US 'in Denial' over Poor Maths Standards

[Paratus]

Rest of world in denial that Math ends in an "s"

Also you attend a University. You are at

Not Uni.

That it's all.

 

[nehalem256]

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.

The marginal gain that comes from studying 3-5 hours a night isn't worth the effort in my opinion.

Not everyone wants to be a corporate drone putting in 12 hour days.

 

[Jaskalas]

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?

CA must be getting the stupid farm labor, where as Texas illegals are the more intelligent ones cooking your food and building your homes.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Common Core math will solve this problem. /s

 

[Slew Foot]

CA must be getting the stupid farm labor, where as Texas illegals are the more intelligent ones cooking your food and building your homes.

kind of curious to see where silicon valley ranks in education relative to the rest of CA and the world. The idiots in the central valley really bring down the average.

 

[Orignal Earl]

kind of curious to see where silicon valley ranks in education relative to the rest of CA and the world. The idiots in the central valley really bring down the average.

"There is a denial phenomenon," says Prof Peterson.


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


"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," .

"California is in itself a huge place," she said. And any aggregate results are going to hide the gulf between schools serving the Silicon Valley super rich and the migrant poor.

That's all covered in the article.

 

[WHAMPOM]

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?

It is old news that Texas schools cook their books, marking drop-outs as "transferred", bumping up grades, falsifying attendance records, etc.

 

[LegendKiller]

As has been brought up a billion times - all of the top education systems are likely ones that separate out the college bound kids from those who are "practical" bound somewhere around middle school. In Germany you take the Abitur and either go to "Realschule" (vocational bound) or "Gymnasium" (university bound). It looks like Finland has the same type of system.

It's very easy to compare the *ENTIRE* US HS population to the specific German/Finnish...etc system. Right? That's apples to apples, right?

Umm...no.

However, even if you compared apples to apples I would suspect the results, while far closer, would still favor the dual-education systems for a very simple reason, students who go to Gymnasium are there for a reason, they were pushed by their parents to go to Universitat and are driven to succeed, they understand what needs to be done and learn it. The people going to Realschule, who don't want/need to learn Calculus, don't. Thus, resources aren't wasted on those who don't care.

In 'Murica, nobody can tell you Johnny isn't special. Everybody deserves a College degree (ohh, I mean a fuck-ton of loans that will never get paid back).

But in any case, comparing the systems at the top level is utterly moronic and is fodder for FUDD.

 

[mect]

As has been brought up a billion times - all of the top education systems are likely ones that separate out the college bound kids from those who are "practical" bound somewhere around middle school. In Germany you take the Abitur and either go to "Realschule" (vocational bound) or "Gymnasium" (university bound). It looks like Finland has the same type of system.

It's very easy to compare the *ENTIRE* US HS population to the specific German/Finnish...etc system. Right? That's apples to apples, right?

Umm...no.

However, even if you compared apples to apples I would suspect the results, while far closer, would still favor the dual-education systems for a very simple reason, students who go to Gymnasium are there for a reason, they were pushed by their parents to go to Universitat and are driven to succeed, they understand what needs to be done and learn it. The people going to Realschule, who don't want/need to learn Calculus, don't. Thus, resources aren't wasted on those who don't care.

In 'Murica, nobody can tell you Johnny isn't special. Everybody deserves a College degree (ohh, I mean a fuck-ton of loans that will never get paid back).

But in any case, comparing the systems at the top level is utterly moronic and is fodder for FUDD.

This is a part of it, but its even a bigger difference than that. In most countries, students take primarily core classes. In germany, o-chem is a high school class. Why? Because students don't take art classes, literature classes, etc. They become focus in high school at a greater level than our students do even at the university level. There are advantages and disadvantages. One big advantage US students have in the sciences is the lab curriculum. It doesn't help on the standardized tests, but it really helps when it comes to jobs and application of subject matter. Lets remember, our goal for education should not be to perform well on standardized tests so we can brag about how awesome we are. I'm not saying we don't have room to improve, because we certainly do, but lets try to at least portray the data for what it actually is.

Also, I'd personally rather not be the best in education but actually have time to enjoy life than be in a society that requires us to devote all our effort into work just so that we can be number 1. Guess that makes me lazy.

 

[biostud]

The problem with applying too many test are that you start teaching towards the tests rather than learning skills that are useful in real world scenarios.

 

[TROLLERCAUST]

As has been brought up a billion times - all of the top education systems are likely ones that separate out the college bound kids from those who are "practical" bound somewhere around middle school. In Germany you take the Abitur and either go to "Realschule" (vocational bound) or "Gymnasium" (university bound). It looks like Finland has the same type of system.

It's very easy to compare the *ENTIRE* US HS population to the specific German/Finnish...etc system. Right? That's apples to apples, right?

Umm...no.

OECD Pisa tests are for 15-year olds. This is before people choose between gymnasium and trade school so the test applies to the entire pupil population, not just to a selected group. It is apples to apples.

 

[Orignal Earl]

It's very easy to compare the *ENTIRE* US HS population to the specific German/Finnish...etc system. Right? That's apples to apples, right?

Umm...no.

I think that is all covered in the article?

 

[mect]

I think that is all covered in the article?

