More on our "bad" math scores

[Hannah Bell]

Published in San Jose Mercury News (November 16).

Is it true that "U.S. lags other wealthy nations in higher math" (Page B1, Nov. 11)?

Studies show that middle-class American children attending well-funded schools score near the top of the world in math. American average scores are unspectacular because a high percentage of American school children live in poverty (20 percent; Sweden has 3 percent).

Also, some countries inflate their scores by excluding many children of poverty from taking the test. This does not happen in the United States.

Finally, the Stanford study only considered the percentage, not the number of students reaching the top level. Several countries that did better than the United States have small populations (e.g., Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland). The United States had 25 percent of the world's top achievers on the 2009 PISA science test. China had 1 percent.

Stephen Krashen

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/11/more-on-our-bad-math-scores.html

[Odin2005]

1. And yet so-called "liberals" use that data to "prove" that Americans are dumb.

Sad, innit?

[Hello_Kitty]

4. And to call for more visas for lower wage foreign workers to replace Americans

Looking right at you, Bill Gates.

[FiveGoodMen]

12. When all we need to prove Americans are dumb is the election results.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

20. I can't speak for anyone else, but I interpret it to reflect poorly on the American education system

Yes, I think it's obviously true that children of poor parents, on average (never forget the "on average") do less well educationally than children of rich people; I think that in large part this is because rich parents are able to get their children into better schools ("Is it near a good school" is one of the things that really forces up property prices).

[Luminous Animal]

23. Having lived for several years in poverty, it is not just the schools.

Living in poverty has several consequences that inhibit learning:

Hunger. It was nearly impossible to concentrate on learning, both in school and at home, while pre-occupied with food.
Sleep. Sleep was often interrupted by the above. There were nights that I got up to drink enough water to slake the hunger pangs.
Stress. I worried about my family all the time. I worried that my mom and dad fighting over money, yet again. I worried about my little brother and sister.
Health. I missed 1/3 of 2nd grade because of misdiagnosed tonsillitis. My brother lost his hearing in his right ear at the age of 5 because of an undiagnosed ear infection (we didn't find out until he was 12 and we could afford to go to the doctor). The nuns (his teachers) branded him a slow learner and left him there.
Environment. Many poor children live in lead-laden housing. And lead, as every knows, is a detriment to cognitive development.

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. A+

But let's be sure and blame the teachers.

[Joe Fields]

26. No one is blaming just the teachers, as you are so fond of saying.

But when people, such as yourself, blame things on everyone BUT the teachers, then people, such as myself, will try to add a little balance.

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. ROFLMAO

[ieoeja]

63. You left out the #1 cause.

Knowledge. Wealthy people typically know more than poor people. And they pass that knowledge on to their children.


One of my aunts married a guy who was brilliant, but illiterate. There simply was no schooling available for this guy growing up. He actually made it to Vice-President of a telephone company while functionally illiterate. As I said, the guy was bright.

His kids? In an era where lack of schooling automatically disqualifies you for a good job, they have all failed. They went to the same schools with the same teachers as every other branch of my family. But with parents who know nothing about education, they came out uneducated themselves.


Typically, when a rich kid needs help with his homework, his parents can help him. A lot of poor parents can not, because they don't know the material either. Lack of knowledge is self-perpetuating and rarely overcome.

Which is the ENTIRE point of affirmative action. Trying to help those who, through know fault of their own, or really even of their parents, were *not* born economically equal.

[muriel_volestrangler]

69. The report tried taking the US results only for students with at least college educated parent

And that meant, when compared with all students from other countries, the US had 16 countries beating it, instead of 30. So, yes, the education of the parents helps, whether that's because of the parents' knowledge of education, or their higher average earnings. But the US system still does badly, even when given a special advantage in the statistics.

[seabeyond]

29. my sons high school is huge, has more poor than middle and upper income combined. i dont agree with

you.

he is in the AP course. sophomore year taking algebra 2, chemistry, world history, english... and electives.... physics and pre calculus next year.

he is way beyond than we were, in my day.

it is in the home and expectation

[Donald Ian Rankin]

43. I'm afraid I don't place any value on anecdotal evidence. N.T.

[seabeyond]

44. because it is much better to listen to mouths with an agenda for greed tell you how bad the schools

are

i rather use my own eyes to see the real story.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

47. No, it's better to look at data

You can't *see* the real story, you can see one tiny, statistically insignificant fragment of it.

