
Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/11/heres-why-other-countries-beat-the-u-s-in-reading-and-math/?tid=socialss
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luu
I'm never sure what to think about these articles. I've been seeing these
since I was a kid (20 years ago), and yet, U.S. adults seem to do fine; the
U.S. continues to be a hotbed of innovation. Not only is SV an unrivaled
center of gravity for CS/EE type innovation, the U.S. also has world class ME,
ChemE, biotech, etc. innovation.

Furthermore, U.S. students seem to do fine on exams that require creativity
(IMO, Putnam, etc.).

If you want to dig into the data itself, there's a passable interface to it
here: <http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/ide/>

A large part of the "problem" seems to be because we're comparing a very large
country to much smaller nation-states. Massachusetts outperforms almost the
entire world [1]. Ignoring variance and how it relates to group size is a
well-known problem. It is, for example, the reason the Gates Foundation
erroneously spent $1 billion funding small schools [2]. It's a reasonable
thing to think about doing, because small schools outperform large schools.
But, small schools aren't only at the top, they're at the bottom, too! Small
schools have higher variance. Small countries do, too.

[1]
[http://nces.ed.gov/timss/pdf/results11_Massachusetts_Math.pd...](http://nces.ed.gov/timss/pdf/results11_Massachusetts_Math.pdf)

[2]
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/the...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/the-
small-schools-myth.html)

~~~
joshdick
The U.S. looks bad compared to other countries because we have more poor
children than they do. If you compare our middle-class and upper-class
children to theirs, we look a lot better.

The U.S. does not have an education problem; it has a child poverty problem.

~~~
newbie12
In turn, the child poverty problem is related to whether a child has both
parents in the household.

<http://www.heritage.org/childpoverty>

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TallGuyShort
This is purely anecdotal, but it seems like kids are held back in the US
primarily by the curriculum. I immigrated to the United States having grown up
in a couple of commonwealth countries and I was shocked to go from a school
where I had been learning basic trigonometry to a school where basic algebraic
principles weren't even taught until the next year. So whenever I see a
discussion about all the social issues that impact education, I have to roll
my eyes and wander why people just aren't seeing the kids are capable of more.
Thoughts?

~~~
flatline
We have a subculture of anti-intellectualism and cottling our kids that is
perhaps a little less prominent in the countries that out-perform us? Fitting
in socially is also heavily emphasized in the US system, so early advancement
for high performers is generally frowned upon.

~~~
tdfx
I think the biggest cultural problem we have is the constant search and
glorification of the prodigy/wonderkid and the consequent obsession with
"natural talent", as if everyone has some special innate skill that they're
destined to discover and be the best at.

If you don't understand calculus the first time around, it doesn't mean you're
not a "math person", it means you need to sit down and RTFM for a few more
hours. Likewise, if you're really uncoordinated and can't hit a baseball, go
outside and practice for 2 hours every day. I guarantee you'll improve
dramatically. There's not many things that humans do that can't be improved
through practice and discipline.

For some background, I say all this as someone who was told up and down during
his childhood how smart and gifted he was, all of which came crashing and
burning during high school and college when I realized there were actually
things I needed to put in effort to learn. I'm still trying to repair my study
habits and fill in knowledge gaps to this day, and I truly wish people had
congratulated me more when I had put in a lot of effort into something than
when I appeared to grasp a concept quickly with no effort.

~~~
jsdalton
Great points. My background growing up was similar to yours.

If it makes you feel better, in raising my daughter I'm trying to do things a
better way. I do believe my daughter is gifted, but I spend little if any time
praising for that. Instead, I talk about how things like hard word,
perseverance, and practice are the key ingredients of success, and I point out
and discuss examples wherever I can.

I'll let you know in about 10 years or so whether it made a difference. :)

~~~
josephlord
> I'll let you know in about 10 years or so whether it made a difference. :)

To do that you need twins to treat differently. Every experiment needs a
control group ;)

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yummyfajitas
In previous years these results have been driven primarily by African
Americans and Hispanics (groups which don't exist to any significant degree in
Europe or Asia) dragging the US average down. European Americans do very well
when compared to European nations, and Asian Americans do well when compared
to Asian nations (a bit worse in math, better in reading).

