Posted on 12/18/2007 10:26:08 AM PST by bs9021
Leaning Tower of PISA
by: Bethany Stotts, December 18, 2007
The recently-released 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results have been heralded by some as proving that American science and math illiteracy are endangering American competitiveness abroad, and will lead to an economic crisis within the next generation. The results rank the U.S. 21 out of the 30 advanced industrial Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, and American students scored an average 489 points on the combined science literacy scale compared to the 500-point OECD average....
However, a closer analysis of the PISA results reveals mixed results about the United States’ global competitiveness. America’s brightest, 90th-percentile students remain above the OECD average in combined science skills yet fall behind in math. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) “Highlights from 2006” report notes that “When comparing the performance of the highest achieving students— those at the 90th percentile—there was no measurable difference between the average score of U.S. students (628) compared to the OECD average (622) on the combined science literacy scale.”.....
Contrary to the popular understanding that teenagers in the United States are necessarily inept at science, America’s low OECD ranking can be at least partially attributed to a large achievement gap between minorities and whites. America’s 2006 combined science scores follow a strict ethnic hierarchy, which the NCES notes is similar to the 2000 and 2003 PISA results. Whites and Asians typically attained a level 3 proficiency for the combined sciences. Hispanics, American Indians, Alaskan natives, and Pacific Islanders scored, on average, in the level 2 proficiency. Blacks were likely to only attain an upper-level 1 proficiency, the most basic of levels presented.
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
What does anybody expect when minorities can expect to be beaten up by their peers for “acting white” ?
Where is Al and Jessie? Why no outcry/media attention on this? Oh wait, nvm. They will blame me (whitey) anyway.
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