american education is getting their asses handed to them

1st article

US falls to average in education ranking
by Karin Zeitvogel Karin Zeitvogel – Tue Dec 7, 7:18 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States has fallen from top of the class to average in world education rankings, said a report Tuesday that warned of US economic losses from the trend.

The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.

In Canada, 15-year-olds are more than one school year ahead of their US peers in math and more than half a school year ahead in reading and science, said the report released hours after President Barack Obama urged Americans not to rein in education spending, even in a tough economy.

The OECD report also noted that investment in education is paid back many times over.

Boosting US scores for reading, math and science by 25 points over the next 20 years would result in a gain of 41 trillion dollars for the United States economy over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010, the OECD said.

"Bringing the United States up to the average performance of Finland, the best-performing education system among OECD countries, could result in gains in the order of 103 trillion dollars," said the report.

"This is not to say that efforts should not be directed towards mitigating the short-term effects of the economic recession, but it is to say that long-term issues should not be neglected," it said.

The first step towards helping the United States climb back up the education rankings to the top of the class would be to convince Americans "to make the choices needed to show that (they) value education more than other areas of national interest," the report said.

Currently, 18 percent of US 15-year-olds do not reach an OECD-set level of of reading proficiency, compared to 10 percent in China-Shanghai and Hong Kong, which are compared with countries because of the size of their populations, said the report.

The United States has also fallen behind in the percentage of 15-year-olds who are enrolled in school, ranking third from bottom of the OECD countries, above only Mexico and Turkey.

Only eight OECD countries have a lower high school graduation rate than the United States, and in college education, the United States slipped from second to 13th between 1995 and 2008 -- not because US college graduation rates declined, but because they rose so much faster in other OECD countries.

"These developments will be amplified over the coming decades as countries such as China and India raise their educational output at an ever-increasing pace," the report said, stressing the need for Americans to invest in education.

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2nd article on same subject:

OECD warns West of losing global edge in education
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EmailPrint..By Brian Love Brian Love – Tue Dec 7, 11:54 am ET
PARIS (Reuters) – The world's richest countries risk losing the edge gained by better education as standards rise sharply in for example South Korea and the Chinese city of Shanghai, the OECD said Tuesday.

In a report based on surveys of half a million 15-year-old students in 65 countries, the Paris-based OECD noted a drop in reading skills in the United States and many western European countries in the past decade, most notably Ireland and Sweden.

In contrast, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development signaled marked improvement in reading proficiency in countries such as Peru, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, Latvia and Poland, albeit from low starting points in most of those cases.

While wealthy Western economies still ranked far higher, the OECD rated many of them as average or little more than average, weaker than before and way behind a country such as South Korea, which outshone all other countries on the list.

"It is a warning to advanced economies that they cannot take for granted that they will forever have 'human capital' superior to that in other parts of the world," said Angel Gurria, secretary general of the OECD.

"At a time of intensified global competition, they will need to work hard to maintain a knowledge and skill base that keeps up with changing demands."

The OECD said South Korea offered a striking example because its achievement rate went beyond that of a privileged elite.

"(South) Korea's average performance was already high in 2000, but Korean policy makers were concerned that only a narrow elite achieved levels of excellence in PISA (the report)," said the OECD.

"Within less than a decade, Korea was able to double the share of students demonstrating excellence in reading literacy," said the OECD.

SHANGHAI SUCCESS

For lack of a truly national sample for China, the OECD took Shanghai, the burgeoning business city that symbolizes not only the new wealth of China but is also a stark contrast with the underdevelopment of much of the world's most populous country.

While comparison with national averages for other countries is misplaced, Shanghai topped the OECD league tables, not only for the best readers but also for maths and science, two other areas tracked in the OECD's so-called PISA report on education.

"The stunning success of Shanghai-China, which tops every league table in this assessment by a clear margin, shows what can be achieved with moderate economic resources and in a diverse social context," said the report.

"In mathematics, more than a quarter of Shanghai-China's 15-year-olds can conceptualize, generalize, and creatively use information based on their own investigations and modeling of complex problem situations."

OECD officials acknowledged Shanghai was not representative of China and said more areas were being brought on board for future studies.

The lead Shanghai students had over low-ranking counterparts in Mexico as a whole was equivalent to about three years, and it amounted to six years advance on Kyrgyzstan, the country at the bottom of the table, the OECD said.

The great leveler was sex.

Girls beat boys on reading standards irrespective of whether their country was rich, in the middle or poor, according to the OECD.

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what would you do to change the education performance of america

 

LOL, we all know what needs to be done. What else is new.

 

Americans are stupid.........truly, are biggest problem is there is no NATIONAL standard, what a kid learns in TX is different from what kid will learn in NY.

....from big districts to country bumpkin districts., Education is a money maker and local and state governments know that that who has control over educational dollar has the power.

...

 

Universal public education is a relatively new phenomenon and compulsory education in all American states is slightly less than a century old--c. 1918.

A problem is that contemporary values and economic realities make it difficult to craft arguments for education as the love of knowledge or wisdom, philosophia.

Americans tend to think of education as a stepping stone to "the right job", which conceptualizes academic pursuits in careerist terms. The argument loses steam once you consider how wages have fallen against the rate of inflation for 40 years. A college degree certainly helps in the job market and may mean more $ in the long run, but the difference can be somewhat nullified with training in a quick start vocation (e.g. hospital orderly).

America needs to scale back on pop culture while reinvigorating the notion of education for its own sake.

 

This is one of those areas in which I think the Federal Government needs to be more involved.

I grew up in NY and experienced the educational system here. When I taught in NC, I was appalled at how far behind the grade levels were. I was teaching 10th graders how to create and identify a compound sentence- NY teaches that in 5th grade! Each state is allowed to create their own standards, and that is clearly not doing anyone any favors.

There are a lot of things wrong with the US educational system, which is why I'm not teaching anymore. I could probably write a novel on what needs to change, but the simple answer is that there ISN'T a simple answer. Everyone wants to point the finger at one group instead of examining the entire thing. An overhaul is in order or we will continue to drop to the bottom of the list.

 

That's why I'm going send my children to Finland school in the future, knowing that they're the best school out there ever to taught the children. No doubt about it.