Here's what your 10th-graders will be tested on under Common Core: Ovid

[HiPointDem]

133. no, i meant they will be given every year, to all students. at least once, possibly twice,

Last edited Wed Nov 28, 2012, 12:55 AM - Edit history (2)

on at least three subjects. details are still in development.

All the articles in the media say the US is at the bottom of international tests. This fact is given lots of play because finance capital wants to convince us to end public education.

Here's what they never tell you:

1. The US has *never* been at the top of international tests. Never, even when we were leading science and industry unchallenged. It's always been middling.

2. The international tests at issue aren't given to all students, nor does every country test a representative sample. For example, in china education is only mandatory for 9 years and poor/rural students are highly underrepresented.

3. US schools with 5% or less students in poverty (like finland has) score at the very top along with finland, which is at the top of those international comparisons. Similarly, schools with <25% of students in poverty score very high, with just a few countries higher. Even schools with half of students in poverty do ok.

It's majority-poverty schools that bring down the scores, and we have more than any country but mexico and turkey -- who score lower than us.

I won't bother listing the myriad ways that being part of a poor underclass impacts children educationally. Hopefully you already get that.

4. Once finance capital has its way, the US will still score low on those international comparisons -- but you won't hear much about it anymore. No propaganda value left.



There is, however, someone who recognizes that the data is being misinterpreted. NEA Today published remarks from National Association of Secondary School Principals Executive Director, Dr. Gerald N. Tirozzi, that have taken "a closer look at how the U.S. reading scores on PISA compared with the rest of the world’s, overlaying it with the statistics on how many of the tested students are in the government’s free and reduced lunch program for students below the poverty line."

...While the overall PISA rankings ignore such differences in the tested schools, when groupings based on the rate of free and reduced lunch are created, a direct relationship is established.

Free and Reduced Meal Rate-PISA Score (US)

Schools with < 10% 551

Schools with 10-24.9% 527

Schools with 25-49.9% 502

Schools with 49.9-74.9% 471

Schools with >75% 446

U.S. average 500

OECD average 493


With strong evidence that increased poverty results in lower PISA scores the next question to be asked is what are the poverty rates of the countries being tested? (Listed below are the countries that were tested by PISA along with available poverty rates. Some nations like Korea do not report poverty rates.)


Country-Poverty Rate-PISA Score

Finland 3.4% 536

Canada 13.6% 524

New Zealand 16.3% 521

Japan 14.3% 520

Australia 11.6% 515

Netherlands 9.0% 508

Belgium 6.7% 506

Norway 3.6% 503

Switzerland 6.8% 501

United States 21.7% 500

Poland 14.5% 500

Germany 10.9% 497

Ireland 15.7% 496

France 7.3% 496

Denmark 2.4% 495

United Kingdom 16.2% 494

Hungary 13.1% 494

Portugal 15.6% 489

Italy 15.7% 486

Greece 12.4% 483

Czech Republic 7.2% 478

Austria 13.3% 471



http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/01/pisa-scores-show-us-should-export-poor.html


So on PISA, the US is *not* at the bottom; it's in the middle. And it does quite well considering its high child poverty rate and its high percentage of children living in *extreme* poverty.

It would do even better if we could halve the child poverty rate.