The International Efficiency of American Education: the bad and the no-so-bad news
The Bad News
US schools have declined in quality OR they have been beaten by school
systems from different countries. US
schools are not efficient anymore.
America spends the most money per child cumulative for education, but
ranks 16th in scoring.
One very interesting hypothesis is a low demand to
learn. This theory suggests that the
achievement gap is not due to race or poverty, but the lack of the demand to
learn from social group to social group – I’m interpreting the demand to learn
as ambition or want, maybe even need.
The article also says that teacher training, different curriculum, and
longer school days will never have an effect until the demand to learn is trait
or attribute of all social groups.
The Not So Bad News
The US scored 15th in math, 19th in science, and
14th in reading, but 6th in civic knowledge. The US is not on top but by no means on
toward the bottom. The educational
systems that are on the top are the countries (China, Japan, Singapore, Korea)
that have “cram schools” that teach primarily for the test. Parents even have private tutoring for their
children to tutor for the test, placing a huge financial burden on families
from 6.3% - 28% of a families’ income. Memorization
has also been shown to have a low impact on productivity in workers.
Kim thanks for sharing this article. I truly think that having a choice is important in a child's life especially when education in concerned. Having to teach to a test is not a good system of education and we in the US think it is a competition but in reality the ability to think for oneself takes people farther than being a robot. I feel sorry for the children who have that taken away from them.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure I agree with the hypothesis that one gap cause could be a low desire to learn..Maybe a low desire to learn what systems "say" is important, but I honestly think people are concerned about learning, just what is important to them culturally..Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing! I agree after reading about several other countries and their education system I don't think that the us is doing a bad job. I believe we need to improve
ReplyDeletebut we are not in dire straits.
Yes Kimberley,
ReplyDeleteI think you nailed it on the head when you talked about the lack of motivation in our children. This intrinsic motivation is extremely important and how do we as teachers help foster this? I feel that we can start at a very young age when children begin learning extrinsic motivation by adults saying good job taking away the intrinsic motivation and transferring that into motivation to get an adult to say good job. Here is a website discussing the good job epidemic. http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Five_Reasons_Stop/
it is very intriguing how you mentioned that the schools systems of America are not efficient. I agree because I have many friends with children of school age and the curriculum does not resemble completely with the curriculum while I was in school. Great insights.
ReplyDelete