores in 2007. This is misleading, as their scores were virtually indistinguishable statistically. By grouping together in first place, all the other nations would move up in rank.

Loveless examined the scores and rankings more closely and grouped nations together that had statistically indistinguishable scores. By doing so, Hong Kong and Singapore were grouped together as tied for 1st, while Netherlands (535), Lithuania (530), U.S. (529), Germany (525) and Denmark (523) were grouped together in fifth place.

Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2012/02/sky-is-not-falling-after-all-us-schools.html

[Art_from_Ark]

1. In the grand scheme of things,

4th grade math scores don't mean diddly.

[beyurslf]

2. When you have a tie, you still move down one spot for each team.

So if two countries tie for first, the next country is 3rd. Doing that, we are tied for 9th. (There are 9 nations above our groups' ranking.)

[Art_from_Ark]

5. If we are tied for 9th,

then there would be 8 nations above our ranking.

[beyurslf]

9. There are 8 nations above us, split into 4 groups.

[WCGreen]

3. What I always thought was unfair is the high school tests...

by the time most other kids in other countries get to high school age, many have been tracted into vocational ed and, from what I understand, not tested.

In the US, everyone is tested.

All I am saying is because we have a more egalitarian educational system, the comparisons are not always fair.

[On the Road]

4. Ah, Never Realized That

Makes perfect sense.

[JDPriestly]

7. That is correct.

And it explains our high drop-out rate.

A lot of kids we force into an academic track would thrive in a more flexible educational environment that emphasized learning by doing.

You can learn a lot of math by working in a garage repairing cars or even delivering products to a store.

Students who want to study have lots of opportunities in the US. But kids who really don't like school should be given choices that insure that they have the skills they need for their lives but aren't forced to sit in classrooms all day when they hate it.

We would be better off as a nation if we provided top opportunities for every child who wants to study math and science or serious liberal arts and let those who really don't want to study those things in depth learn to do what they prefer to do.

Please understand. I believe that every child who wants to study academics should have the opportunity to do so. I just think it is a waste of a kid's time and our money to force children to stay on an academic track if they aren't paying attention and don't want to study.

[WCGreen]

8. That's the bad part of our education system....

But the part is we are never really counted out.

My brother hated school. He graduated maybe 10th from the bottom.

Well, he went out into the world and was working his ass off and not getting anywhere, went to the Community College, worked like hell, went to Ohio State and graduated with a 3.7 in Accounting. He went back to get his Masters and is now a partner in a CPA firm.

The flexability of our system is there and it can work both ways.

[JDPriestly]

10. Yes. It's important to keep the flexibility.

But pushing kids who really don't want to be in school to sit there all day is a waste.

Often, kids start school before they have the readiness to sit and listen for long periods.

That is another thing I noticed in Europe. At least where we lived when my children started school, they had already had 3 years of half-day kindergarten at taxpayer expense. And then they were tested on their intellectual maturity -- not whether they knew the alphabet or could write their name, but what kind of picture they could draw.

Experts can assess the readiness of a child for school by looking at the child's drawing. I believe firmly that it works at least well enough to avoid pushing children at the wrong time.

Also, I was told to make sure that my children did NOT LEARN TO READ -- not learn to read (negative emphasized) before they started school. The school taught the children at a steady, slow, low-stress pace. My oldest started school in September and could read a simple book by Christmas. Of course, she had heard lots of stories by that time and was excited to learn to read for herself.

We could learn a lot from school systems around the world. And one is to let kids who really do not want to sit in a classroom all day explore the real world. If we helped each child learn the basic math and language skills and did it slowly and patiently, then children who wanted to take advantage of the flexibility of our system could do so when they were ready.

But the fact remains that we are comparing our apples with the oranges in other countries in many cases.

[johnd83]

6. A lot of these rankings are meaningless anyway

High standardized test scores don't mean that a person is actually learning anything useful. Rote memorization is not as important in the google age. Trying to capture problem solving and creative abilities in a standardized test that can compare entire nations is not really practical. College "rankings" are also largely meaningless propaganda in a similar way. There are general trends but there is a lot of statistical noise.