US Educational Scores Not So Abysmal

DavidHumus writes "The much-publicized international rankings of student test scores — PISA — rank the U.S. lower than it ought to be for two reasons: a sampling bias that includes a higher proportion of lower socio-economic classes from the U.S. than are in the general population and a higher proportion of of U.S. students than non-U.S. who are in the lower socio-economic classes. If one were to rank comparable classes between the U.S. and the rest of the world, U.S. scores would rise to 4th from 14th in reading (PDF) and to 10th from 25th in math."

Comments

Can we speak in clear terms?

[cpm99352]

FA says "Based on their analysis, the co-authors found that average U.S. scores in reading and math on the PISA are low partly because a disproportionately greater share of U.S. students comes from disadvantaged social class groups, whose performance is relatively low in every country."

Hmm, is the study arguing then that these students should be excluded? If so, what is the basis? Are they not really in the country?

Or are they sidestepping the issue of the massive difference in standards of living in the United States?

Granted, the source material may have handled this better than the summary article...

FA says: "As part of the study, Carnoy and Rothstein calculated how international rankings on the most recent PISA might change if the United States had a social class composition similar to that of top-ranking nations"

And the point is???

Re:Can we speak in clear terms?

[Bigby]

No, it is saying that the survey covered, for instance:

US higher socioeconomic pupils: 30%
US lower socioeconomic pupils: 70%

X higher socioeconomic pupils: 50%
X lower socioeconomic pupils: 50%

Which is not a scientific poll unless that is the same proportion of pupils in each socioeconomic bracket.

Re:Can we speak in clear terms?

[uniquename72]

Poor people can succeed, rich people can fail academically - money alone doesn't "fix" anything in education, it just makes it look nicer.

You're partially right. Poor people CAN succeed, but rich people are much, much more likely to.

I grew up dirt poor and succeeded, academically and otherwise. But I'm the only one in my family -- and nearly the only one in my high school -- who "succeeded" by any normal definition of the word. Now look at the average SAT scores of folks that the Rockefeller's and Bush's of the world grew up with -- almost nothing but successes.

Surely you're not suggesting that there's not a VERY strong correlation between money and academic success? Money's not the cause of that success, but it's a massive, massive contributor.

Re:Can we speak in clear terms?

[LateArthurDent]

This just means that the US has extremely rich kids, who are smart. And extremely poor kids, who are dumb.

No, it means the US has rich kids receiving a good education, and poor kids receiving a poor education.

It's more complicated than that. You can't just put the poor kids in the same school as the rich kids and expect them to suddenly do a lot better. I went to a really good high school, and while I was taking the AP and honors classes, the poor kids in the same school were, for the most part, not.

There's a whole lot of built-in advantages that come from having educated parents. Before you even go to school, they've generally taken the time to teach you a great deal of things, which gives you a leg up against your classmates. When you first start taking math, and you have problems understanding basic arithmetic, they're going to be able to help you with that homework, whereas other kids go home, and their parents don't have the knowledge to help them. Your parents might take the time to involve you in their electronic hobbies where you get to learn something they don't teach at the schools, while the other kids' parents don't have any hobbies other than watching TV, because buying random electronic parts to build something doesn't really fit in their budget...

Basically, the problem needs to be approached from a socioeconomic perspective, not just a quality of schools perspective.

Re:Wait, so then what?

[mellon]

It's complicated. We're better off than countries where members of lower socioeconomic classes don't go to school. But our overall scores are lower than countries with better economic equality, because so many more of our citizens are in lower socioeconomic classes.

Re:Wait, so then what?

[Bobfrankly1]

It's complicated. We're better off than countries where members of lower socioeconomic classes don't go to school. But our overall scores are lower than countries with better economic equality, because so many more of our citizens are in lower socioeconomic classes.

It's simple. The scoring was done by American high school students. Obviously if it was corrected, things would be different =D

Shocking!

[kenh]

So if we factor out the poorer-performing students, America scores better?

That is amazing!

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Wait, so then what?

[ShanghaiBill]

Yes, exactly. That's even shorter than my short version! :)

Short but wrong, because both versions assume the problem is getting worse. Test scores are going up world-wide, and have been for decades. But they are going up even faster in America.

White kids in America do as well as white kids in Europe. Black kids in America do as well as black kids in Europe. But America has more black kids (and poor hispanic kids too). This explains ALL of the difference in test scores. We need to do better, but we should not be looking to Europe as a model, because, for similar demographics, they do no better than we do.

Re:Wait, so then what?

[ShanghaiBill]

well from my own person experience from 2002-14 yrs ago. What screwed me up was when they did the alternate track for math and i was put with the 'slow' kids.

If you think that 2002 was "14 yrs ago", then maybe they made the right call when they put you in the "slow" math class.