Three Elongated Nations Outsmart All Others

[Equineer]

The OECD evaluates and ranks educational skill levels for 15-year-olds in member nations.

Finland, Korea, and Japan received the top overall rankings in the most recent study.

United States Ranking Among 40 Nations:
Math - 28th
Reading - 15th
Science - 22nd
Problem Solving - 29th

http://www.oecd.org/home/

[boxcar]

Those are four more great reasons to get the U.S. government out of our public education system. Anything the Feds touch, more often than not, turns to crap.

Boxcar

[Tom]

Our schools spent far too much time teaching our kids what to think instead of how to think. Liberal teachers are generally lumps in tenured postitions with no ambition or purpose opther than to spread the victim syndorme. After all, THEY are failures, so turnig out students who are successful would only make them look bad. They are dumbing down our children to their own patheric levels.
And all the while, our tax burdens for school budgets goes through the ceiling with nothing to show for it.

[Equineer]

I was impressed by the high rankings attained by Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

They rank right up there with Hong Kong-China, Finland, Korea, Japan, Macao-China, and Netherlands.

Also interesting that the U.K. was omitted due to insufficient data reporting (maybe France had them beat). :)

[Lefty]

Boxcar is right. Time to end this govt sponsored public education, now!

[Equineer]

Boxcar, Tom, and Lefty,

You all voted for more government spending and involvement in education.

Wasn't there a Libertarian candidate on your ballots? :)

[Lefty]

Actually, i voted for the party with the best plans, school vouchers etc to eventually phase out public ed, just need to get the sam-o same-o dems out of the way.

[Equineer]

Lefty,

Other countries where 15-year-olds test better than Americans have not abandoned publicy funded education. Why do you believe this will benefit the majority of American children such that we become a better educated nation?

The option to send children to private schools already exists for families that are willing to make economic sacrifices on behalf of their children. In a fully privatized system, how will you ensure that every child has access to a quality education through our equivalent to a public high school? If you fail to do this, the result will just be a dumber America in comparison to other countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

[formula_2002]

Originally posted by Equineer
The OECD evaluates and ranks educational skill levels for 15-year-olds in member nations.

Finland, Korea, and Japan received the top overall rankings in the most recent study.

United States Ranking Among 40 Nations:
Math - 28th
Reading - 15th
Science - 22nd
Problem Solving - 29th

http://www.oecd.org/home/

How do we find out how our top 10% ranked against their top 10%?

Our top 20% against theirs, all the way down to 100% by 10% increments.

And perhaps what is the % diff in each ranking level.
or any break down of these OVERALL rankings.

I'd like to get a bit more information before making any decision(bet), wouldn't anyone?

For guys who want sooo much horse racing information, I'm surprised how may responders have figured out the PROBLEM with education with so little information.

Joe M

[Lefty]

Eq, your post had proof that these kids are not getting quality education now! Kids graduate from high school that can't read!
So why worry your lil head about hypotheticals?

[Steve 'StatMan']

I'm in agreement with Joe (Formula-2002) on this one.

There may very well be a lot of fragmentation - and frankly, we're a big nation. Our top 20-30% is still a lot of smart kids.

In my area (the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago) our public schools are excellent. We've have excellent schools and many excellent students. I'm been lucky to meet a few through my involvement at church. Many good kids from both our Public and Private schools. In fact, its a bit hard to convince people in my area to send kids to the church elementary schools, because of the quality of the local education.

Of course, the median income in my area is pretty good, the people pay a pretty significant amount of taxes. The people in the community seem to get involved and take pride in the schools and the kids. And since the kids come from homes where the income is good, chances are a few more parents have the skills, determination, and resources, to work with their kids. Many have seen success and know what it takes to have a fighting chance.

I won't write off the youth and young adults in America. :)

[Equineer]

If you comb the linked site, stratified statistics are available in PDF form. I stumbled upon them but can't remember where, and I think they were compiled from results for 2000 or 2001.

What stood out, was that America has a very high percentage of woeful underachievers compared to Finland and many other highly ranked nations. This may be a cultural/parenting issue more so than an institutional issue.

[Equineer]

Oops, my memory lapse... make that in XLS-like form with several differnet worksheet tabs that showed the stratfied statistics.

[Tom]

Our underchievers have conveniently been segregated into "blue states."

[Bubbles]

Time for the first-hand account...

Math does not surprise me at all. It's not the government's fault, it's the state boards of education. They use standardized tests, which are utterly useless and have come under fire in recent years, especailly in New York.

Reading surprises me a little bit, though. Granted, teachers don't ask for obvious answers anymore, they ask for IMPLIED meanings.

Science is iffy. You try being a 15-year-old and staying awake through a science class. It's not fun.

Problem solving is iffy as well, because the fields of problem solving aren't mentioned. It's too general, narrow the fields down a little and be more specific with the results.

That's the way a high-schooler sees it.

[Lefty]

Maybe we have underachievers because it's constantly pounded into our kids' heads that the rich and smart are evil and govt should take away from them and give to the rest. Too much liberal teaching agoin on...

[toetoe]

Truncate Finland, Korea & Japan !!! Let's go route-to-sprint with Vietnam & Chile, too !!

[Tom]

Of course Bubbles is a poor example....this kid is the hope for our future-smart kid, motivated, able to accept responsibility. You don't foind a lot of that on the schoolyards these days. Most high schoolers I know need a recipe to make a Big Mac.
The way I learned was, learn it befreo you move on. If it meant studying nights, weekends, no TV, no sports, the lessons were learned or you repeated the same grade. And it was not uncommon to see two-three-fours kids in the school repeat a year. I had a guy in my geometry class who was taking it for the FOURTH time. He did not graduate, he stayed in the senior class until he passed sophomore math. The major lesson kids need to learn first is, THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL. IT COMES BEFORE EVERTHING ELSE IN YOUR LIFE.