

Measuring America's Decline, in Three Charts - coenhyde
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/10/measuring-americas-decline-in-three-charts.html?mobify=0

======
nerdo
Comparing a heterogeneous group to homogeneous groups, in three charts. Broken
out, America doesn't look so bad:

[http://www.vdare.com/articles/pisa-scores-show-demography-
is...](http://www.vdare.com/articles/pisa-scores-show-demography-is-destiny-
in-education-too-but-washington-doesnt-want-you-to-k)

~~~
mikeash
And why is that a better way to examine the numbers than the one in the
article, exactly?

~~~
jamesaguilar
Under the assumption that you're interested in knowing the cause of the
problem, gaining insight into the factors that lead to or indicate the problem
can aid in understanding.

To speak in specifics rather than generalities: in this case, we see that
White and Asian children do not seem to be having problems compared to their
peers in other countries. Thus, we can assign a lower probability estimate to
the hypothesis that the problem is the American educational system writ large.
It seems to be a problem localized in certain parts of the system and
population.

~~~
mikeash
Sure, but does this give any insight? Examining _one_ factor out of the
thousands that could potentially affect this does not strike me as in any way
useful, especially since it happens to be a factor that's certain to generate
lots of emotion and very little rational discussion.

For example, it strikes me as unlikely that these factors are actually caused
by race directly. I don't buy into the PC idea that everybody is exactly,
precisely the same, but the differences simply aren't all that large.

What seems much more likely is that it's related to poverty. Poverty and race
are highly correlated in the US for various historical reasons, and I'd wager
that the charts would show just as much, if not more, link between poverty and
scores as between race and scores.

But we can't say for certain without a proper analysis of all potential
confounding factors. Picking a single one and pretending it's automatically
important is the wrong way to do it.

~~~
ars
> it strikes me as unlikely that these factors are actually caused by race
> directly ... but the differences simply aren't all that large.

These are things you _want_ to believe, but they are not true. The reality is
that race plays a huge role in intelligence. It's totally unfair, but it is
what it is. Ignoring it, and believing otherwise does not make it go away, or
make it better. It makes it worse.

> Poverty and race are highly correlated in the US for various historical
> reasons

Poverty is also highly correlated with intelligence. More correlated than it
is to race.

> link between poverty and scores as between race and scores.

Of course, because poverty is a proxy to intelligence.

> Picking a single one and pretending it's automatically important is the
> wrong way to do it.

Pretending that the main one is automatically not-important because it's
unfair, and/or huts your world view, is also the wrong way to do it.

~~~
mikeash
"The reality is that race plays a huge role in intelligence."

I'm going to need some kind of cite for that before we go any further, you
know.

~~~
thowawayanother
In the United States, low income whites perform better than high income blacks
on the SAT - it's not a fact I suggest you go around citing at parties[1]

" Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score
that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139
points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level,
and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose
income was less than $10,000."

[1] [http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-
test.html](http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html)

~~~
wonderzombie
I should feel free to check my privilege, but this actually seems like an
even-handed discussion. Scroll down to "Other Explanations for the Racial
Scoring Gap on the SAT."

""" Clearly, one of the main factors in explaining the SAT racial gap is that
black students almost across the board are not being adequately schooled to
perform well on the SAT and similar tests. Public schools in many
neighborhoods with large black populations are underfunded, inadequately
staffed, and ill equipped to provide the same quality of secondary education
that is offered in predominantly white suburban school districts. """

""" In many cases black schoolchildren are taught by white teachers who have
low opinions of the abilities of black kids from the moment they enter the
classroom. These teachers immediately write off black students as academic
inferiors and do not challenge them sufficiently to achieve the skills
necessary to perform well on standardized tests. """

The thing is, we're nerds. We ought to think more critically than "black
people are disproportionately poor and perform less well academically, oh
well, that's that." Pre-chewed explanations like that ought to be anathema,
especially when they're deployed in the service of a cultural agenda.

But there's a disturbing tendency to ignore the US' complex and problematic
history with racism. It's lazy. It's a cop-out.

~~~
thowawayanother
There's a disturbing issue not to think seriously about the causes of
educational inequalities at all, at least not to the point where people weigh
more than one hypothesis.

I've found the writings of a high school teacher under the name "education
realist" to be thought-provoking. That's where I got this link from. He may be
a Voldemort[1], but he's an honest one.