[seabeyond]

48. and as we hear in the OP the "data" has been manipulated for greed and agenda.

any number can be manipulated.

with awareness, i prefer to use all kinds of means to back up that "data"

[Donald Ian Rankin]

50. That's not what the OP says.

The OP claims (and there is no particular reason to assume it's right) that data (it doesn't say which data) has been misinterpreted (not manipulated).

"Any number can be manipulated" is a really stupid and harmful line of argument. Data can be can be misinterpreted, and you can certainly mislead people by selecting which data to show them, but these are failures in your understanding of the data, not of the data.


Also personal experience doesn't meaningfully back up data. It's possible that the data on an issue is sufficiently flawed as to have no value, but not possible that anecdotal evidence does have any value unless it's statistically significant.

[seabeyond]

53. the number does not lie, it is what a person does with the numbers. i would think that would be

obvious.... since you are neither "stupid" or into using a harnful line of argument, surely.

if they leave out info how the number appear skewed because it is effect per population and that is not in the number, or because a country figges numbers or because we put in ALL kids and other countries only select the high end kids, it matters.

again, an obvious. what i am stating.

[WCIL]

88. My parents had very high expectations of me

and spent much time working with me at home. I went to a very low income elementary school where the emphasis was on teaching children to read - math was basically abandoned. I was a high level reader so was left to my own devices most of the day. I scored off the charts on all tests, so everyone figured my math scores were a fluke and I was placed in upper level math classes in high school, where I struggled mightily and got D's mostly as a gift from teachers who saw me working so hard but not grasping the concepts because I have no background in arithmetic. I am a 45 year old woman who barely knows her times tables.

I don't blame the teachers. They did the best they could, but they were also expected to be social workers. There was little time for actual teaching, and reading won out.

[Hannah Bell]

78. bullshit. poor children who get scholarships to good schools *still* do less well "on average".

[Donald Ian Rankin]

87. That would only be a refutation if I'd claimed that that were the only factor.

What you say may well be true, but it's not evidence that I'm wrong.

[Starry Messenger]

2. k&r

[Mimosa]

3. Thanks! K&R. n/t

[Romulox]

5. So...it's OK if our kids score poorly...because so many of them live in poverty?

I'm having a hard time understanding the larger point you're trying to make here.

[woo me with science]

9. +10000

Only at DU have I EVER encountered this constant drumbeat not only that teachers are ineffectual, but that we should just expect that if the kids are poor.


:puke:

[Hannah Bell]

16. Only at DU have I encountered this constant pretense that poverty doesn't affect

school performance -- severely, and in a multitude of ways that are beyond the control of any teacher.

PS: The OP said nothing that resembled the straw in your post.

[Romulox]

59. I suspected the blame issue was your point: "beyond the control of any teacher"

Rather than any advocacy for these children. :shrug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

61. Cause we know teachers are too stupid or too selfish to be advocates for kids

They're all in it for the money, and just pass blame when kids don't succeed.

[Romulox]

I can only go by what is written here. Your projections are your own problem. nt

[Romulox]

64. dupe.

[Hannah Bell]

76. if you want to advocate for children you don't advocate for crap policies that have

been repeatedly shown to do NOTHING for them.

and you don't advocate for destroying the unions, wages & benefits of working people.

Teaching is one of the career paths our of poverty; and it's a fact that most of the teachers fired & riffed in the ed deform wars have been minority teachers. like the teacher who committed suicide, the child of hispanic immigrants & the first in his family to get a college degree (& one of the first to complete high school).

ed deformers seem to think "children" exist in some vacuum separate from parents, extended families, communities & society as a whole.

I'll say it: ED DEFORMERS DON'T GIVE A GOOD GODDAMN ABOUT "CHILDREN".


Income distribution & measures of inequality correlate with educational results IN EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH, and the people pushing this crap make their money off child labor around the world; they destroy children's families, they send young people scarcely more than children to fight their money wars.

They're the most hypocritical class of posers that ever existed.

[spin]

13. It has occurred to me that the rich ...

want to insure that their children are better educated than the children of the masses. That way, they can be relatively sure that their offspring have a head start.

After all, we can't have "those people" running the country.

[Luminous Animal]

14. Poverty inhibits learning. This has been shown in study after study.

[Hannah Bell]

17. The point is that *family income* is the variable most closely correlated with children's

school performance.

For a multitude of reasons, & I'm sure you know most of them, despite your disingenuous stance here.