No, it isn't. At least not directly. Maybe that is what they are addressing when they discuss the importance of comparing state to state, but it still doesn't make it an equitable comparison between nations. Maybe that's what they try to get at by just comparing middle income families? Well, not all kids from middle income families end up in University tracks.

Aside from that, another serious issue is it appears that all the comparisons are being made based on percent considered proficient. If you hit that score, you are considered proficient, if you are one point under, you aren't. Is there really that much difference between the student that hits the mark and the student that is one point below. Maybe this was in the original study, but lets see some score distribution curves. Why don't we compare those between states and countries instead of percentage of students considered proficient. If the score distributions are some form of bell curve, it is entirely possible to have one state with a maximum in the score distribution falling just below the score considered proficient with another state falling just above. In reality, the scores are very similar, but just looking at proficiency rates will completely hide this.

 

[Orignal Earl]

No, it isn't. At least not directly. Maybe that is what they are addressing when they discuss the importance of comparing state to state, but it still doesn't make it an equitable comparison between nations. Maybe that's what they try to get at by just comparing middle income families? Well, not all kids from middle income families end up in University tracks.

Aside from that, another serious issue is it appears that all the comparisons are being made based on percent considered proficient. If you hit that score, you are considered proficient, if you are one point under, you aren't. Is there really that much difference between the student that hits the mark and the student that is one point below. Maybe this was in the original study, but lets see some score distribution curves. Why don't we compare those between states and countries instead of percentage of students considered proficient. If the score distributions are some form of bell curve, it is entirely possible to have one state with a maximum in the score distribution falling just below the score considered proficient with another state falling just above. In reality, the scores are very similar, but just looking at proficiency rates will completely hide this.

I read the pdf that was linked right away in the article.
They seemed to understand what they were doing and what was going to be involved in making such comparisons

 

[GTaudiophile]

Dumbing down America has been an agenda of the Right and Left for about 3-4 decades. A stupid populous needs a bigger government. Both Rs and Ds win.

 

[unokitty]

I think that is all covered in the article?

What the article doesn't cover is accessible at the OECD's website.

Assessment was part of OECD's PISA program.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. To date, students representing more than 70 economies have participated in the assessment.
...
Around 510,000 students in 65 economies took part in PISA 2012 representing about 28 million 15-year-olds globally.

More than 70 economies have signed up to take part in the test in 2015 which will focus on science.

While the original BBC article does cover denial, you don't need to take their word on it. From just the posts to this thread, you can see that there is no shortage of denial.

Uno

 

[z1ggy]

Dumbing down America has been an agenda of the Right and Left for about 3-4 decades. A stupid populous needs a bigger government. Both Rs and Ds win.

Even though that statement is somewhat tin foil-esque, I tend to agree. What kind of population would have the know how and drive to try to over throw a shitty gov't? Well, not a lazy uneducated one, that's for sure.

Toss in piles of student debt that make you a slave to your job, and there's almost no way people of my generation (20-30yrs old) will be able to stand up against their government if such a situation were to arise.

It'll only be worse for my children and their children.

 

[shira]

The problem with applying too many test are that you start teaching towards the tests rather than learning skills that are useful in real world scenarios.

Would one of those useful skills be good grammar?

And can you clarify why "you" should be learning rather than teaching?

 

[waffleironhead]

Op in denial over poor math spelling. Math is short for mathematics, not maths.

 

[unokitty]

Op in denial over poor math spelling. Math is short for mathematics, not maths.

maths
noun ( used with a singular or plural verb ) Chiefly British .
mathematics.
Origin: by shortening

Dictionary Reference.com

 

[waffleironhead]

maths
noun ( used with a singular or plural verb ) Chiefly British .
mathematics.
Origin: by shortening

Dictionary Reference.com

Eh, the British. I should have known. They have been butchering our language for years. Only they would shorten a singular noun but still retain the s at the end as if it was plural. Limey bastards.

 

[biostud]

Would one of those useful skills be good grammar?

English is my 2nd language and I haven't been taught English grammar at a very high level, and this is a on-line forum so I don't necessarily check my sentences for grammatical errors before posting.

And can you clarify why "you" should be learning rather than teaching?

I don't understand what you're asking.

 

[shira]

English is my 2nd language and I haven't been taught English grammar at a very high level, and this is a on-line forum so I don't necessarily check my sentences for grammatical errors before posting.



I don't understand what you're asking.

Well, now I feel ashamed of myself. I was trying to be ironic, but ended up being an asshole. My wife is Chinese and she can barely speak, let alone write, English. So I understand what a struggle learning a new language is. I'm sorry.

Anyway, my second comment was addressed at your phrase

you start teaching towards the tests rather than learning skills that are useful in real world scenarios.

What you intended to say is that - rather than teaching to the test - schools (not "you") should be teaching (not "learning") useful skills.

 

[halik]

Denial?

US Social Justice Warriors in Denial?

Unpossible!

Uno

Asians and Whites are very competitive on standardized international tests. Interesting things emerge when you split the kids up by race and/or income.

 

[Mai72]

Why are we even worried? Seriously... Go out get drunk and laid!

Think about this. By the time these issues start to affect our way of life we are either going to be very old or dead.

Enjoy the day!