
U.S. Students from Educated Families Lag in International Tests - tokenadult
http://educationnext.org/us-students-educated-families-lag-international-tests/
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vasilipupkin
The problem of using PISA results for analyzing upper tail of U.S. student
performance is that it's not clear how representative they are. How many high
achieving US students bother taking the test, when it has no impact on their
college acceptance, etc. ? Did Zuckerberg take it? What percentage of Ivy
League incoming freshman class take it ?

~~~
vonmoltke
Based on the U.S. Department of Education's description of the sampling
process[1], it seems like the representativeness is dependent on how the
school framing is done. It's not clear from that description what happens with
individual students at the selected schools. You could still get distortions
if groups of students within the selected schools are over or under
represented.

[1]
[http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/faq.asp#4](http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/faq.asp#4)

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csentropy
Simple solution to a complex problem. Just abolish public schools, let anyone
and everyone compete to be able to become educators, open schools etc for
profit, let the parents choose, select and vote with their money, let a
million models be tested and a thousand flowers bloom. The best will rise to
the top, (and probably be expensive), but every segment of the population will
be catered to by price, taste and other preferences. More importantly, many
more kids will have a decent shot at a good if not a great life versus
becoming drones captive to the world's worst performing school system, (by per
capita dollars spent).

~~~
nmrm
> Just abolish public schools

This suggestion is highly inconsistent with the data from the article.

Every nation out-performing the United States has a strong and well-funded
public school system. Although some have a hybrid model, the hybrid models
favor public schools over private schools. And hybrid models hardly constitute
"abolishing".

There is also a strong correlation between states (in the US) with high per-
pupil spending and states which out-perform the US average [1].

> but every segment of the population will be catered to by price, taste and
> other preferences.

"Same quality, lower price"? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence.

[1] I am comparing Fig. 1 of the article with the table titled "Current
Spending per Pupil" on this page: [http://www.governing.com/gov-
data/education-data/state-educa...](http://www.governing.com/gov-
data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html)

~~~
csentropy
Can we define strong? What does well funded mean? How do achievements of
students in public schools vs private schools in all the out performing
nations compare? How do they compare between nations? And to the US? Were the
students normalized before we compare per capita spending vs achievement by
state? How? What factors were not considered? Without answering these and many
other questions, most of this data is useless and pretty much exemplifies the
pitfalls of aggregate statistics.

~~~
nmrm
We absolutely do /not/ need to answer all those questions before we can
conclude that countries out-performing the United States have significant
public school systems.

The other correlation I pointed out does deserve scrutiny, but data-driven
decision making is not impossible and this data isn't nearly as bad as you
claim. The correlation between high per pupil spending and educational
outcomes is not a ground truth and does not hold universally. However, it does
hold with surprising consistency throughout time and space).

As an aside: you initially claimed that abolishing public schools will solve
our performance problems. You provided zero empirical evidence. It's not even
possible to compare the evidence for and against your claim, because you
literally provided no evidence.

You're holding other people's opinions to a ridiculously high standard of
rigor while selling your own as self-evident.

If the state of affairs is really this bad, if it is impossible to obtain good
data and make reasonable predictions based on that data, then your initial
post could be nothing except blind faith.

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chrisBob
Tests are a measure of how well someone takes a test. My Chinese coworker said
he spent more than 12 hours a day at his public high school the _year_ before
the college entrance exam in China. In the US there are better opportunities,
and education (or maybe test performance) is valued less. This results in
students putting much less effort into standardized tests.

~~~
vorg
> My Chinese coworker said he spent more than 12 hours a day at his public
> high school the year before the college entrance exam in China

I've been told that students at a 3-year high school in China will learn all
the new content in the first 2 years, and the only thing they do during that
3rd year is review and practise tests.

~~~
avmich
In many areas the content is learned in layers - first you get some simple
picture, then refined details, then some real depth. So it doesn't say much is
something is learned in 2 years, the question is - how deep?

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digz
While average education levels are of course important, they aren't as
important as density of high achievers and the flexibility of the top group to
remain challenged. It's top achievers that are able to become the best in
their fields that create new industries and revolutionize old ones... not a
population of passing achievers.

Not to say that we shouldn't care about average competency, but these kinds of
studies that explicitly or implicitly portend imminent doom for the US miss
the mark.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "It's top achievers that are able to become the best in their fields that
create new industries and revolutionize old ones... not a population of
passing achievers."

I wonder what's better for the economy of a country as a whole - a high number
of moderately well educated people or a good number of extremely well educated
people but a high number of poorly educated people.

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tokenadult
Several of the comments here have asked how we compare the United States "top"
students to students from other countries. The TIMSS tests (a different data
set, also based on international sample surveys with consistent methodologies
among countries) suggest that there is a lot more "top" in some countries than
in others. Take a look at the very well constructed data chart "Distribution
of Mathematics Achievement" for eighth graders in Exhibit 1.2 of Chapter 1 of
the TIMSS report from the 2011 testing round.[1]

This issue is familiar to Americans like me who have lived overseas and have
learned the local language of another country and have read the math textbooks
available there. Better instruction can produce better educational results--
and for less money besides. The top student issue is illustrated also by
results from the International Mathematical Olympiad[2] and other
international academic competitions. The United States has a huge population
base, and it has many families in which the children are brought up by parents
who are first-generation immigrants who received their own primary and
secondary educations in other countries. (Such children do conspicuously well
in academic competitions in the United States.) And the United States is
wealthy, a heritage from the good governance structure set up by the United
States federal Constitution. But even at that, the United States national team
can be beat at the International Mathematical Olympiad by countries that have
many fewer people and much poorer economies. Some countries have a very
impressive group of top students.

