U.S. One of Two Countries Where Kids' Educational Attainment is Lower Than Their Parents'

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/politics/145033/u.s._one_of_two_countries_where_kids%27_educational_attainment_is_lower_than_their_parents%27


According to a recent report, Americans aged 25–34 have attained less education than their parents' generation.

If the data cited by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) commission report is correct, the United States and Germany are the only two nations in the world where this holds true.

Indeed, while the United States ranks second among all nations in the proportion of population aged 35-64 with a college degree, we rank tenth in the percentage of those aged 25-34 with an associate's or high school degree.

To make matters worse, there's been a steady decline in American students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- while places like China and India are investing heavily in the infrastructures to support premier programs in those courses of study.

So while the U.S. presently continues to attract more international students than anywhere else, more and more of the best and brightest foreign students may be tempted to stay in their home countries, making it less likely that they'll bring their technical expertise to the United States' workforce.

The report doesn't really try to guess why this lower

[seabeyond]

1. why is this. i have two kids, high iq, school is very easy for them.

easy A's in all their subjects and they are taking the acceleration courses. but math

math has always been hard for them. both of them. and not just cause they are lazy, though there is a bit of that. but truly cause the math doesn't work in their brains as easily or smoothly as all the other subjects.

would be interesting seeing the working of the brain why we are not excelling in those areas.

[eridani]

2. I'm thinking that people here place too much emphasis on heredity and math

When asked what determines whether kids are good at math, American parents say natural talent and Japanese parents say hard work.

[seabeyond]

3. interesting. probably point on. in this house, i have a younger i always thought would

excel in math. saw signs at 2 aND 3. dad was an engineering degree and statistic masters so not like we dont encourage by saying is in the genes.

but i see the japanese and india students and the time they put into studies, the conditions in their home and expectation and with that.... any kid would excel in the subject

maybe it is the parents reluctance to insist on that life for their kids

i know i have consciously made that choice. lol

[azurnoir]

5. In large part the lagging math grades have IMO

a great deal to do with the way math is being taught at least in my area, when I was in school we started with basic 4 and mastered those and then moved on from there, not so any more kids these days from kindergarten or first grade get a couple days of adding a couple of days of geometry then maybe decimals then subtraction in short it's all jumbled up with nothing being mastered. it makes no real sense and has been shown to be a failure the best IMO way to learn math is by rote memorization boring yes but it is/was effective

[seabeyond]

8. you may have a point there. that happens in our area too.

that is something i hear from the kids. they spend a couple days adn then off to something else. very hard for them to catch it before they move elsewhere.

[Fumesucker]

4. I was helping one of my granddaughters with her math..

It seems that the educational establishment changes the way math is taught often enough that it is very difficult for a person of an older generation to help a younger person learn it.

She was doing multiplication with some remarkably complex procedure that I really couldn't fathom, if she had the book with her I could probably have figured it out but of course she had no book.

When someone who is pretty good at kitchen arithmetic, which I am, can't help a fourth grader with their math homework something is wrong with the picture.

I was in school around the time of "New Math" and I remember my father having a similar complaint.

[seabeyond]

6. well now... isn't this the truth.

from 5th, 6th grade on i have told kids teachers, i am not going to be helping them. hubby can, but not me. i am not learning this shit. he generally had to google to try and figure out how they want it. we have other sources like the library tutoring thru the net.

but subtraction. multiple column subtraction. seeing what son was doing with that, i told him to knock it off and do the old fashion way.

i have another son that needs to see math done three, four different ways so he gets it.

that is the challenge with the schools, implementing all ways to try to get kid to learn. a tough one for all concerned.

we end up with teacher giving us a book to keep at home, lol

i can do numbers in head. simple math, i have a real love for numbers. hubby differs to me whenever calculating in head, but anything beyond, nope

[LWolf]

7. I would suggest

that the problem is this: regardless of what procedures are taught, the focus on rote memorization and procedure, rather than on number sense and concept, means that students only learn one way to do things and are lost without that one way.

When the focus is on number sense and mathematical concepts along with memorization of facts, people can understand and use many ways to reach the same result.

[TheMadMonk]

9. What focus on rote memorisation?

Even when they are learing the technique of long multiplication, my nephews are permitted to use their calculators to do the individual single digit multiplications and additions. In fact they have no choice, since they have never been taught their times tables.

However they can count to ten in 6 languages.

I have less than fond memories of the entire class standing up and en-mass, chanting our way through the times tables. And of being singled out at random during the day to answer "What's seven times eight?" Technically it might be brainwashing, but it was damned effective. Thirty-five years later I can still do long multiplication, long and short division and add and subtract columns of numbers of arbitrary size even though I might only resort to pen and paper once or twice a year.

[architect359]

10. Wow! That multiplication recitation...

I had to do that too as a kid. Class didn't have to stand up though. Ha, yeah - I was singled out a couple of times too and couldn't get the answer sometimes. Kind of embarrassing. This'll never happen nowadays. Sigh - these kids! :-D

Unfortunately, my pocket calculator pretty much evaporated most of what I learned - which I'm not entirely proud of that either.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. We had timed multiplication tables tests in fourth grade

We were given a sheet of about 25 combinations (3 x 9, 8 x 7, 2 x 6, etc.) and we had to finish it in a minute. We did this daily for what seemed like weeks, with a different set of combinations each time.

We also had multiplication contests with a game called "Around the World." The first two children in the right front corner would stand and the teacher would hold up a flash card. The first child to shout out the answer moved on to the next kid in the row, and the process was repeated. If the first kid wasn't first with the answer, s/he sat down at the next kid's desk, and that kid went on.

I adapted this for use in my Japanese classes many years later when the students had to learn a certain verb form that is the building block of a lot of other constructions. The form looks bewildering at first (It's the -te form, for those of you who know Japanese), but it is actually divided into several classes, each of which is regular and becomes obvious once you know how to identify the classes. (For example, all verbs that end in -ku, such as kaku "write" have -te forms ending in -ite, so that the -te form of kaku is kaite.)

We played "Around the World" with -te forms, and it motivated some of the students who couldn't be bothered to memorize the rules otherwise.

[LWolf]

12. Depends on what state you're in.

My current state allows calculator use before learning simple facts, which I disagree with.

My previous state's standards required addition and subtraction facts to be mastered by 2nd grade, multiplication and division by 3rd.

When I taught 2nd and 3rd graders, a decade ago, we learned mental math skills to figure out facts not memorized, and timed contests to prove mastery of facts; they liked it and it really wasn't a problem; 5 minutes a day. They learned to sing all those Schoolhouse Rock songs while learning multiplication facts; no flashcards or recitations other than singing.

It was entertaining to see 3rd graders working on math who would suddenly stand up, bend over their desks, and softly sing to themselves when they needed to remember a fact. :D

Still, most of our time was spent on number sense and math concepts, and my students were great mathematicians.

Too many people think it has to be all one, or all the other, not realizing that memorization, being a low-level skill, can be accomplished with consistent short periods of time each day, without taking away from whatever else is being taught.

[bfarq]

13. How much education do you need?

to work at Wal*Mart?

Actually that is a bad example. Wal*Mart is great at putting people out of jobs, but they don't hire very many.

At least MacDonald's hires a lot of people.

When the objective of the prevailing party (Republicrats) is to provide the cheapest possible labor to corporations while at the same time putting people hopelessly in debt so that they can still function as consumers, education just isn't very relevant.