Posted on 05/19/2009 5:11:45 AM PDT by Zakeet
America's moms and dads are getting a good scolding: Your kids are lagging behind students all around the world.
The White House says so, with concern bordering on alarm. So do institutions such as the Gates Foundation, citing performance tests, graduation rates and other benchmarks.
But don't measure for dunce caps just yet.
While they're not in first place, U.S. students generally hold their own on international tests. They spend more time in school than the Obama administration would have you believe. And their college graduation rates stack up better than reported.
That is not to say the critics are totally wet, that the U.S. can't do better.
Only about one-third of U.S. students could read and do math at current grade levels on national tests in 2007, the most recent figures available. That means millions of kids are a long way from reaching the ambitious goal of former President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law — that every student read and do math on grade level by 2014.
And the high school dropout rate is dismal — 1 in 4 kids.
But it's all made to look worse than it is by international comparisons, which at best tend to be misleading and at worst are deeply flawed.
[Snip]
Here is a look at recent statements about the standing of the U.S. educational system and how they square with the facts.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Test Scores: They still suck but we're gaining on some of the leaders.
More Test Scores: Our kids learn more math than they let on. They just can't solve problems.
School Time: At least our kids spend more time in school than South Korean students. Nobody knows for sure about kids in China and India.
College Graduation Rates: Nobody knows for sure how well we stack up because colleges are different around the world.
High School Graduation Rates: "No one disputes that the U.S. high school dropout rate, 1 in 4 kids and worse among minorities, is awful. But as with other international comparisons, measuring the U.S. against the rest of the world is like comparing apples and oranges."
Sometimes it is right to compare apples and oranges, so that you can tell one fruit from another.
And apparently Journalism school is not doing much better...
Of course, that assumes you have a stable family with parents who care. The child who knows that bringing home bad grades is unacceptable will apply themselves and get results far beyond what any "special program" boondoggle at school will achieve.
It’s not just the NEA, it’s all parents who willingly send their kids to public school.
Yeah, but US schoolchildren lead the world in glo-bull warming and victimology studies! USA! USA!
My sediments exactly - I think the gist of the article is, don't worry about US students lagging educationally because I (the author of the article) don't understand the analysis.
“In the case of college education, we were No. 1 in the world 20 years ago in the percentage of young adults with a postsecondary credential. Now we’re number 10 and dropping,”
Oh, woe is us. We’re pumping out a lower rate of college grads. But WTF good does a college degree in some vacuous, liberal agendaized major — like sociology, black studies, communications, etc. — do other than run up your debt scoreboard, induce anger in you, and give you a sense of entitlement and victimhood?
Test scores are a better measure of educational accomplishment than graduation rates are.
I’ve seen plenty of college students who never should have been allowed to leave high school — or junior high, for that matter, judging by their literacy skills.
Didn’t notice any comparisons between these test scores now vs. 40 years ago, right here in America:
Math,
Science, (real, not the politicized version)
History
We have too many kids focused on high GPA’s rather than learning useful material.
Too many psychology, sports medicine, art, majors to support a productive work force.
What percentage of those graduates will find a growth career in those fields?
More test scores: Our kids can't add 2 numbers without a calculator any more. Let alone long division.
School Time: They spend more time in school, learning less.
College Graduation Rates: In many colleges, you get a "C" just for showing up in most classes. It doesn't take an incredible amount of work to graduate with a 3.0 from the typical state college in most courses of study.
High School Graduation Rates: Like many colleges, you can get a "C" in most classes for showing up. And it takes something akin to an act of congress for a teacher to hold back a student that doesn't achieve the minimum knowledge necessary for promotion to the next grade. And yet, many still don't finish. Then again, why should they bother? The taxpayer will carry them through life.
“It’s not just the NEA, it’s all parents who willingly send their kids to public school.”
It’s the communities that allow their local public schools to be what they are.
I have teachers tell me that spelling does not matter anymore because the theory is that these youngsters will be doing everything on computers and there is spell check. With that kind of thinking, is it any wonder that our kids can’t read?
Why bother teaching math, they can just use calculators? My son’s math curriculum has changed every year, they use these different methodologies. Look up Lattice Math. They change them to short cut and pass tests, that is it.
History is taught from fiction. Instead of teaching about actual people, they learn from these stupid stories like, Sally the Sharecropper’s Daughter. Nonsense!
My son is 12, he will be homeschooled this upcoming school year. I have had enough!!!!!!
“But WTF good does a college degree in some vacuous, liberal agendaized major — like sociology, black studies, communications, etc. — do other than run up your debt scoreboard, induce anger in you, and give you a sense of entitlement and victimhood?”
1. It’s a way for employers to de-select job applicants. One stack of trash applications with people having no degree, another stack for people with any kind of degree at all.
2. It lines the pockets of those in the education business which is too much more about business than education.
What do mom and dad have to do with it? They're not government employees.
Those who choose to teach their kids are homeschoolers, but they're doing just fine. There is no crises there.
We used to hire school teachers for the other kids. What ever happened to that? Better yet, why are we still paying for them?
My two kids will be homeschooled starting in July of this year. The public school system does not challenge the kids to think, what it does is teach them how to memorize to pass tests. When I was in school I had teahers that would randomize tests so that students could not pass on the answers from class to class. Standardized tests do not change.
Gist: we’re lagging leading Asian economies, but holding steady with dying European ones...
....I was in Jr. high when the Ruskies put up Sputnick and the country freaked out with articles like this....then in the 80s more freakouts because Japanese kids were going to school year around and we weren’t.....what I want to know is this: if our schools are so backward how come we got such a high standard of living?....and how come so many people want to live here?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.