Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math
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Furthermore, U.S. students seem to do fine on exams that require creativity (IMO, Putnam, etc.).
If you want to dig into the data itself, there's a passable interface to it here: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/ide/
A large part of the "problem" seems to be because we're comparing a very large country to much smaller nation-states. Massachusetts outperforms almost the entire world [1]. Ignoring variance and how it relates to group size is a well-known problem. It is, for example, the reason the Gates Foundation erroneously spent $1 billion funding small schools [2]. It's a reasonable thing to think about doing, because small schools outperform large schools. But, small schools aren't only at the top, they're at the bottom, too! Small schools have higher variance. Small countries do, too.
[1] http://nces.ed.gov/timss/pdf/results11_Massachusetts_Math.pd...
[2] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/the...
The U.S. does not have an education problem; it has a child poverty problem.
The problem is the divide between rich, middle class and poor. Poor kids just don't score nearly as high on tests than middle class and wealthy kids.
Of course, I don't have the stats or evidence, but I suspect if you took out our (USA) bottom 20% and the other countries bottom 20%, you would see a much more even comparison.
Just a theory.
While I know this is anecdotal, my wife is a reading/psychology teacher at a high school in Florida that is widely considered one of the worst, if not the worst, in the state. It's incredible the ways in which the students socioeconomic state plays into their ability and/or desire to learn. Everything from the students parents not being capable of or not willing to contribute to their educational growth to peer pressure from other students to not stand out (which includes appearing smarter than others, sadly).
My wife is lucky to be in a position where she can teach them in small groups of 1-3 students and get them away from that peer pressure. In these circumstances, and when someone is believing in their ability to do better, they really do excel and are incredibly bright. It's just like you said, their socioeconomic position has stacked the cards against them for a very long time and it becomes easy to fall into the same rut everyone else is in within those areas.
(Assuming that "immigrant" != "first-generation immigrant, of course, which seems to be in line with your comment.)
IMO is international. And while the US does well, we haven't won since the mid-90s. In that same period of time China has won it like 15 times.
And the last time the US won the ACM Programming Contest is probably equally as long. And there we typically will only place one or two schools in the top 10 at best (although it's not a collection of our best programmers -- it is by school).
If you don't understand calculus the first time around, it doesn't mean you're not a "math person", it means you need to sit down and RTFM for a few more hours. Likewise, if you're really uncoordinated and can't hit a baseball, go outside and practice for 2 hours every day. I guarantee you'll improve dramatically. There's not many things that humans do that can't be improved through practice and discipline.
For some background, I say all this as someone who was told up and down during his childhood how smart and gifted he was, all of which came crashing and burning during high school and college when I realized there were actually things I needed to put in effort to learn. I'm still trying to repair my study habits and fill in knowledge gaps to this day, and I truly wish people had congratulated me more when I had put in a lot of effort into something than when I appeared to grasp a concept quickly with no effort.
If it makes you feel better, in raising my daughter I'm trying to do things a better way. I do believe my daughter is gifted, but I spend little if any time praising for that. Instead, I talk about how things like hard word, perseverance, and practice are the key ingredients of success, and I point out and discuss examples wherever I can.
I'll let you know in about 10 years or so whether it made a difference. :)
To do that you need twins to treat differently. Every experiment needs a control group ;)
There are of course other issue, where many students are categorized based on race and/or upbringing and this effectively curtails their educational opportunities.
And it reaches to the highest levels, with creationist congressman and even anti-vaccination nuts like Dan Brown.
Only in America do people scoff at the work of science and academicians and put air quotes around the word "expert".
Part of that is heterogeneous grouping. The curriculum is based on what the bottom 10% can handle, and everyone else must go at their pace lest there be elitism.
There's probably other factors too, though. All students could probably move faster if culture as a whole were encouraging it.
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou... http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...
Do we have any reason to believe that situation has changed? (I haven't read the latest report, so I don't know.)
There aren't many Hispanics in Europe...?
I've never heard it used to refer to someone from actually from Spain.
Thus, Spain and Portugal are the two original Hispanic cultures. Any culture that has Hispanic roots (i.e. most countries south of the US) is also Hispanic.
Anecdotally, a friend of mine was a first generation Spanish immigrant, and won a college scholarship aimed at Hispanic immigrants.
When he's referring to "Hispanics and African Americans" he is trying to refer to specific "racial" (insomuch as the concept exists) groups.
It might be an academic distinction to you, but it isn't to everybody. On the flip side of your example, while teaching in an inner city, I broke up a fight that started because a kid called a Haitian "African American".
It's far from an academic distinction to me, and that fight could have just as easily occurred if an African American had been called a Haitian, or any number of similar errors...
Are you saying that nations are irrelevant, and ethnicity is what really matters? Is this a subtle entreaty to focus the brunt of America's educational efforts on specific ethnic subgroups so that the entire nation can have better results?
Instead of blindly downvoting, I really am interested in the point of this statement.
If so, there isn't a lot we can do about it.
So you're going w/ B) A subtle entreaty to focus the brunt of America's educational efforts on specific ethnic subgroups so that the entire nation can have better results. The upside is that it's possible that whatever procedural improvements are made will probably improve all of the student body, so it's a win-win!
Unless, of course, you're also positing that these sub-groups can't be taught??
Unless you can demonstrate that this is cost effective, I'm certainly not.
And yes, I do generally posit that most educational interventions are ineffective. If you disagree, please point to one which can reliably and scalably increase the score of any group by an amount proportional to the black/white (or white/asian) gap.
So are you saying that the current methods of education can't be improved?
I'm not referring to an intervention, which, like dieting, will not be useful in the long term. I'm giving you credit for hitting upon the idea that education itself can be altered in a manner which is not only far more effective, but evenly distributed improvements across all tested populations.
That's a great idea, and we all look forward to hearing of your progress in this endeavor.
(I hesitate to post this out of concern it sounds "racist". I am sure the reasons for this pattern are complex.)
(But have an upvote. I am pretty sure your intent was to be supportive.)
Unfortunately, there isn't a great country to compare to: the countries with the closest populations are Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc. and comparisons there have other problems. I'm guessing the best possibly comparisons are probably Brazil or China.
The US is huge and disparate; the fact that the country that has HONEY BOO BOO is in the top 15 should point out that by and large the US has a decent educational system.
Or be Finland.
SATs correlate positively with family income and negatively with incarceration rates. That seems like a start to me.
This means there are some pupils that perform very well, but also some that perform very poorly. These extremes are more pronounced than in comparable countries.
Many people say that the education system is cementing the social hierarchy: if you are very well educated, your children will mostly become the same, but it is rather difficult for children to move up the social ladder if they have poorly educated parents.
Because there are many top performers the German economy has enough skilled personnel to be competitive (what to do with the less well educated is a much-debated topic - because of the distinct German health and welfare system the status-quo leads to less social tensions than it would probably in the U.S.).
TLDR: it is plausible that the U.S. is ahead on average. The German education system is probably better on the top performers and worse on the bottom performers.
However, US is the driving engine of innovation and creativity and will continue being so. Asian societies prize conformity over creative thinking ; they are good at Math/whatever-subject because they are forced to be good at those subjects because proficiency in those subjects is seen as the ticket into middle class. In America, every kid has a choice to do whatever with his/her life. The American society nurtures its rebel thinker and lone wolf ; it prizes creativity over conformity. This choice gives us Beyonce, Vint Cerf ,Steve Jobs / Bill Gates , etc. etc.