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Chinese teenagers ranked as the world’s best students according to results from a closely watched global survey announced on Tuesday. But unlike in the rest of the world, in China, the victory was met with a resounding shrug. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a standardized test for 15-year-old students around the world in reading, math and science. It’s administered every three years, with 79 countries participating. The Pisa, as the test is widely known, is regarded as one of the most important ways to directly compare different educational systems. China beat out education powerhouse Singapore and its...

Teens from some of China's wealthiest regions are outperforming their peers in the world's richest countries in reading, math and science, according to new results from a global education study. The survey found that 15-year-old students from Beijing, Shanghai, and the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang ranked top for all three core subjects, achieving the highest level 4 rating. Students from the United States were ranked level 3 for reading and science, and level 2 for math, while teens from Britain scored a level 3 ranking in all three categories. The findings are part of the 2018 Program International...

Baby PISA has arrived. Are you ready, folks in the neighborhood? Do you have any earthly idea what this newborn may presage for child rearing and society in general?You might want to hold your welcomes for now.Baby PISA is an international assessment of 5-year-olds meant to gauge their cognitive and social-emotional capacities, as well as the quality of their home environments. Yeah, this is serious testing of kids who’ve barely learned to tie their shoes. It is due to start this year.An eminent early-childhood scholar, Dr. Helge Wasmuth of New York’s Mercy College, has echoed the outrage of many of...

Nearly 1,800 signatures were collected for a petition against the building of a mosque next to Italy's Leaning Tower of

* Message was posted by Twitter account used to publicise ISIS activity * ISIS supporter threatened to conquer Rome and bring shariah law to city * Also warned terrorists will 'throw homosexuals off leaning tower of pizza' * Comes after jihadist spoke of plans to takeover Italian capital in ISIS video * Threats sparked flood of mocking tweets and memes from Italian public Hapless Islamic State militants have vowed online to take over Rome - and 'throw homosexuals off the leaning tower of pizza'. In the message, posted by a Twitter account linked to the terror group, the ISIS supporter...

State lawmakers will surely haggle over education policy this legislative session, but hopefully they will remember the purpose of any education system during their battle over budgets: excellence in education and an equal opportunity for every child to succeed. The term “education reform” has taken on many meanings since its inception, but its foundations are based on educational freedom: Freedom for parents to determine their child’s education; freedom from the teachers unions that cloak ineffective teachers; and freedom from the archaic ideas of what creates a successful individual. It is disheartening that some fight against the idea of educational freedom...

Huge Etruscan Road Brought to Light By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News The Excavated Road June 16, 2004 — A plain in Tuscany destined to become a dump has turned out to be an archaeologist's dream, revealing the biggest Etruscan road ever found. Digging in Capannori, near Lucca, archaeologist Michelangelo Zecchini has uncovered startling evidence of an Etruscan "highway" which presumably linked Etruscan Pisa, on the Tyrrhenian coast, to the Adriatic port of Spina. Passing through Bologna, the ancient "two-sea highway" runs just a few meters away from today's modern highway which links Florence to the Tyrrhenian coast. "It all started...

Among the 34 OECD countries, the US performed below average in mathematics and is ranked 27th ... While the U.S. spends more per student than most countries, this does not translate into better performance (e.g. the Slovak Republic, which spends around $53k per student, performs at the same level as the US, which spends over $115k per student).

MUMBAI: Across the world, India is seen as an education powerhouse - based largely on the reputation of a few islands of academic excellence such as the IITs. But scratch the glossy surface of our education system and the picture turns seriously bleak. Fifteen-year-old Indians who were put, for the first time, on a global stage stood second to last, only beating Kyrgyzstan when tested on their reading, math and science abilities. India ranked second last among the 73 countries that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), conducted annually to evaluate education systems worldwide by the OECD...

Professor John Burland has spent the last two decades striving to save - and understand - the Leaning Tower of Pisa. After defying gravity, Italian bureaucracy and accusations of corruption, it seems he’s finally cracked the case. [snip] Via his data analysis, Burland unlocked the 800-year mystery as to why the tower leans south not north: namely, a fluctuating water-table on the upper layer of silt. By a quirk of local geography, Pisa’s water-table rose higher on the tower’s north side, often reaching within one foot in rainy season, and this gave the tower an annual ratchet southward. Armed with...

According to M. J. Mcdermott, a meteorologist and Q13 Fox News (Seattle) weather reporter, the ongoing American mathematic illiteracy may be the result of misguided “reformed math” curriculum which fails to teach students the internationally recognized, efficient multiplication and division algorithms that older generations of Americans learned. Instead, children are encouraged to problem-solve without first developing efficient problem-solving techniques in multiplication and division. Math by CalculatorAs McDermott notes in her video, textbooks such as the 4th and 5th grade versions of Everyday Mathematics devote copious pages to non-germane topics such as a full-color 48-page world atlas to assist students in...

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...

Crooked German church leans more than Pisa By Nick Britten and Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Last Updated: 8:37pm GMT 05/11/2007 A crooked German church steeple has knocked the leaning tower of Pisa from the Guinness book of Records as the world’s most leaning building. The tower in the village of Suurhusen in northern Germany applied in June for the title and this week had it confirmed that it had beaten the famous landmark in Pisa. Guinness Book of Records officials confirmed it is leaning at a 5.19 degree angle compared to the 3.97 degree of the tower of Pisa. The...

Churches challenge Leaning Tower of Pisa By Bojan Pancevski in Vienna, Colin Freeman and Malcolm Moore in Rome, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 11:56pm BST 21/07/2007 It is a row where every side has its own particular slant on the matter. After nine centuries of undisputed fame as the world's most lopsided building, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is facing challenges to its title from two crooked church towers. The Church in Suurhusen is one of two German buildings bidding for Pisa’s crown as the most lopsided building The former East German town of Bad Frankenhausen says that the bell tower...

Leaning Tower of Pisa is saved from collapse By Malcolm Moore in Rome Last Updated: 2:09am BST 28/06/2007 The Leaning Tower of Pisa no longer leans quite so much after a £20 million project to save it was hailed a complete success yesterday. The Leaning Tower of Pisa has been straightened by 18 inches, returning it to its position of 1838. It has been leaning since 1173 The tower, which was on the verge of collapse, has been straightened by 18 inches (45 centimetres) returning it to its 1838 position. "It has straightened a little bit more than we expected,...

Ghost fleet 'shows Pisa was an ancient Venice' By Bruce Johnston in Rome (Filed: 22/11/2003) The chance discovery of a Roman "ghost fleet" buried in mud just outside Pisa has led experts to conclude that the city was built on a lagoon much like an early Venice. Archaeologists believe that traces of a community dating back to a pre-Roman era, a sort of "Etruscan Venice", may lie beneath the ships. The end of the lagoon civilisation may also offer clues to the fate of modern Venice - the waterways were silted up by violent floods over a long period. "The...