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Comment by fiatmoney | Hacker News Reader

"the notion that America can close the learning gap with China or India..."

Indian and Chinese students in America do as well or better than Indian and Chinese students in their home countries on any measure you'd like to name.

For that matter the same is true of Mexican students in the US vs. in Mexico, European students in the US vs. in Europe, etc.

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Chinese and Indian students in America also have the benefit of being from some of the highest socioeconomic groups in America [0]. It is more a factor of the group's average wealth rather than the fact that they are foreign.

[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

>It is more a factor of the group's average wealth rather than the fact that they are foreign.

How do you know that for sure? Maybe their higher average wealth is a function of their success as immigrants, not the other way around.

Or the causation goes the other way, and they get rich because they're smart.

>European students in the US vs. in Europe,

I'd like to see stats for that. I strongly doubt that's true of European students.

Can you provide a source?

By country:

http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2012/pisa2012highlights_...

By ethnicity in the US:

http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2012/pisa2012highlights_...

Thanks. I don't think it really backs your claim that "[X] students in America do as well or better than [X] students in their home countries on any measure you'd like to name."

but it's still interesting data.

the learning benefit could be because of the change of scenery, not because one side is better

Or because they select for people that are able/willing to make a choice to move across the world/border.

Indeed. Shake a box of rocks for a while and you'll find the largest rocks at the top. It's not because the top makes rocks grow, or because moving to the top makes them bigger, it's simply that larger rocks move up more readily in this environment.

Living in India, Indian schools are mostly worse than American ones—rat race, outdated curriculum, etc. (I don't think there's sex ed in schools even).

> (I don't think there's sex ed in schools even).

Depending on the state, there isn't exactly sex ed in American schools either.

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