[1]
[http://www.nas.org/articles/Achievement_Gap_Politics](http://www.nas.org/articles/Achievement_Gap_Politics)

~~~
mikeash
Yes, I've noticed that as well. Yet no matter how much you try to convince
them that this stuff is complicated and many different factors are at work,
some people just keep coming back to race as if it was the only thing that
matters.

------
pg
It's only decline if the US is doing worse than it did in the past. But this
data seems to be a single snapshot. It would be good if someone could find
past results and see if there has actually been a decline.

~~~
jballanc
If you interpret the title as referencing a general decline (as opposed to a
specific decline in these metrics) and attempting to explain that decline with
the charts presented, then perhaps you'd accept this as evidence of a decline:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+minus+China%2C+US+mi...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+minus+China%2C+US+minus+BRIC+GDP+over+time)
?

 _Edit_ : I realize this is a rather liberal reading of the title. I'd argue
the title has been, not unexpectedly, sensationalized.

~~~
jcnnghm
That's not evidence of a decline, see
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+real+GDP+over+time](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+real+GDP+over+time).
That would seem to indicate that other countries are catching up, not that the
US is declining. Also, in real terms, it doesn't look like the narrowing of
the gap is accelerating
([http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+minus+China%2C+US+mi...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+minus+China%2C+US+minus+BRIC+real+GDP+over+time)).

~~~
heliodor
Yes, it shows that other countries are catching up, but every country in the
world affects every other country through import/export. If every country in
the world were at the economic level of the US, our products would cost much
more and every American's purchasing power would go down.

If we put money aside and look at social aspects like education or corruption,
I don't think the US has ever topped those charts recently. The Scandinavian
countries seem to dominate those types of charts year after year.

~~~
jcnnghm
The global economy isn't zero-sum.

------
Detrus
A lot of this feels like measuring the results of education with standardized
tests. Do they ultimately correlate to economic output/GDP? How does the US
maintain it's current level of economic output if it's so stupid?

Maybe it doesn't hurt economically that larger chunks of the population are
dumber in the US. Less intellectual competition might allow the best
companies/players to rise to the top and multiply their effects.

Study but [http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/study-
argu...](http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/study-argues-
us.html)

Where did a large number of our brightest math and physics students end up?
Wall St. Their contribution is well known. The US doesn't seem to have enough
productive places to stick educated people.

~~~
freyrs3
The private sector has plenty of places to put PhD level people with technical
skills, it's just in roles that in which their expertise tends to be directed
toward more risk-averse ventures and their skills tend to be underutilized.
The number of physics PhDs I see in low-level software development roles
sometimes scares me.

------
octaveguin
Things they actually tested (or at least, a sample):
[http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/Education%20and%20Skills_onli...](http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/Education%20and%20Skills_online%20sample%20items.ppt)

I was surprised by the quality. These seem like really good tests of general
competence. This gives a lot of weight to the results.

~~~
jamesaguilar
To be fair, we've been getting our butts kicked in primary education for many
decades, and it hasn't killed us yet. Betimes everyone was scared that Japan
would take us over because their kids were so much "smarter" than ours, and
look what happened to that. Which is not to say I wouldn't love for us to do
better on these tests, but it's also hard for me to summon terror over them
either.

------
clavalle
I always wonder when I see charts like this:

How would, say, the top 1 or 2% of each of those countries fare against each
other?

------
MaysonL
The author's literacy, numeracy and problem-solving ability seem questionable.
Decline means descent: going from a higher level to a lower level, of which
the article demonstrates exactly none.

~~~
mikeash
There's an implicit assumption that we used to be on top, although it's not
supported by data (and I'd hazard that the data would not support it).

It's another form of nostalgia, really. People think the US was so great and
wonderful in the past and now it's crap. It was crap all along, really.
Happened to be some good crap, and still is in many ways, but crap just the
same.