Is America rich enough that many young people here feel they can be complacent
about their futures? Sure it is. But isn't it an especially good use of wealth
to gain more knowledge and more ability to make the world better for everyone?
Why can't the young people of the United States grow up with a sense of
purpose about improving themselves and the world around them, as earlier
generations of Americans apparently did?

As to the public policy point, Minnesota (where I live) was the first state in
the United States to have public school open enrollment, the first to have any
charter schools (and it still has more charter school places per capita than
most states), and the first state to have a comprehensive, state-funded
program to allow dual enrollment in colleges or universities by students
completing the last two years of high school.[3] (We also have a flexible
homeschooling statute, which I take advantage of as a parent.) Even at that,
we here in Minnesota have a long way to go to reach the level of the top-
performing countries. But any state that doesn't have as much flexibility in
schooling choices for families needs to follow Minnesota's example right away.
More choice and flexibility in the state education system is definitely a good
idea and worth imitating in the other states in the United States.

[1]
[http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2011/downloads/T11_IR_M_Cha...](http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2011/downloads/T11_IR_M_Chapter1.pdf)

(You can also download the full report for more context, but that download is
slower.)

[2] [http://www.imo-official.org/](http://www.imo-official.org/)

[3]
[http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/CollReadi/PSEO/](http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/CollReadi/PSEO/)

~~~
WorksOnRobots
Shouldn't we celebrate that the U.S. is rich enough and stable enough that
their students do not have to study for 14 hours a day in their prime of their
youth to acquire a stable career? Why should we want to emulate East Asia's
pressure cooker environment?

~~~
tn13
People who work 14 hours a day irrespective of the purpose would do better
than those who work 4 hours a day.

The problem with American youth is not that they work only 4 hours a day, but
they want results equivalent to that of someone who is working 14 hours a day.
Their expectation is that government somehow should come up with policies to
create jobs.

Reflecting on American history it appears that the country was built by men
and women with their own ambitions and strength. Instead of appreciating that
the youth is getting into a some kind of entitlement thinking.

~~~
deadghost
Funny enough I was reading this earlier:
[http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html](http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html)

"as a developer, I usually average about two or three hours a day of
productive coding"

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rdl
Why do Israel and Sweden do so badly?

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chris_mahan
I bet they don't fail at Minecraft.

~~~
ausjke
can't agree with you more here

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happyscrappy
>It is true that Massachusetts schools stand up to world competition, but it
is important to keep in mind that the K–12 students living in Massachusetts
are just 2 percent of the nation’s total. One cannot generalize to the country
as a whole from this small state.

They then go on, as always with these type articles, to compare the US to
countries the size of Massachusetts.

~~~
argv_empty
Of course. One can definitely cherry-pick a Massachusetts-sized sample from a
US-sized country, but it's rather hard to cherry-pick a Massachusetts-sized
sample from a Massachusetts-sized country.

~~~
happyscrappy
I don't think you can meaningfully compare a country of 330m to a country of
5m, especially if the 5m country is totally homogenous.

~~~
bilbo0s
Do you believe you can meaningfully compare Massachusetts to the rest of the
US ?

Because even compared to Massachusetts, which is anything but homogeneous, the
US at large does miserably.

~~~
shadowfox
Also people here tend to overestimate the homogeneity of other countries.

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Dewie
From what people tend to elaborate on what they mean by homogeneity, it seems
that it tends to boil down to "has a very large percentage of white people"...

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javert
Socialized education and socialized medicine cannot work well in any country
with a huge underclass.

This group of countries is the U.S. plus the "third-world countries," the US+3
group (as I call it).

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jff
Look at those contemptible Republican idiots in the shitty _flyover_ states,
with their "kids who can do math" and such.

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sremani
Texas - 40.3 California - 25.3

That does not fit into any political narrative.

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bzbarsky
Indeed. Texas does better than California on average and _way_ better for
less-advantaged students, while spending less money per student on its schools
(though it's entirely possible that in COLA-adjusted terms Texas is spending
more; it's hard to tell).

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tomsthumb
What would be the signifigance of the COLA-adjusted terms?

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bzbarsky
I would assume that all else being equal (a huge assumption there!) paying
teachers the same thing in San Francisco and in Houston would give you
teachers of worse caliber in San Francisco. That's because the cost of living
and salaries in general are lower in Houston, so for the same amount of money
you can hire more qualified people who have more options on the job market.

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Donzo
The US educational system may be shitty, but I refuse to accept data like this
until the standardized tests are actually standardized.

ACT and SAT aside, in 3rd through 8th grade just about every state gives a
different high stakes test.

No national body approves these tests, and that's just in America.

How the hell can you compare disparate American test data with disparate
worldwide test data?

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cle
If you read the article, you will see that they used the National Assessment
of Educational Progress, which is a nationwide standardized test.

As for how they can compare the NAEP results with PISA results...well...that's
also in the article
([http://educationnext.org/files/ednext_XIV_4_peterson_method....](http://educationnext.org/files/ednext_XIV_4_peterson_method.jpg)).

