US 'in Denial' over Poor Maths Standards

unokitty

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2012
3,346
1
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denialbirdearth.jpg


... international study of maths ability in the US shows how individual states would have performed if they were ranked against other countries, using the OECD's Pisa results as a benchmark.

The study also shows that privileged youngsters in the US, with highly-educated parents, are lagging behind similar youngsters in other developed countries...

"There is a denial phenomenon," says (Harvard) Prof Peterson.

He said the tendency to make internal comparisons between different groups within the US had shielded the country from recognising how much they are being overtaken by international rivals.

"The American public has been trained to think about white versus minority, urban versus suburban, rich versus poor," he said.

The outcome was a misleading sense of complacency about middle-class education, which always appeared to be ahead, he said.

Report authors, Prof Peterson, Eric Hanushek at Stanford University and Ludger Woessmann at the University of Munich, wrote in Education Next magazine: "Lacking good information, it has been easy even for sophisticated Americans to be seduced by apologists who would have the public believe the problems are simply those of poor kids in central city schools. "

"Our results point in quite the opposite direction," .

Denial?

US Social Justice Warriors in Denial?

Unpossible!

Uno
 

waggy

No Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
68,143
10
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no suprise. when you get a answer correct for having the method down no matter if the final answer is wrong yo aren't going to succeed in test
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
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Not surprising at all. The chickens of shifting the focus from teaching fundamentals to focusing on political correctness, fairness and other fluffy stuff will inevitably come home to roost. We can be in denial all we want, it won't change the facts.
 

z1ggy

Lifer
May 17, 2008
10,008
65
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I've seen some of this new "core cirriculum" stuff that kids have to do and it's ridiculous. What happened to teaching them regular long division? How about starting young kids on how to keep budgets, etc. I never once learned how to make a proper budget until I was a real adult and taught myself.
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
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Common core for the win!!!!!!

To be fair, common core hasn't had sufficient time yet to screw up education, it's been going downhill for decades and long before common core. Not to say I don't think it's an utterly stupid failure, just that we can't blame it for the state of education at this point. ;)
 

michal1980

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2003
8,019
43
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wait a minute did someone read the full article how can the follow be true:

"But the study raises questions about how other southern states can buck the trend, such as Texas.

Among the children of poorly educated families, Texas is a spectacularly strong performer, equivalent to sixth place in the OECD rankings, just behind Finland.

California raised another set of negative questions, said Prof Peterson, with a very low performance.

"California was historically thought to have a good education system, but it's plunged since the 1970s," he said.

It has an economy big enough to match many OECD countries, but in education comparisons it would be a lightweight, its maths performance weaker than in almost any other industrialised country."

According to all the resident lefties here, CA is a utopia and texas is the pits. How can this be? Arent CA students thought by the some of the strongest and most unionized teachers in the USA?
 

cubby1223

Lifer
May 24, 2004
13,518
42
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wait a minute did someone read the full article how can the follow be true:

"But the study raises questions about how other southern states can buck the trend, such as Texas.

Among the children of poorly educated families, Texas is a spectacularly strong performer, equivalent to sixth place in the OECD rankings, just behind Finland.

California raised another set of negative questions, said Prof Peterson, with a very low performance.

"California was historically thought to have a good education system, but it's plunged since the 1970s," he said.

It has an economy big enough to match many OECD countries, but in education comparisons it would be a lightweight, its maths performance weaker than in almost any other industrialised country."

According to all the resident lefties here, CA is a utopia and texas is the pits. How can this be? Arent CA students thought by the some of the strongest and most unionized teachers in the USA?

Jesus knows his math. Some other areas of education he's not so strong in, but math is his shining subject. Gotta ace it to be a carpenter.
 

Paul98

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2010
3,732
199
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Not surprising at all, we haven't been teaching students so that they understand math for I don't know how long. We teach memorizing a simple process to get the answer, while giving almost no understanding of what is being done or what CAN be done. Thus you end up with those who can ONLY do math using that process
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
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Texas is a spectacularly strong performer, equivalent to sixth place in the OECD rankings, just behind Finland.

But... but... Texas is where they want to do nothing but teach intelligent design instead of evolution, there's no way the kids there could be learning anything.

California raised another set of negative questions, said Prof Peterson, with a very low performance.

"California was historically thought to have a good education system, but it's plunged since the 1970s," he said.

That's unpossible. With all the kids in CA having access to whatever bathroom for the gender they want to identify with that day, protection from bullies and mean words that could hurt their feelings, daily reinforcement of their self worth etc, surely they would be the best performers in the world.
 

Mai72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2012
11,562
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I taught for 2 years in South Korea and I can personally tell you that our children are in deep sh*t. They are going to be in trouble because we just don't take education seriously.

On average my students had 3-5 hours of homework per night. These were 4th graders! Compare that to the average amount of homework the typical 4th grader gets in America and it's a joke. I looked at my niece's homework. She's in the 4th grade. She had 30 minutes of homework. It was incredibly easy. Once she was done she went back to watching television. Homework does matter! It builds the skills that one needs to excel in the classroom. Practice, practice and more practice.

This is why there are so many good paying factory jobs that are going unfulfilled. Most young Americans don't have the skills necessary to work in these high skilled positions.

We are in a global economy. If you want a good paying job you are going to have to compete with skilled workers from Korea, Japan, China and the Netherlands. If I'm an employer why should I pick a poorly skilled American when I can hire a highly skilled foreigner.

