Guest essay by Eric Worrall
US academic standards are stagnating, despite huge investment in trying to improve the education system. Maybe its about time politicians and academics started asking why.
‘It Just Isn’t Working’: PISA Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts
An international exam shows that American 15-year-olds are stagnant in reading and math even though the country has spent billions to close gaps with the rest of the world.
By Dana Goldstein Dec. 3, 2019Updated 11:47 a.m. ET
The performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000, according to the latest results of a rigorous international exam, despite a decades-long effort to raise standards and help students compete with peers across the globe.
And the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening. Although the top quarter of American students have improved their performance on the exam since 2012, the bottom 10th percentile lost ground, according to an analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency.
The disappointing results from the exam, the Program for International Student Assessment, were announced on Tuesday and follow those from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an American test that recently showed that two-thirds of children were not proficient readers.
Over all, American 15-year-olds who took the PISA test scored slightly above students from peer nations in reading but below the middle of the pack in math.
…
Mr. Schleicher said that differences in school quality affected the performance of American students less than it affected the performance of students in many other nations — meaning that in the United States, there is more achievement diversity within schools than across schools.
Some education leaders said they saw no reason to drastically change policy directions.
…
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/us/us-students-international-test-scores.html
The PISA report is available here.
Why do I think this stagnation might be related to climate activism?
Last September, a prominent Australian drug rehabilitation specialist testified before a government committee that fear of climate change and lack of economic security is contributing to the drug epidemic.
… Fifth, efforts to reduce the demand for powerful psychoactive drugs in Australia have had limited benefit and require a new focus. Unless and until young Australians feel optimistic about their future, demand for drugs will remain strong. Young people, understandably, want more certainty about their future prospects, including climate, education, jobs and housing affordability. Change will be slow and incremental, like all social policy reform. …
Read more: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/27/drug-inquiry-fear-of-climate-change-is-destroying-the-lives-of-young-people/
What do you say to convince a child to study hard and do their homework, if they believe the world is about to end?
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https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2019/12/04/fraud-in-higher-education-n2557348
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2016, only 37% of white high school graduates tested as college-ready, but colleges admitted 70% of them.” I guess this explains a lot, saw this in the 1980s, started earlier, when systems were developed to let the excess in, Education courses, General Studies, student evaluations during the course, etc., and new ones now I never heard of. I used to tell them that we would be happy to have them back when they were better prepared. A few did, but it was a difficult time to do it.
“Young people, understandably, want more certainty about their future prospects, including climate, education, jobs and housing affordability.”
Ironic that all of the listed prospects will be doomed by the climate change hoax. With the trillions being consumed by the fictional man-made climate change and its proponents’ demands, there will be no jobs or affordable housing. As for education, a well-educated populace is the last thing the hoaxsters want, especially, when it comes to math, science and critical thinking. That would harm their fight to indoctrinate the youth to unquestioningly accept their doom propaganda.
I’ve been a member of an astronomy club since the 80’s. I’ve met members of the general public who’s scientific literacy ranges from knowing almost nothing to people who could almost qualify as a scientist. It’s been my impression that the more literate a person is in the sciences, the less likely they are to be frieghtened by all the climate doomsters out there.
The ignorant are easily mislead and frightened by climate change. Look at the top countries in science. They’re doing pretty well, with little to no climate hysteria. The U.S. is near the bottom, lots of hysteria.
China comes out on top. Well, how many non-Chinese speaking immigrant children do you think deluge the Chinese school system? I would hazard a guess that every child in their schools comes to school being able to speak the official language, unlike US/Canada/Europe where classrooms are filled with children who need to be taught to speak the official language before they can be taught to read it. Moreover, any Chinese children with learning problems, dyslexia, poverty issues, drug addictions, etc will not be attending school by the time they are 15 years old; thus these kids’ lack of reading ability will not be counted in the official statistics.
I doubt the Chinese allow students to skip school on Fridays to attend protests.
“I would hazard a guess that every child in their schools comes to school being able to speak the official language”
Actually no. There are several different “chinese languages”. The writing system is common, however.
I’ve been a member of an astronomy club since the 80’s. I’ve met members of the general public who’s scientific literacy ranges from knowing almost nothing to people who could almost qualify as a scientist. It’s been my impression that the more literate a person is in the sciences, the less likely they are to be frieghtened by all the climate doomsters out there.
Education in the United States has two or three competing problems to overcome.
First, colleges of education tend not to attract the brightest or most motivated students. Most see the education field as the “safety valve” to get out of school with a degree. There are exceptions, but that just proves the rule as we used to say.
Second, activists have compelled the politicians to require nearly half of the day to teach social justice issues that are not the purvue of the education establishment. That means fewer hours devoted to the reading, writing, arithmetic, and logic in the day.
Third, parents are not preparing the students to attend school. When we have screens babysitting from the time a child can focus their eyes, rather than meaningful interactions with our young, the student has a stunted ability to focus on deep-thinking tasks.
There are many other problems, like bureaucratic creep and administrator bloat, but those three are the most egregious.
Voucher.
The Left lie about everything.
Liars and repeaters of lies are clueless spreaders of chaos.
Young people are turned off on an education, as education has become a silly game where the objective is to get and keep students and what is taught is zero help in getting a job.
This is a discussion of the scam of Grade Inflation.
As the objective is to get and keep students,and students all want honours, the solution is give them all honours.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2019/08/great-university-con-how-british-degree-lost-its-value
The great university con: how the British degree lost its value
Never before has Britain had so many qualified graduates. And never before have their qualifications amounted to so little.
