Let the gnashing of teeth begin! Unleash the editorial
floodgates! Grab your children, parents, and hide them until it’s safe!
America’s public schools have “failed again.” So say the
critics. And this time they’ve got facts to prove it—well facts from one
test!!! Once again our 15-year-olds
got pummeled on the Program for International Student Assessment tests (PISA).
Somewhere in a Washington, D. C. bar, U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is
weeping in his beer.
How “bad” is it? Oh, very bad indeed!!! (We need extra exclamation points to make this clear!!!!!) As a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor explains it our
kids finished 20th in reading out of 65 nations and provinces tested.
They finished 23rd in science and 30th in math.
Well, what do PISA scores prove? Do they show that the last decade of U. S. school reform has made the situation worse? You
could argue that. In fact, in the last three years, the United
States has dropped from 10th in reading, 19th in science
and 24th in math.[1]
Perhaps this flagellation over PISA scores is completely overblown.
Start with the fact that before 2000 the test did not exist. Somehow, we managed to get along. And what do we really
know if Japanese students, beat ours in all three areas?
Some of this should be obvious. Japanese students attend
classes 240
days per year.[2] That means three years of school in Japan equal four years in
the U. S. (Here in Ohio a school year is 180 days). Want to come to grips with how
that might affect PISA math scores? Take two runners to the
nearest track and tell them the winner of the race they are about to begin will
be the person who runs the farthest in the next 240 seconds. Then tell one
runner he cannot start until the other runner has a sixty-second lead.
Then claim that the first runner was actually better. Or do
what critics of America’s teachers do. Compare finishes and blame the losing
coach.
Let’s say we want our kids to catch up.
We could ask them to run harder. We could ask them to run longer. Or we might ask them to do both. Students from Australia also scored higher on the
PISA tests and they attend classes 200
days per year. That means nine years in school Down Under equals ten in
the United States. South Koreans have a significantly longer academic year.
When classes end for the day they’re not done, either. Most South
Korean teens head for after-hours cram sessions. An average
day of studying for them is fourteen hours long.
If we want to “catch” the better runners we might copy their
“training methods” too. Finland (see all charts below) has been
held up as a model for us to follow. School critics in the U. S. turn
out reams of articles indicating that we should copy the Finnish system. Finland selects teachers only from
the top third of their college classes. Well, then, obviously, what we need in
America are “smarter” teachers. Then America’s kids will all be fine. They
will kick ass on the PISA test—even if they don’t work as long or as hard as
peers in distant lands.
How about this idea? We take a page from Finland and do away with all school sports. Think of
the time we could devote to studying math and science if we stopped shooting
hoops and cutting time out of English class to send our students to football pep rallies! Yeah, that idea is really going to fly. Maybe we should eat more reindeer.
It’s working for the Finns.
It’s working for the Finns.
(Sorry teachers: I
don’t mean to compare you to lawmakers in Washington. That seems like a truly
low blow.)
Of course, these kinds of “comparisons” are absurd and counter-productive
in the end. Yet the critics keep making them. So let’s use statistics in our own
defense. Are U. S. teachers really failing? Are the schools a total
mess?
PISA MATH LIFE
EXPECTANCY
1.
South Korea—554 Monaco—89.6
years
2.
Japan—536 Japan—84.2
3.
Lichtenstein—535
Switzerland—82.3
4.
Switzerland—531
Australia—82.0
5.
Netherlands—523
Italy—82.0
6.
Estonia—521 Lichtenstein—81.6
7.
Finland—519 Canada—81.6
8.
Canada—518 France—81.6
9.
Poland—518 Sweden—81.3
10.
Belgium—515 Israel—81.2
11.
Germany—514 Iceland—81.1
12.
Austria—506 Netherlands—81.0
13.
Australia—504 Bermuda—80.9
14.
Ireland—501 New Zealand—80.9
15.
Slovenia—501 Ireland—80.4
16.
Denmark—500 Norway—80.4
17.
New Zealand—500 Germany—80.3
18.
Czech Republic—499 Jordan—80.3
19.
France—495 United Kingdom—80.3
20.
United Kingdom—494 Greece—80.2
21.
Iceland—493 Austria—80.2
22.
Latvia—491 Luxembourg—79.9
23.
Luxembourg—490
Belgium—79.6
24.
Norway—489 Virgin
Islands—79.6
25.
Portugal—487 Finland—79.6
26.
Italy—485 South Korea—79.6
27.
Spain—484 Denmark—78.9
28.
Russian Federation—482 Portugal—78.9
29.
Slovak Republic—482 Guam—78.7
30.
UNITED STATES—481 UNITED
STATES—78.6
(actual
ranking: 49th out of 223
nations.)
Countries in green appear
on both lists. You know what this means? If America’s teachers and schools are failing our doctors and
hospitals are too!
What happens if we list scores in science (left) and homicide
rates per 100,000 in population (right)? Let’s see how our great nation fares:
PISA SCIENCE HOMICIDE
RATE
1.
Japan—547 Lichtenstein—0.0
2.
Finland—545 Japan—0.3
3.
Estonia—541 Bahrain—0.5
4.
South Korea—538 Switzerland—0.6
5.
