04 December 2013

U.S. students compared to world norms

Scores in math, reading and science posted by 15-year-olds in the United States were flat while their counterparts elsewhere — particularly in Shanghai, Singapore and other Asian provinces or countries — soared, according to the results of a well-regarded international exam released Tuesday.

While U.S. teenagers were average in reading and science, their scores were below average in math, compared to 64 other countries and economies that participated in the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. That pattern has not changed much since the PISA test was first given in 2000. 
Details and discussion at the Washington Post.

Addendum:  Quite a lot of discussion, and a video at The Dish.

10 comments:

  1. Chris Hayes did a piece on this last night. The graph numbers don't tell the whole story... http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/are-american-schools-really-failing-79675459718

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  2. We've got a society that put sports first, popularity first, and on and on. As a society, we simply do not value academic excellence. If we did, our kids would do better.

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  3. I note that China does not release scores for the whole country, only Singapore. It would be like the US releasing only the scores of our most affluent school district.

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    1. I agree. I would be interested if the US data was available by state or included various US City scores.

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  4. NZ slid sharply between the last report and this one - much to the consternation of the politicians in charge of the education sector. One of the newspaper articles pointed out that certain countries teach specifically to the PISA style of testing. It was also pointed out that socio-economic level correlated to education result level (in NZ, anyway). Very scary long term...

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  5. We aren't going to get better with the "Common Core" either. US math education seems hell-bent on simply not teaching maths very well at all. When I was in grade school I struggled witth math and while I could. Use it I thought I didn't like math but it was a necessary evil for engineering and science. I took a couple math courses my first year in college and ddiscovered I really liked math once I was properly taught the subject by profs that were not panddering to the lowest common denominator (pardon the pun).

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  6. When you disaggregate US test scores by socioeconomic status you find that affluent American kids are at the top.

    Our education problems all have to do with poverty and nothing else.

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    Replies
    1. When you disaggregate the data, are affluent American kids ahead of affluent kids in other countries?

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  7. I found this article highly relevant and refreshing take on this long debated subject.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/international-test-scores_b_4379533.html
    Ask the question, what should these test scores represent? Do they correlate with a specific outcome, or is it just testing for testing's sake?

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  8. Also, this article sheds additional light about same question, what are we testing exactly? http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/even-when-test-scores-go-up-some-cognitive-abilities-dont-1211.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mit%2Fnews+%28MIT+-+News%29

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