“This narrative is useful. It allows government ministers to tout the UK’s influence, university management to pay themselves befittingly, and students to appear exceptional. And with each year, it is propped up by record grades. The numbers are remarkable and little understood. The proportion of students getting “good honours” – a First or 2:1 – has leapt from 47 to 79 per cent: at 13 universities, more than 90 per cent of students were given at least a 2:1 last year. And Oxbridge is leading the charge: 96 to 99 per cent of its English, history and languages students get “good honours”.
Damian Hinds, the former education secretary, offered an anodyne response on 12 July, following the publication of the latest figures. “Artificial grade inflation,” he said, “is not in anyone’s interests.”
But it is. Grade inflation is the inevitable outcome of the system universities operate under. There is little reason to suspect that the system is about to change, or is even understood. “The logical conclusion of the current drift is that by 2061, 100 per cent of people [will] get Firsts,” says Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. In fact, if the next 20 years are like the past 20, it won’t take half that time.”
Smart phones make stupid people.
Smart phones make people stupid.
Sorry I wondered off topic above,yes indeed,the failure of our state run education system is the direct cause of the Catastrophic Climate Cult.
For a people without reasoning skill and a grasp of history are perfect targets for a scheme that preys on mass ignorance and hysteria.George Carlin said it best..”50% are dumber than average”.
Power through politics consists of stampeding the herd,in the direction of your desire.
Now we see the desires of the Fools and Bandits, perhaps we will reward them as they deserve.
Forcing from them exactly what they demand of us,would be very entertaining justice.
Very complex sampling methodology between schools, city vs rural, within countries, between countries, different languages, etc. Different sampling gives different results. Plus there are “adjustments”. Read the methodology. Different cultural norms, freedom has some drawbacks as well. No denying that the educational business is, however, on the decline in our USA. Easy entry and low standards have been the rule for a very long time. Politics is also a problem.
Much of the effort made, and choices taken, by young people as they move through the education system are not entirely irrational. By the time they are 15 many students will be aware that studying maths, science, & engineering is perceived as harder with rewards not necessarily matching the work required. Yes, some people do earn a good living in these fields but they can see plenty of people who don’t.
…And when their teachers never got very far in these subjects then it becomes a vicious cycle rather than a virtuous one. More than a decade ago (perhaps two decades) I recall reading that one government in the UK decided to do something by hugely raising the pay of maths teachers to as much as ~£60,000, which actually gave me pause to wonder if I should switch careers. I just looked up the average current salary of UK maths teachers and found it to be £30,235, so that seems to be another promise broken by politicians.
Estonia average teacher salary = 1,380 Euros/month.
Average teacher salary in Colorado = $4,000 / month.
Kids are in schools roughly the same length of time / year.
Most people there are bilingual in a foreign language, most commonly English and Russian.
I will state a possible cause – environmental pollution in the food chain is damaging the brains of the citizens. Glyphosate in particular, but tied in with the obesity and diabetes epidemics it seems clear that there is mass poisoning going on in the USA. Under those circumstances spending on education won’t improve the outcome, which is what you are seeing.
having seen what was passed as a good lunch for usa kids at school Im amazed that any at all manage to pass.
ketchup rated as a serve of vegetable from memory
oh lawdy!
a class ful of hyped up kids then the sugar slump later
Meanwhile in Australia – “Australian students have recorded their worst results in international tests, failing for the first time to exceed the OECD average in maths while also tumbling down global rankings in reading and science.”
https://www.smh.com.au/education/alarm-bells-australian-students-record-worst-result-in-global-tests-20191203-p53gie.html
It really shows when I comment on other blogs about thing scientific.
Does the Chinese student in Shanghai adequately substitute for students across China?
Are Malay And Indian residents of Singapore scoring the same as the Han?
There could be some sampling errors.
The outfit that set up PISA is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, out of France. On their web page the OECD express urgent concern for sustainability, collaborative decision making and especially “climate change financing” which they expect from members.
Would it be a surprise of any kind to see tendentious questions on their science…. What portion of Man-made global warming is a result of humans: a) 80% b) 90% c) All d) None
For countries like China, which refused to participate in the testing as a single entitity, PISA will allow regions or cities within that country to participate as a group. Hence the BSJZ (China). BSJZ is Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang – presumably higher-socio-income blocs. A “rigorous selection process” is used to pick the participating schools from among all possible, and the individual student from all those schools are selected at random.
What reason does U.S. have to be a member of such a group?
well if you think its normal to not have a life as a child and study all day and night, then sure go ahead and aspire to be like the Chinese.
Spare a thought for why so many Chinese migrate out of China.
A main driver of poor success in school is lack of a loving, devoted mother and father living in the same home as the children. They can teach kids the really important stuff they need when they are 2-4 years old. If there is one sound theory that has come lout of Psychology/Psychiatry is that through guided development of parents in the ages 2-4 kids develop the basics for needed social skills and form the basis for their growing up and their adult personality.
It takes a female and a male parent in order to establish for the kids how the world works and how they can fit in it. A very dedicated single parent can handle one or maybe 2 kids and get similar results.(Thomas Sowell for example).
Eric Worrall:
What do you say to convince a child to study hard and do their homework, if they believe the world is about to end?
“Plant a tree.”
https://www.google.com/search?q=plant+a+tree&oq=plant6a+tre&aqs=chrome.