We live in difficult times.

**Sorry for the spelling errors.
 
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nehalem256

Lifer
Apr 13, 2012
15,669
8
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I taught for 2 years in South Korea and I can personally tell you that our children are in deep sh*t. They are going to be in trouble because we just don't take education seriously.

On average my students had 3-5 hours of homework per night. These were 4th graders! Compare that to the average amount of homework the typical 4th grader gets in America and it's a joke. I looked at my niece's homework. She's in the 4th grade. She had 30 minutes of homework. It was incredibly easy. Once she was done she went back to watching television. Home does matter! It builds the skills that on needs to excel in the classroom. Practice, practice and more practice.

This is why there are so many good paying factory jobs that are going unfulfilled. Most young Americans don't have the skills necessary to work in these high skilled positions.

We are in a global economy. If you want a good paying job you are going to have to compete with skilled workers from Korea, Japan, China and the Netherlands. If I'm an employer why should I pick a poorly skilled American when I can hire a highly skilled foreigner.

We live in difficult times.

How will you ever get a good factory job without advanced calculus and in depth knowledge of the Roman empire?:confused:

I have to disagree with you. A large portion of what you learn in school is completely irrelevant to future jobs. And doing 5 hours of homework a night isn't going to improve matters.
 

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
I taught for 2 years in South Korea and I can personally tell you that our children are in deep sh*t. They are going to be in trouble because we just don't take education seriously.

On average my students had 3-5 hours of homework per night. These were 4th graders! Compare that to the average amount of homework the typical 4th grader gets in America and it's a joke. I looked at my niece's homework. She's in the 4th grade. She had 30 minutes of homework. It was incredibly easy. Once she was done she went back to watching television. Home does matter! It builds the skills that on needs to excel in the classroom. Practice, practice and more practice.

This is why there are so many good paying factory jobs that are going unfulfilled. Most young Americans don't have the skills necessary to work in these high skilled positions.
We don't have to compete in the real world. Get with it. We're a country full of most-excellent rock-stars. It's our birthright to be floated from cradle to grave, and the whole rest of the world will keep itself poor and uneducated so they can continue to make cheap products to serve our guaranteed rockstar lifestyles. No one needs to know how to do anything useful or be on par with anyone around the globe. We'll get ours by demanding our elected thugs make wages whatever we wish them to be based on our rock-star birthright, and if that fails, we'll just demand to get paid just for existing.
 

TheVrolok

Lifer
Dec 11, 2000
24,254
4,091
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How will you ever get a good factory job without advanced calculus and in depth knowledge of the Roman empire?:confused:

I have to disagree with you. A large portion of what you learn in school is completely irrelevant to future jobs. And doing 5 hours of homework a night isn't going to improve matters.

You're missing his point. It's not necessarily WHAT is learned (content wise), it's HOW/WHY it is learned. The most important thing to learn in school is HOW/WHY to learn. Doing 30 mins of easy homework isn't teaching anyone shit.
 

nehalem256

Lifer
Apr 13, 2012
15,669
8
0
You're missing his point. It's not necessarily WHAT is learned (content wise), it's HOW/WHY it is learned. The most important thing to learn in school is HOW/WHY to learn. Doing 30 mins of easy homework isn't teaching anyone shit.

Helsinki, Finland

High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted

Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB120425355065601997

It doesn't appear that homework is so necessary.
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
18,786
5,622
136
I've seen some of this new "core cirriculum" stuff that kids have to do and it's ridiculous. What happened to teaching them regular long division? How about starting young kids on how to keep budgets, etc. I never once learned how to make a proper budget until I was a real adult and taught myself.

I'm teaching my students that :)
 

Mai72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2012
11,562
1,741
126
How will you ever get a good factory job without advanced calculus and in depth knowledge of the Roman empire?:confused:

I have to disagree with you. A large portion of what you learn in school is completely irrelevant to future jobs. And doing 5 hours of homework a night isn't going to improve matters.

Homework doesn't matter? I disagree.

Compare a student who has 3-5 hours of homework on a regular basis to someone who has little to no homework. The student who has to do the homework will develop good habits and will more than likely put the hours in and excel in the classroom. The other student who didn't do as much homework will probably lack the discipline to study. Why do Asians and Jewish students normally do well in college? Why are they more likely to become doctors? It's because they take education seriously, and they are able to study non-stop for many hours. They developed these skills by doing homework for 3-5 hours a night, and not by neglecting their studies so they can play video games.

;)
 
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unokitty

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2012
3,346
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Downward mobility haunts US education

Andreas Schleicher, special adviser on education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), says the US is now the only major economy in the world where the younger generation is not going to be better educated than the older.

"It's something of great significance because much of today's economic power of the United States rests on a very high degree of adult skills - and that is now at risk," says Mr Schleicher.

"These skills are the engine of the US economy and the engine is stuttering," says Mr Schleicher, one of the world's most influential experts on international education comparisons.

According to the UN's OECD, the US is the only major economy in the world where the younger generation is not going to be better educated than the older....

Uno
 

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
18,828
184
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We are in a global economy. If you want a good paying job you are going to have to compete with skilled workers from Korea, Japan, China and the Netherlands. If I'm an employer why should I pick a poorly skilled American when I can hire a highly skilled foreigner.

To be fair, it doesn't seem like you really need to compete by being the best anymore: just be the cheapest.