

U.S. should look abroad for education reform, study says - tokenadult
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_18162590?source=rss&nclick_check=1

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yummyfajitas
This study has a curious methodology. They compare the US (a primarily white,
black and hispanic nation) to a bunch of countries with lots of Asian
students, Ontario (a Canadian province which has a disproportionate number of
Asian students), and Finland (an outlier in Europe).

I wonder why the article doesn't mention the fact that Asian students tend to
perform really well in school - after all, isn't that a major confounding
factor?

How do they know the reason Singapore beats the US isn't solely because Asian
students perform better than the black, white and Hispanic students the US is
full of?

[http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-
above-...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-
average-american.html)

[http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-
abou...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-
scores-usa.html)

~~~
jgesture
I have never read, heard or observed that any race is, intrinsically,
intellectually superior to another. Give this, your comment isn't interesting.

Now, I have read, heard and observed that Asians tend to have a different
cultural emphasis on academics. Given this, it seems much more reasonable to
suggest that the problem in the US is that the culture doesn't value learning.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Given this, it seems much more reasonable to suggest that the problem in the
US is that the culture doesn't value learning._

Asians in the US don't seem to have this problem. As a result, they perform as
well as Asians in Singapore, Japan and Shanghai. This strongly suggests that
schools are not responsible for the difference. After all, if American schools
sucked and school quality mattered significantly, shouldn't Asian Americans be
dragged down as well?

You can debate whether it is cultural factors or intrinsic intellectual
superiority. It's irrelevant for this conversation. The fact is the study
seems to be measuring student quality but attributes the differences to school
quality.

~~~
jgesture
Making a general statement about American culture, which I did, doesn't,
necessarily, say anything about the details of the culture. As you suggest,
and as I've also generally observed, among the Asian Americans that I've met,
they tend to retain a culture that's more interested in academics than what is
generally found in the American culture.

I think you allude to a good point that I would like to restate.

In this study, and in others like it, the blame seems to be put on the
educational institution. But, it's not hard to see places where success is
gotten independent of the institution (like, for your example, Asian
Americans). So, it seems wrong to put all your faith in and all the blame on
the institution.

I've tutored 100s of people and I've done lots of independent learning and,
based on my interactions, I think I can say that the schools could be changed
however you want and they won't fix the problem in America. See, the students
that I've tutored didn't mainly have a problem in understanding the material,
as far as I could tell, they had a problem in not wanted to learn. And, if I
can teach myself calculus, physics and programming, you don't need schools to
learn things.

As far as I can tell, one large problem is that, in America, it's more
prestigious to be a manager, lawyer or securities trader than it is to be an
engineer or scientist. Engineering and science is associated with curiosity
and learning (things good schools should have), the other disciplines are more
associated with prestigious and financial comfort and generally are not as
socially or economically valuable. There's an interested piece in the New York
Times on this (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2598158>).

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jgesture
Here's the link to the study mentioned in this article
[http://www.ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Standing-
on-t...](http://www.ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Standing-on-the-
Shoulders-of-Giants-An-American-Agenda-for-Education-Reform.pdf)

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omouse
How about unschooling/homeschooling? Being stuck in a classroom all day was
torture and do you really think students learn best when they're forced to be
obedient?

 _And on the job, rather than the adversarial management vs. union mentality
of a factory, teachers need to be given the responsibility and autonomy to
improve teaching and student performance._

So what they're saying is that homeschoolers/unschoolers have had it right all
along. However, they want to bring in only some of the ideas that make
unschooling successful. Small reforms never really amount to anything.