[Romulox]

67. I was an English major. I learned something called the "So What?" test.

Despite first appearances, the "So What?" test isn't meant to be disparaging or insulting in any way. It simply tests an author's thesis by asking what important conclusions may be drawn if we accept a thesis as true. I am trying to understand that as to your OP.

"disingenuous stance here."

Ever notice that criminals are the most suspicious? I'm not sure just how you think I'm being "disingenuous", but I think the namecalling is a distraction, either way.

[Hannah Bell]

74. "So what?" is commonly used to imply whatever the other person said is irrelevant

or unworthy.

If you're an English major, presumably you know the difference between denotation & connotation, the dictionary and the vernacular.

[Bucky]

18. I think you've gotten the point backwards.

The complaint is that we've got so many kids living in poverty. It's just something that gets revealed by our low standardized testing scores. Nowhere does the OP state that it's okay. You're being deliberately provocative.

[Romulox]

68. I don't think that was the point of the OP at all. Read the poster's follow ups. nt

[Hannah Bell]

85. right, the many posts in this thread where i say poor children are stupid & can't learn.

point those out to me, would you?

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Joe Fields]

31. The OP doesn't make sense, and can be interpreted many different ways.

Or don't you comprehend that fact?

Apples and oranges.

[Luminous Animal]

33. What part of the OP does not make sense?

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. Makes perfect sense to me but then I am a highly educated professional

and not a board member for Head Start.

[Name removed]

60. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hannah Bell]

38. tell me the many ways. seems pretty clear to me.

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WCGreen]

6. I have been saying that for years...

There was a book back in the 90's called the Manufactured Crisis and it spells out all the ways the corporate people who want to privatize education conflate these type of stats to scare the shit out of people...

The best part about the United States is you are never truly out of the game. In other advanced capitalistic countries, they track kids much more than we do and it is the kids going on to higher education that are being measured against our whole pool of kids in school.

Kids like my brother who literally was tracked as an auto mechanic and wanted something better for himself so he went to community college, then on to John Carrol and finished up his studies as a Doctor of accounting at Ohio State...

He graduated 278 out of 279 kids and now he is a partner in a small, but thriving accounting firm on Columbus.

That would have been next to impossible to do in any other country but the US.

And they want to change that wonderful system, destroy class movement by establishing layers of schools...

[EFerrari]

8. Wait -- aren't there countries where college ed is free?

It is possible to move out of your rut here in this country. But it's also a monumental amount of work and focus, not to mention, tuition that has now priced most people out of higher education. All of that wears on a person. You can only do the impossible for so long before your system tanks from the stress.

[WCGreen]

22. Of course it took a lot for my brother and many like

him to go after his dream.

The point is that in this country you can, In many of these countries that offer free education, you still are tracked into it...

[Hannah Bell]

77. It used to be that higher ed in the great state of california was nearly free.

but that was back when california *was* a great state, instead of a stratified feudal estate.

[seabeyond]

30. me, too. i agree. i watch what the kids are learning today. it is so beyond what we did in

school. amazes me the attacks and hits schools take.

[EFerrari]

7. Interesting.

I was a kid in a well funded good district, living in poverty and doing so badly in math, I was sure it was hopeless. My school district disappeared my records so they were unavailable when I went back to school in my late 20s and needed them for college. Where I got straight As in math. Must be something about regular meals and not being absent once or twice a week for some emergency.

I bet that 20% number is low.

[Fumesucker]

10. And yet 20% of our kids are living in poverty..

Thanks in large measure to the politicians our voters choose to represent them.

Stupid is as stupid does, to quote Forrest Gump.

If we were so smart as a nation, we'd have a political system that represented our interests better.

[Joe Fields]

27. good point.

[bottomofthehill]

11. Pray for better scores

dont bother with homework, just say your prayers and it will be ok

[pscot]

15. I tutored my granddaughter in math

for a couple of years. The method was a little more sophisticated than rote memorization of times tables. They're teaching math, not arithmetic. It's a shame the teachers don't have time to give kids the individual attention they need, but the material seems sound.

[Fumesucker]

21. You have to be capable of arithmetic before you can move on to higher forms of math..

Teaching kids algebra when they don't know the answer to three times seven or six plus two is putting the cart a bit before the horse.

Some things just have to be memorized, I suck at rote memorization and yet I recognize that basic truth.

