“We’re Number Umpteenth!”: The myth of lagging U.S. schools

[proud2BlibKansan]

By Alfie Kohn

Beliefs that are debatable or even patently false may be repeated so often that at some point they come to be accepted as fact. We seem to have crossed that threshold with the claim that U.S. schools are significantly worse than those in most other countries. Sometimes the person who parrots this line will even insert a number — “We’re only ____th in the world, you know!” — although, not surprisingly, the number changes with each retelling.

The assertion that our students compare unfavorably to those in other countries has long been heard from politicians and corporate executives whose goal is to justify various “get tough” reforms: high-stakes testing, a nationalized curriculum (see under: Common Core “State” Standards), more homework, a longer school day or year, and so on.

But by now the premise is so widely accepted that it’s casually repeated by just about everyone — including educators, I’m sorry to say — and in the service of a wide range of prescriptions and agendas, including some that could be classified as progressive. Recently I’ve seen it used in a documentary arguing for more thoughtful math instruction, a petition to promote teaching the “whole child,” and an article in a popular on-line magazine that calls for the abolition of grades (following a reference to “America’s long steady decline in education”).

Unsurprisingly, this misconception has filtered out to the general public. According to a brand-new poll, a plurality of Americans — and a majority of college graduates! — believe (incorrectly) that American 15-year-olds are at the bottom when their scores on tests of science knowledge are compared to those of students in other developed countries.[1]

more ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/03/were-number-umpteenth-the-myth-of-lagging-u-s-schools/

[MattBaggins]

1. as you pointed out, it's about the money

have to manufacture a crisis to allow the vulture capitalists to swoop in and save the day..or steal our money.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. So true. Right after I posted this, I got in my car and turned on my radio

and almost immediately heard a commercial for an online Math program that the listeners need to buy because our kids rank so low in Math . . .

Felt like puking.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Ya gotta start somewhere.

Start w. a premise like that and you end up w. rampant Cathy Black-ism.

Just finished reading the 2010 multiple email fiascos in today's hard-copy NYTimes. I'll try to post it later, if someone doesn't beat me to it.

Oy. The utter emptiness, the absolute intellectual vapidity of the modern school "reform" movement --- writ large.

Motherojesus.

K and R

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. Yes please share those emails.

I'm anxiously awaiting your post.

[Smarmie Doofus]

12. It's........................... riiiiiight here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022795311

[dipsydoodle]

3. For comparison

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Damn.

Why is this so hard to understand?

[LWolf]

4. Good to see Alfie K at the top of the page at DU.

He was at the top of my list of those I wanted to see as SOE back in November of '08. Not that there was any chance of that, of course.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I've loved him for a long time now.

He definitely speaks truth to power.

[HughBeaumont]

7. Love this piece . . .

. . . which points out what's so particularly loathsome about neoliberals like Thomas Friedman:

5. Why treat learning as if it were a competitive sport? All of these results emphasize rankings more than ratings, which means the question of educational success has been framed in terms of who’s beating whom. This is troubling for several reasons.

a) Education ? economy. If our reason for emphasizing students’ relative standing (rather than their absolute achievement) has to do with “competitiveness in the 21st-century global economy” — a phrase that issues from politicians, businesspeople, and journalists with all the thoughtfulness of a sneeze, then we would do well to ask two questions. The first, based on values, is whether we regard educating children as something that’s primarily justified in terms of corporate profits.

The second question, based on facts, is whether the state of a nation’s economy is meaningfully affected by the test scores of students in that nation. Various strands of evidence have converged to suggest that the answer is no. For individual students, school achievement is only weakly related to subsequent workplace performance. And for nations, there’s little correlation between average test scores and economic vigor, even if you try to connect scores during one period with the economy some years later (when that cohort of students has grown up).[8] Moreover, Yong Zhao has shown that “PISA scores in reading, math, and sciences are negatively correlated with entrepreneurship indicators in almost every category at statistically significant levels.”[9]

snip

Moreover, rather than defending policies designed to help our graduates “compete,” I’d argue that we should make decisions on the basis of what will help them learn to collaborate effectively. Educators, too, ought to think in terms of working with – and learning from – their counterparts in other countries so that children everywhere will become more proficient and enthusiastic learners. But every time we rank “our” kids against “theirs,” that outcome becomes a little less likely.

It's almost like the American Way to treat EVERYthing like it's a competitive sport . . . from learning to baking cupcakes to beauty to the arts.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. +1

[LWolf]

13. +1

[HiPointDem]

9. and the wapo has helped further that myth...

[Recursion]

15. Funny how they never mention their relationship to Kaplan in those articles (nt)

[reformist2]

14. I'm liking this trend - reasonable people are starting to push back against the technocrats!

[Recursion]

16. SSDD. There was handwringing about this when Sputnik went up.

We still manage to do pretty well.