If the USA wants to return to the global domination it had in the 1950s, the
answer is clearly another devastating world war that leaves the USA is the
sole advanced nation untouched, since that's how we got to that position
previously. Not by education or technology or resources or innovation
(although there was plenty of that too), but by having all the competitors
tear each other to pieces for years. Now the world is enjoying relative peace,
and that means we're not so special anymore!

~~~
jballanc
I think you're right, but only partially. In addition to being the only
industrialized nation in the world left mostly untouched by the war, it was
also the prime destination for the world's best and brightest looking for
someplace to escape to. Add to that the fact that the US was already in the
mindset of trying to prove itself equal to the "traditional" superpowers
(England, Germany) and that it found itself immediately after the war in
competition with a genuinely scary foe, and the US really had nothing to loose
by going all out.

Peace is not the US's only enemy. The US also suffers from that most damnable
of afflictions: success. Physical isolation means that the US doesn't have to
worry about aggressors on its borders, but it also means that the US feels
less of a push from its friendly competitors. Why invest in science or
education? Why not just enjoy having the world's largest military by a long-
shot? Why not enjoy the land? the natural resources?

That the US will eventually loose its top spot is certain. The problem is,
when the US finds itself no long top dog, will it have the means to kick
itself back into gear. That, I think, is the real damning implication of these
graphs.

Being better educated won't prevent the eventual decline of the US, but it
will determine just how far down that decline goes...

------
k-mcgrady
The charts seems a bit strange. What does England/Northern Ireland mean? Is it
a combination of the two countries scores? Did they both score equally? Why
leave out Scotland and Wales and not plot the UK?

~~~
itchitawa
It doesn't even list all the OECD countries. This gives the false impression
that US is at the bottom. Yep, it's worse than everyone better than it!

~~~
PeterisP
It does clearly include the average value and the USA value - even if it
cherrypicks a few examples from the huge list of countries, these two numbers
are enough to see that the impression isn't false.

------
adamtait
It looks like they're comparing averages from all those countries, when we all
know that the population of the USA is largest. Even though the distribution
might be different, the number of people that fit into the distribution are
very different.

We have some really smart people in Canada, but we also have 1/3 of the
population of the US. Even if our average proficiency with problem solving is
10% higher, we still only have a fraction of the people who are proficient as
the US.

~~~
refurb
US population = 314M Canadian population = 35M

35M/314M = ~1/9 not 1/3

------
mgirdley
People have been lamenting America's decline for my entire 38 years -- and
more.

At some point, we have to stop listening to the Chicken Littles.

~~~
dragonwriter
> People have been lamenting America's decline for my entire 38 years -- and
> more.

Well, for most of that time, by a number of measures, America -- and
particularly the conditions of the middle class -- has been declining.

> At some point, we have to stop listening to the Chicken Littles.

Repeatedly saying something _is going to happen_ that doesn't is being a
Chicken Little.

Repeatedly saying something _is happening_ when it is objectively
desmonstrable is not being a Chicken Little. Even when it keeps happening over
an extended period of time.

------
PaulHoule
The purpose of a system is what it does.

The school system has two purposes. One of them is to keep the teacher's union
going. Union teaching jobs are unequivocally awful -- less than 50% of people
who get teaching certificates can bear to work in the field, left with student
debt and no income to repay it. (It's a good racket for the union teachers who
teach the teacher thought.) They get rapidly discouraged and burned out but at
least they get a defined benefit pension... For now.

The other one is to kneecap people... Specifically from Kindergarten all the
way to college I was taught that I could be bullied with impunity and never
see anybody held to the account.

This normalizes bullying in the workforce, which is exactly what they want
because they want you to be weak and controllable.

I'm going through this crap with my son. I went to a meeting with the
superintendent and he was gushing over how much he wanted feedback from the
mother of a "special" kid and how she was a partner in her education but he
didn't care what I thought because there was a new paradigm and don't you know
homework is obsolete and spelling too and how my input is definitely not
wanted and won't be listened to.

And they wonder why people vote Republican...

------
lquist
It seems ironic to me that this story has been submitted to Hacker News, a
social news website at the center of Silicon Valley, an extraordinary fount of
innovation unequalled worldwide. American "progress" or "success" will be
determined much more by the pace of innovation than by the abilities of the
general population.

------
bluedino
We were ever that great, or is everyone else just finally catching up?

------
enraged_camel
I'm not sure if it is possible to conclude that America is "declining" by
looking at three simple charts.

Regardless of the fact that American students are lagging in literacy,
numeracy and problem-solving, America has a huge landmass with a vast amount
of (still) untapped resources. Not only that, it is also geographically
isolated from the so-called "Old World," which gives it significant advantages
in terms of physical safety and security.

Does this mean America will continue to remain the #1 world-power? Not
necessarily. In fact, it probably won't, as all empires inevitably recede in
power and collapse. But if it happens, it probably won't be due to simple
differences on a few graphs.

------
vacri
Every set of graphs must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not in
that order?