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

Do we have any reason to believe that situation has changed? (I haven't read
the latest report, so I don't know.)

~~~
nfg
> In previous years these results have been driven primarily by African
> Americans and Hispanics (groups which don't exist to any significant degree
> in Europe or Asia)

There aren't many Hispanics in Europe...?

~~~
raleec
Oddly enough, there aren't that many (statistically significant) African
Americans anywhere outside of America either... :)

~~~
yummyfajitas
Yes, I should have more carefully stated that the correct category for
comparison would be non-immigrant Europeans of African descent. Which is a
very small fraction of the population.

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roasm
Sheer size has to play a major factor here. Comparing the US to city-states
like Hong Kong and Singapore or relatively tiny countries like Finland is
really suspect because there is so much difficulty in the managing and
improving an education system as large and diverse as the US has.

Unfortunately, there isn't a great country to compare to: the countries with
the closest populations are Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc. and
comparisons there have other problems. I'm guessing the best possibly
comparisons are probably Brazil or China.

~~~
joshuahedlund
I would love to see a comparison of individual states with these European and
Asian countries instead of just the "US". It's statistically difficult for a
group of 50 country-sized states, with its high outliers and low outliers, to
have an average that beats all of the high outliers of other countries.

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taumeson
Is this averaging the education system as a whole? If so, then that is a
ridiculous way of studying how well the US education system is doing. It's
already been pointed out that MA outperforms most of the world. How are you
going to compare an education system for 100MM people to the education system
of Singapore, Hong Kong, and "the Flemish region of Belgium"?

The US is huge and disparate; the fact that the country that has HONEY BOO BOO
is in the top 15 should point out that by and large the US has a decent
educational system.

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jere
Here's what I learned from this article. In order to outperform the US in
education, be a city-state with a higher per capita GDP than the US and only a
few million citizens.

Or be Finland.

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redcircle
Silicon Valley has so many tiger moms. Yet I bet that the Americans who
succeed here, on any measure of success including just plain fun, were raised
in America's lax educational system. I'd be surprised if anyone showed a
correlation between standardized test scores and life success; in fact, I'd be
surprised if people actually tried to look for such a correlation, instead of
worrying that it is an important indicator.

~~~
pflats
How on earth can you define life success?

SATs correlate positively with family income and negatively with incarceration
rates. That seems like a start to me.

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jinushaun
Singapore's system sounds like the most logical system. College doesn't work
for everyone, and there has to be a way for these people to succeed in society
instead of penalising them or pushing them to drop out of high school. Too bad
it could never be implemented here in the US because it pretty much sets up
discrete social classes.

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eggoa
Actually, I'm just surprised that the U.S. is ahead of Germany in both
categories. Naiveté on my part?

~~~
wolfgke
As far as I know (I was born and live in Germany, but please correct me if I'm
wrong) the German education system is known for a great variance in
performance of pupils.

This means there are some pupils that perform very well, but also some that
perform very poorly. These extremes are more pronounced than in comparable
countries.

Many people say that the education system is cementing the social hierarchy:
if you are very well educated, your children will mostly become the same, but
it is rather difficult for children to move up the social ladder if they have
poorly educated parents.

Because there are many top performers the German economy has enough skilled
personnel to be competitive (what to do with the less well educated is a much-
debated topic - because of the distinct German health and welfare system the
status-quo leads to less social tensions than it would probably in the U.S.).

TLDR: it is plausible that the U.S. is ahead _on average_. The German
education system is probably better on the top performers and worse on the
bottom performers.

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manishsharan
This is just hyperbole to pry more tax dollars for education and I appreciate
the sentiment behind it.

However, US is the driving engine of innovation and creativity and will
continue being so. Asian societies prize conformity over creative thinking ;
they are good at Math/whatever-subject because they are forced to be good at
those subjects because proficiency in those subjects is seen as the ticket
into middle class. In America, every kid has a choice to do whatever with
his/her life. The American society nurtures its rebel thinker and lone wolf ;
it prizes creativity over conformity. This choice gives us Beyonce, Vint Cerf
,Steve Jobs / Bill Gates , etc. etc.

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nathan_long
TL;DR "because they test really heavily, or because they don't test much at
all. Wait, what? There's got to be some causation here somewhere."