[Glassunion]

19. My brother always said; "math is for queers" with a smile.

I can't say where exactly he works... He teaches applied sciences and mathematics now. He took this career path after spending some time in Afganistan and then Iraq. They never asked and he never told. Good thing, because he is the smartest son-of-a-bitch I know and they are better for having him.

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. But many countries poorer than the US did much better

and, even when they restricted the US results to only those from families in which at least one parent had a college degree (which will exclude most of those in poverty), the US is still beaten by 16 countries even when all their students are counted - still well behind Korea, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Macao ...

Here's the report: http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/

Or take the comparison with Sweden. Assume that none of the students living in poverty make the advanced level (an unfair assumption about some of those students, I know, but that's the most generous interpretation for the poverty excuse). 80% of US students do not live in poverty, and 6% of the total achieved the advanced level, ie 7.5% of those not in poverty. 97% of Swedish students do not live in poverty, and 10% of the total achieved 'advanced' - 10.3% of those not in poverty. The US still lags.

In fact, we can use that 7.5% figure to see where the US would come if you exclude its students in poverty. It would improve from 31st to 30th - leapfrogging Lithuania. :wow:

No, poverty is only a partial explanation, and a fairly small one.

[Starry Messenger]

37. That website is funded in part by the Hoover Institute.

Just FYI. It is very right wing.

Executive Editor: Paul E. Peterson http://educationnext.org/sub/about/

http://www.hoover.org/fellows/9850

Paul E. Peterson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education, and editor in chief of Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research. He is also the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. His research interests include educational policy, federalism, and urban policy. He has evaluated the effectiveness of school vouchers and other education reform initiatives.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/hoover-institution

Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace

mailing address:
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6010
www-hoover.stanford.edu

Established:1919 by Herbert Hoover
Director: John Raisian
Finances: $25 million annual budget, $250 million endowment

Employees: approximately 250
Media: Uncommon Knowledge, a weekly half-hour television program on public policy carried on NPR and PBS.
Publications: Policy Review (bimonthly), Hoover Digest (quarterly), Education Next (quarterly), Hoover Institution newsletter (weekly), as well as the Hoover Press, which publishes works by many of Hoover Institution's fellows.

Read the latest news on the Hoover Institution on the group's Right Wing Watch index page
About Hoover:

* Hoover is well-known for its prominent influence over national Republican policy.
* Named for founder Herbert Hoover, the Hoover Institution is "a prominent center devoted to interdisciplinary scholarship and advanced research in the social sciences with an emphasis on public policy relevance. The Institution houses one of the world's largest private archives and libraries on political, economic, and social change in the 20th century and has more that 100 researchers consisting of both resident fellows and visiting scholars from throughout the world."
* Three Primary Programmatic Themes: American Institutions and Economic Performance, Democracy Free Markets, and International Rivalries and Global Cooperation
* Hoover's approach to some of these areas is described as: "Societies based on individualism rather than classes, thus confronting the issues of race, gender, ethnicity, and so forth;" and "The appropriate scope of government's involvement in areas such as education, health care, and the environment as it provides public services and regulates private enterprise."
* Some of Hoover's major issues: education reform that centers around private school vouchers and charter schools, dismantling affirmative action, privatization of social services, "flat tax" and other tax reduction schemes, deregulation of industry, Reagan's policy legacy, and "character education."

Hoover's Activities:

* Hoover is well-known for its influential role in developing President Bush's economic policy, the Hoover Institution is "the…conservative think tank President Bush looks to for ideas."
* Forging strong ties between right-wing ideologues, right-wing think tanks and right-wing policy makers; many of its scholars have worked for various Republican Presidential Administrations— Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and the current President W. Bush.
* Currently there are 8 Hoover fellows on the Defense policy board advising Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
* California Gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwartzenegger hired several Hoover Institution members as consultants for his 2003 election campaign.
* Hoover publishes and funds research and public policy by its own scholars and fellows.

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. And all they did was analyse the international results; that report prompted the LTTE in the OP

Here's the San Jose Mercury News the LTTE was in response to: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16577160?nclick_check=1

You can, if you wish, take a conclusion from the PISA study itself. This shows that poverty is a factor in achievement; but its effect is much more in some countries, such as the US, although the poverty is less in the US. Basically, the US teaches its poor students worse than other countries do. For instance, from a paper that concentrates on the Science results:

That is, top performers tend to come from significantly more advantaged socio-economic backgrounds than
students who are not among the top performers, but are closest to reaching those levels. In general, differences
in socio-economic background between different performance groups are marked – the more advantaged the
socio-economic background, the higher the performance.