Poland—526 Czech Republic—0.8
6.
Canada—525 Luxembourg—0.8
7.
Lichtenstein—525 Denmark—0.8
8.
Germany—524 Austria—0.8
9.
Netherlands—522 Slovenia—0.8
10.
Ireland—522 Spain—0.8
11.
Australia—521 Germany—0.8
12.
New Zealand—516 New Zealand—0.9
13.
Switzerland—515 Ireland—0.9
14.
Slovenia—514 Italy—0.9
15.
United Kingdom—514 Iceland—0.9
16.
Czech Republic—508 Sweden—0.9
17.
Austria—506 Australia—1.1
18.
Belgium—505 Portugal—1.1
19.
Latvia—502 Croatia—1.1
20.
France—499 Poland—1.2
21.
Denmark—498 France—1.2
22.
UNITED STATES—497 Hungary—1.4
23.
Lithuania—496 Canada—1.5
24.
Spain—496 United Kingdom—1.5 (estimated)
25.
Norway—495 Romania—1.6
26.
Italy—494 Greece—1.6
27.
Hungary—494 Belgium—1.8
28.
Luxembourg—491 Israel—2.0
29.
Croatia—491 Finland—2.2
30.
Portugal—489 UNITED STATES—4.7
(we rank 53rd out of 83 reporting nations)
Other countries with “terrible science teachers” would include: Russia (486), Israel (470), Turkey (463), and
Mexico (415). With all those lousy science teachers you wonder how
Russia and Israel ever managed to invent their own atomic bombs.
As for terrible police:
we finished with more murders per capita than South Korea (2.6), Australia
(1.1) and almost certainly the Netherlands
(0.9 in an earlier report). Latvia was not cited either. So: Estonia was the only country proven to have “better”
science teachers and “worse” cops. The homicide rate in Estonia was 4.8.
Finally, let’s look at PISA reading scores and compare them with childhood
poverty rates.
PISA
READING %
OF CHILDREN LIVING IN POVERTY
1.
Japan—538 Finland—about 4%
2.
South Korea—536 Netherlands—6
3.
Finland—524 Denmark—6
4.
Canada—523 Iceland—7
5.
Ireland—523 Norway—7
6.
Poland—518 Cyprus—7
7.
Lichtenstein—516 Slovenia—7.5
8.
Estonia—516 Sweden—7.5
9.
Australia—512 Austria—7.5
10.
New Zealand—512 Ireland—8
11.
Netherlands—511 Switzerland—9
12.
Switzerland—509 Germany—9
13.
Belgium—509 Malta—9
14.
Germany—508 France—9
15.
France—505 Czech
Republic—9.5
16.
Norway—504 United Kingdom—10
17.
United Kingdom—499 Hungary—10
18.
UNITED STATES—498 Belgium—10
19.
Denmark—496 Australia—11
20.
Czech Republic—493 New Zealand—12
21.
Austria—490 Luxembourg—12
22.
Italy—490 Estonia—12
23.
Latvia—489 Slovakia—13
24.
Hungary—488 Poland—14
25.
Luxembourg—488 Canada—14
26.
Portugal—488 Japan—15
27.
Spain—488 Portugal—15
28.
Israel—486 Greece—15
29.
Croatia—485 Italy—17
30.
Iceland—483 Lithuania—17.5
Spain—20
Latvia—20.5
Bulgaria—22
UNITED
STATES—23.5
Romania—24
(the U. S. ranked 34th
out of 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
Every nation that beat us in reading had lower childhood poverty
rates—with South Korea not included as an OECD member and Lichtenstein not
reporting.
Finally, I should note that workout facilities
for adults in this country must be terrible. We have the evidence to prove it! Our dieticians and fitness trainers must be the worst in the whole wide world! Rating nations for obesity, we
find Japanese dieticians and trainers must be great! Only 5% of Japanese adults are
obese. The South Koreans are doing fine:
7.7% of their adults are obese. The Swiss, French, Swedes and
Brazilians all beat us. Finland? Damn it! The Finns beat us again! Only 23% of Finland’s
adults are obese. Could their secret be all those reindeer steaks they eat?
Yes! America’s trainers are failing!!!!! (Need more exclamation points!!!!!) One of every three Americans, 33%, are obese. Where do we rank when it comes to good eating and exercise?
We rank 174th.
I’m so depressed now, I think I’ll go eat some cookies. Or maybe grill up a juicy reindeer burger. Finland beats us every time.
[1]
Figures from 2010 also differ from those in the story by the Christian
Science Monitor. In a comparison
of PISA scores for 34 advanced nations the United States finished
tied for 12th in reading, 25th in math and 17th
in science,
[2] Other sources say the figure is 220 or 200.
Congrats on having Diane Ravitch post one of your pieces on her blog.
ReplyDeleteWhen I posted this to Badass Teachers Association's Facebook page George Hess, who lives in Singapore, pointed out: "Singapore is not a Chinese city. It's an independent country. A teacher making such an error is hardly someone who we should be holding up as a defender of US education."
ReplyDeleteHe is correct of course. But maybe a little too grumpy in the morning. I will never, never, never again forget that Singapore is at the tip of the Malay Peninsula.