As I was driving home from school today, I heard yet one more intriguing interview about the state of education in America today. According to the most recent results of an international test, American students are once again lagging behind their peers in various countries around the world. The NPR Story (linked here) focused on the latest findings from PISA (The Programme for International Student Assessment) that had US students finishing anywhere from 15th to 35th in the world in a 2009 assessment of their reading, math, and science skills. It also showed that students from social backgrounds that would likely impact educational opportunities are less likely to succeed in The United States than their fellow socioeconomically depressed students abroad.
Although I haven't found anything else on this story yet, apparently Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called these results appalling and Melissa Block in her interview of Michael Davidson (PISA) on NPR implied that these results really couldn't be read as anything less than a verdict on our destiny to fail and implode as an industrialized, prosperous nation (maybe I read into that one a bit).
But, I have different thoughts on this news. One of the things Davidson did mention was that countries that did well do certain things differently than the US. They have national standards, goals, and recruit teachers from the highest levels of academic achievement. I would agree that we can work on those things as a nation. However, I just am not sure that our student's inability to perform well on a standardized test should really dictate how we view education or even the direction of our country. The United States, for all of its faults and failings, and even acknowledging the growing and sickening disparity between educational opportunities for rich and poor, is still doing quite well as a country. We are in debt, yes, but we are also in an economic recession that the rest of the world is also very acutely experiencing. If we look at other countries with limited government control of the economy and industry (regardless of what the Tea Party says, the United States is ranked about 5th in economic freedom in the world behind such countries as Hong King, Singapore, New Zealand, and Switzerland. None of which are anywhere close to world powers . . .) we really are doing alright.
I guess my biggest problem with this kind of test is that we are not necessarily testing anything that is of use to kids or even to society. By holding these results in such high regards, we aren't just saying that basic math, reading, and science skills are important, but that they are the most important things. I know that these skills matter but is that really all that matters? What about resoning, collaborative work, problem solving, creativity? Aren't these, not math facts, what have helped the US to succeed in becoming the world's (close to) largest economy, biggest military power, and leader in world wide diplomacy and aid? Yes George Bush and many other Presidents went to Ivy League schools but, how would they have measured up on one of these tests (That wasn't even meant to be a Bush bashing thing! I mean it, Reagan, Clinton, even Obama! How would they have fared?). Look at our vast wealth of capitalists and entrepreneurs who have become amazing benefactors and philanthropists. Were they all math, science, and reading whiz kids? I don't know but, I think that a fair number of these types didn't actually always fair well in a traditional academic setting.
So, what I am getting at is this: it's bad enough we compare our children to others in such a public way, it's even worse that we then label them as failures when they don't measure up, do we really need to also damn the entire nation to a bleak and depressing future based on the results of one test that doesn't measure a whole lot? I just don't think we do.
Sources:
NPR Story: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131884477/Study-Confirms-U-S-Falling-Behind-In-Education
PISA/OECD Internaitonal Test: http://www.oecd.org/document/2/0,3343,en_2649_35845621_46609794_1_1_1_1,00.html
2010 Index for Economic Freedom: http://www.heritage.org/index/
CATO Institute Economic Freedom of the World: http://www.cato.org/pubs/efw/index.html
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