U.S. Education Rankings Are Falling Behind the Rest of the World

Republican dominated state doesn't mean republican dominated education system.

When people in this country finally start to demand their kids be taught things that matter and will help them in the future, things will get better.

It's not hard to see that countries who are far ahead of us emphasize math and science and they actually are required to learn it.

We have to get the social issues (for the most part) out of education and let each kids parents deal with those.

School should be about education, not parenting. But that's just my opinion.

 

Good post, thank you. I will go out on a limb and say that the issue is 90% parenting. If the parent doesn't value an education, in most cases, the child won't either. Instead of trying to make everything equal for everybody, the good students should have the very best in education opportunities, and the students who don't care shouldn't be dragging the entire system down.

 

Imo cultural (I worked in educational psychology)

 

U.S. education has been falling behind other nations for literally decades. It was the impetus behind he creation of the U.S. Department of Education in 1979.

 

Probably partially true. Interestingly, collectivist cultures, for example in some Asian countries, do better in education. Although, ironically they are very competitive against one another.

Perhaps the reputation for US bring an individualistic culture is misplaced.

 

And yet their "poor" parenting common was learnt from their parents. How do you break the cycle?

 

How do we get the parents involved?

Also, why are Republicans not in control of their education systems? I know we have a centralized DOE but that has also been Republican for the last four years.

 

It's not the diversity, it's the $$$ that determine the outcome of everything in the US. Therefore, it is the socioeconomic status that determines outcome, which is on average lower in minority populations:



That's why in the US, everybody complains about taxes, except when it comes to property taxes, then all of a sudden everyone wants to move to the neighborhood with the highest taxes. I wonder why (that's a rhetorical question)?

 

You stop the leftist political ideology that the government is nursemaid, provider, and surrogate parent.

 

Seems like that might have some serious weight in the issue, how can we even go about correcting this?

 

Funny then you chose a subject upon which most of the rest of the world agrees...climate change. Try again.

 

The issue with your thought is that nations with far more involved governments are blowing us out of the water on these items — we are ranking among nations that have no (or very little) government involvement.

Why have Americans allowed their government to be so inefficient?

 

I disagree. I think generations of ingrained hopelessness (and lack of hope) needs a lot of assistance to get out. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps only really works if you have support alongside that. It's a fallacy, in other words.

 

Western countries that are doing better than us in maths and science also teach about social issues.

Have you looked up what the differences tend to be between the US system and those in countries that are doing better than us. Have you looked at any of the recommendations made by educationalists from nations that are doing better than us?

 

Go look up how many graduate high school and can't read. Go look up how many graduate high school but are still at a 5th grade level in math.

If you don't know these things why are you in this topic?

Yea, I can. Or you can go look them up yourself.

This is also from personal experience being in graduate school (in STEM) and being one of the only american students. I learned a lot about what other countries did in their public education systems. Let me tell you, they do math and science.

If you actually bother to go look it up, it's astounding how far they go in math in high school in, for example, romania. I knew a number of people in graduate school from romania and learned a lot....it was quite eye opening.

If you want to go look you can.

Here's a link that is a bit overwhelming but does put some perspective on what other countries high school students take.

https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/...ofiles_outlier_NuffieldFoundation18_04_11.pdf

Korea is one that is way ahead of the US. It takes US students multiple years in college to get to discrete mathematics.

 

Not like us. And even if they did, how are they doing it AND getting so far ahead of us in math and science. Sorry, your logic here doesn't work. Somewhere along the lines, they're emphasizing actually learning the material and we're not.

 

To be honest, slowly. America's past is its karma. You can't completely just escape it and pretend that it doesn't exist. I think a leg up for those that need it is better than an equal playing field, if that makes sense. Separating maths into different class levels has been helpful, though.

I think you need to remove all the politics, and look at the child through the lens of science. What does a developing child need? And what do you do if the parents aren't on board?

Reducing psychological stress is also critical. They've had dramatic results with introducing the "quiet time program" (transcendental meditation) into troubled schools...you know the schools where they scan for guns at the door.

 

Well for one, you can let schools educate. A kid is in school 8 hrs a day, they should be able to learn.

A problem is the parents have taken a vastly different attitude towards schools. Somewhere along the lines we stopped supporting teachers and started blaming them. This isn't a left/right issue, I think far too many parents do this on both sides.

 

How so? Have you actually looked this up?

By doing things that make the kids do better in math and science. Your question is like asking how they manage to play sports and get ahead of us in math and science.

Somewhere along the lines, they are doing things more effectively than we are. Have you read up on the differences and on the recommendations made by their educationalists?

 

Concerning the graphs, correlation is not necessarily causation. It may very well be (and I would say it is) that the traits exhibited by the parents that cause them to be in the higher socioeconomic groups are the same traits that cause their kids to do better in school. Another way to look at it: Parent's/children's educational performance is a pretty good predictor of a family's socioeconomic status.

 

I agree that there is an alarming sense of entitlement in parents nowadays. They expect the school to provide a service and don't realise their overbearing and neurotic attitudes are causing the child stress at home; even worse is a parent who doesn't notice or care. I have worked as a psychologist in private schools, but I would certainly be loath to work as a teacher in a public school, particularly a poor one. Kids are often abused at home and school is their only safe Haven.


Of course, some teachers love teaching, despite these challenges. It's a particular skill. And how do we retain good teachers? Pay them well, of course.

 

They're still learning the other subjects while our students learn less in those other subjects. Have you looked anything up? The students in the US are learning less and less. This isn't a revelation.

No, not even close. If this were true then US students would've always done worse. Our students are worse than they use to be. This has nothing to do with what other countries are doing.

Yea, they're ACTUALLY EMPHASIZING LEARNING THE MATERIAL. How many times does it have to be explained to you? Our students can graduate high school barely able to read and completely unable to do 6th grade math. That doesn't happen unless you allow it to happen. If you allow a person to graduate at that level that is proof that you haven't emphasized learning the material.

 

I don't think teacher pay is the main issue. The main issue is that the job is too much 'non teaching'. Teaching in the US has a high burn out rate and it's not because of the teaching, it's everything else. Sure pay would help, but when the job sucks, people will quit.

 

Interesting, ok.

I confess I don't know the specifics of your education curriculums in the US, so I won't comment. I assumed they are similar to Australia, but I could be completely wrong. My focus is moreso on the psychological barriers that get in the way of children learning.

 

I'll just share some numbers I was privy to during a "State of the County" meeting a few years ago for Orange County, CA.

Average $ Per Student (K-12) Per County:

Los Angeles $15K
San Francisco $16K
Orange $5K

Now... who do you think outperformed who? That's right Orange County children crushed LA and SF counties in education performance. It's not the $, but that's all the Left keep throwing at it. It's the parenting and that Orange County schools largely rejected and fought against much of the absolute crap taught in LA and SF schools that is pure propaganda / indoctrination create and delivered by The Left. They had "Common Core" Math for my son. I wrote the teachers each year and told them that I am very proficient in Math and will be teaching my son "another way". They all were very supportive and let me know I was not the only parent that took this route. My son tested in the top 90% in Math... and English. The crappy Common Core garbage is hurting children and the Left can't push idiocy like that enough.