Today, Sam Dillon has an article in the International Herald Tribune that finally provides some good news for American educators — well, kind of. Eighth grade students in traditionally low performing states such as Alabama achieved higher scores in science and mathematics than students in most other countries. Now for the bad news: students in Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan scored better than America’s highest performing states.
According to Dillon’s article:
"In this case, the bad news trumps the good because our Asian economic competitors are winning the race to prepare students in math and science," said the study's author, Gary Phillips, chief scientist at the American Institutes of Research, a nonprofit independent scientific research firm.
The study equated standardized test scores of eighth-grade students in each of the 50 states with those of their peers in 45 countries. Experts said it was the first such effort to link standardized test scores, state by state, with scores from other nations.
Dillon additionally reported:
On the most recent national assessment, the highest-performing state in math was Massachusetts, and in science, North Dakota. The new study shows that average math achievement in Massachusetts was lower than in the leading Asian nations and in Belgium, but higher than in 40 other countries, including Australia, Russia, England, and Israel.
Mississippi was the lowest-performing state in both math and science. In math, Mississippi students' achievement was comparable to those of peers in Bulgaria and Moldova, and in science, to those in Norway and Romania.
In math, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York students were roughly equivalent with each other and with their peers in Australia, the Netherlands, and Hungary.
At some point, citizens might begin to ask important questions about what is really going on within the school districts their tax dollars support. For example, after more than 100 years of progressive educational programs, in a country ranked fourth in the world in purchasing power parity, how is it possible that America’s educational system is only approximately equal to two very small, re-emerging nations.
If we look at the allocation of education funds by school populations, we uncover some disturbing facts. Each school is different, of course, because each school has a different student population. Assuming a high school population of 3,000 students, 60% of the athletic budget allocated to football programs, serving roughly 2% of the student population. Moreover, funding is always available for advanced courses (Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate), serving perhaps 20% of the student population, while vocational and technical programs (especially on behalf of at-risk students) remain seriously under-funded. Finally, administrators assign their “best” teachers to advanced courses with low student to teacher ratios, while the “not so best” teachers are assigned to regular classes where the student to teacher ratio is 32:1, and the classes are mainstreamed with special education students, gifted and talented students, at risk students, and convicted felons.
This has nothing to do with student aptitude, but it has everything to do with the attitudes of parents, and children who mimic their parents. The number of parents who actually show up for open house or PTA meetings is appallingly low. Of those who do, half complain that homework precludes their children from having a happy childhood. There is not enough time for “play.” And this brings me to a cartoon I found at Angel’s site and this may in fact be one of the biggest detractors for educating children:
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