Posted on 01/21/2007 5:42:44 AM PST by shrinkermd
How will the United States compete in the global economy, went the lament, when our students lag behind the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong in math and science? American fourth-graders ranked 12th in the world on one international math test, and eighth-graders were 14th. Is this further evidence of the failure of the nation's schools?
Myth 1: U.S. students rate poorly compared with those in the rest of the world.
Answer:This is true only if you cherry-pick the results...Americans are above average when compared with 22 other industrialized nations. In civics, no nation scored significantly higher than the United States; in reading, only 13 percent did. Even in math and science -- the two subjects considered "vital" to future technological competitiveness -- the United States fell in roughly the middle of the pack. No gold star, but hardly a crisis, either.
The author goes on to list the outher four mistaken myths and their true explanation: (1)US Students falling behind;(2)Unprepared for the modern work force; (3)We are not competitive because of poor schooling; (4)And, how we stack up on tests matters.
The article reviews and expands on these points. Well worth the read.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
A non-doom and gloom article from the Washington Post? I disagree with them that our schools are not in crisis. I see a crisis with the enormous amount of liberal indoctronation as a threat to America's future.
Gee, so this means the GLOBAL EFFORT to dumb down kids is equally effective?
Modern education fills kids's heads with a bazillion facts, but doesn't teach them how to think.
Once upon a time, teachers would make up their own tests. With a good teacher, this is the preferrable method. They know what the kids have absorbed and followed their topic interests throughout the teaching of material.
My daughter just took her mid terms. They now used the pre printed tests that come with the purchased lesson plans.
The mid term was, write an essay on a comparison of yourself to a blade of grass.
Of course WAPO touts the BS that our modern, NEA led, public school system is great.
"We both have meritocracies," he replied. America's "is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well -- like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority."
The Education Minister of Singapore hit it on the head comparing his country with the U.S. I've been hearing since the 1960's how dumb all of us are becoming, and yet we continue to domintate the world even as "educational and economic juggernauts" such as Japan and Germany come and go.
American kids do well in "civics?" Talk about "cherry-picking!" That probably means they can regurgitate the PC and diversity propaganda they are fed, and the revisionist version of history about the evil white men who founded racist Amerika before the Constitution became a "living, breathing document" (i.e. a dead letter).
It's also hard to reconcile an alleged high level of civics knowledge with evidence from many sources that even American college students know very little about the Constitution or American history, and many can't even identify the location of most states.
Also, I am not encouraged that we are in the "middle of the pack" among industrialized nations. This article sounds like an apology for our failed NEA-run government schools.
So, we are great in "civics." Bully! A lot of good that does.
I teach college students. About three-quarters of them do not belong in college: many cannot do a simple problems involving percentages. Only about 5% have ever had trigonometry. Some of them cannot write with even minimal facility. Most do not know how properly to use a comma (our commonest punctuation mark). Most have never heard of the simplest techniques of effective writing style.
As for computer knowledge, only about one in ten of my students knows how to make a word-processor number the pages of a paper.
Perhaps worse than than their simple ignorance, is their lack of good work habits: about half cannot manage to show up for class on time. Their most highly developed creative talent is in making excuses. How can we consider these youngsters part of a future "work" force?
Here in NYC it's credited with improvement in 3rd and 4th grade scores.The conservative guys on the NY Post sing its praises. Mainly because many NYC teachers oppse it as mindless, and teachers, who embody the UFT, are enemies of the NY Post.
If these guys did the slightest bit of research they'd have found that America's Choice is the brainchild of the National Council for Education and the Economy. A left wing outfit that has former Clinton Labor Sec Bob Reich as one of its driving forces. At best these people represent the outdated and failed European Social Democrats. At worst, and many are the worst, they represent Stalinism. At least in their belief in thinking, imagination, and creativity.
Think about private school for your daughter.
If that question was part of the Mid Term, I would have no problem with it. But, that was the Mid Term.
That makes it more of a philosophy test than a science test.
Creativity and imagination is vital to science; but there is a fine line of not learning facts.
My daughter is in private school.
I hate packaged lessons. We keep our house in a montessori flavor and supplement as much as our children allow us to do.
My husband adjuncts science classes at a community college.
I've heard him echo many times what you just posted.
Reading the actual report is a bit more informative than the somewhat slapdash Washington Post article.
From the way I read the report, U.S. students are doing okay at the subjects that are most comparable across languages and cultures -- math is math be it in English or Japanese, science is science, but reading is definitely not the same nor is the subject of "civics". (Japanese has been famously called the "devil's language" by St. Francis Xavier because of its difficulty -- and Japanese education manages to bring 99% of its population to literacy.)
For what it is worth, the Washington Post article by Mr. Farhi apparently left out the bit that U.S. students outside the categories "black" and "Hispanic" do well in comparison to the European G-5 nations even in math and science. I would have been interested in a break-out of Asian-origin student performance in the U.S., but I didn't see it in the report.
>>>>Just remember, it's not easy to get kids today to concentrate enough to think. They have cell phones and egames and X Boxes and iPods and CDs. It's easy to talk about thinking, it's not so easy to get kids to do it on a regular basis.
Those items are not in classrooms. And teachers aren't given control of their classrooms. They seem to be on some obscure leash. Get rid of the packaged lessons. Let teachers do what they do best!
::oh, we may want to get rid of tensure if we take that approach....that could be a double edged sword for bad teachers::
I'll take that before a transcript any day.
It's also hard to reconcile an alleged high level of civics knowledge with evidence from many sources that even American college students know very little about the Constitution or American history, and many can't even identify the location of most states.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amen, I rate the average young college graduate as having far less knowledge of civics than was required to finish the seventh grade of the public school I attended in the fifties. Young people today seem to have almost no clue as to how our system of government is SUPPOSED TO work. I doubt that one in one hundred realizes that this nation was formed as a REPUBLIC and not a DEMOCRACY!
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