Yet, not all top performers come from an advantaged socio-economic background. Figure 2.5b shows more
than a fifth of top performers across the OECD countries come from a background below the OECD average.
In Poland, Portugal, Spain or Japan the proportion of top performers in science whose socio-economic
background is below the OECD average exceeds 30%. That proportion reaches 64% and 75% in partner
economies Hong Kong-China and Macao-China respectively (Table A2.5c).

While a disadvantaged background is not an insurmountable barrier to excellence, how much of an
obstacle it becomes varies from country to country. Looking at the national average in the typical OEC D
country about a quarter of top performers in science come from a socio-economic background below the
country’s average (Table A2.5b). Some systems however are more conducive for students from a relatively
disadvantaged background to become top performers in science. For example, in Japan, Finland, Austria,
and the partner economies Macao-China and Hong Kong-China, one third or more of top performers come
from a socio-economic background more disadvantaged than the average of the country or economy. On
the other hand, in Luxembourg, Portugal, Greece, France, and the United States, as well as the partner
countries Bulgaria, Israel and Lithuania, 80% or more of top performers come from a socio-economic
background more advantaged than the average of the country.

(From http://www.oecd.org/document/51/0,3343,en_32252351_32236191_42642227_1_1_1_1,00.html)

But the comparison of 7.5% of non-poor US students being high achievers, and 10.3% of Swedish ones, doesn't come from the report at all - it's from the PISA figures and the LTTE's own figures of poverty in the 2 countries.

[Hannah Bell]

40. as for japan, what "poor" meant there circa 1960 to very recently in comparison with the us --

no comparison. no comparison first in terms of the brokenness of families and communities, second in terms of violence, also in the absence of a large drug culture, also in the absence of us-style conspicuous inequality.

what "poor" meant in japan in that period was 1) rural farm families or 2) striving urban low-wage workers. Both with strong family/community ethos.

if you've ever actually been in the japanese education system it's laughable to hear people credit japanese teachers for japan's performance on international tests. nothing to do with the teachers per se, everything to do with cultural and economic factors -- which are changing as we speak.

nothing to do with "the US teaches its poor students worse than other countries do".

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. I don't know where you've pulled 1960 from

This is about the international test scores from 2006. 1960 has nothing to do with it.

OK, we can't say "it's only the teachers" that cause the bad performance of poor US students, in comparison with poor students in other countries. You can also blame the students themselves, or their families, as you seem to be doing.

We also have the figures showing that non-poor US students don't achieve as highly as non-poor students in most other OECD countries.

[woo me with science]

42. Excellent posts. nt

[Hannah Bell]

73. No, just another example of cherry-picking & lying with statisics.

The factoids highlighted are meaningless once income distribution between OECD countries & within OECD countries is taken into account.

[Hannah Bell]

70. i'm talking about the entire post-occupation period, not just 1960.

you can babble as you will about what "we" do or don't know, i know what i saw during the three years i spent in the osaka city schools.

[Starry Messenger]

51. My point was that they have a right wing agenda.

I have no idea who the oecd are, I've never heard of them. A cursory glance doesn't look very "neutral" though. The articles on the top pages seem to indicate a neoliberal "reform" think tank.

[muriel_volestrangler]

52. You've never heard of the OECD?

International grouping of the major developed countries. They originate many of the world's economic statistics. If you want reliable international statistics like this, it's either them or the UN that you'd go to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_for_Economic_Co-operation_and_Development

[Starry Messenger]

54. Have you never heard of the Hoover Institution?

I don't come here to have to combat right-wing statistics massaging.

[muriel_volestrangler]

57. OK, then ignore the international statistics

I can't work out why you'd decide to comment on a thread about an article from 'Education Next' if you don't want to read anything from 'Education Next'. Or if you want to ignore the PISA results from the OECD, which haven't been touched by the Hoover Institution, then do so. If you're certain that no comparison with other countries can ever do American education any good, then continue to ignore the rest of the world. The Kennedy School of Government disagrees with you, since they are also one of the sponsors of 'Education Next'.

The surprising thing is that these statistics show that poor people get a bad deal from American education, compared to other countries, and yet you and some others seem to regard them as 'right wing statistics'. You'd think people would be interested in how to learn from other countries in getting their education system to give more equal outcomes for students from different backgrounds.

[Starry Messenger]

62. Poor people get a bad deal from America. Period.

Other countries have a much more robust social safety net than we do here. No one is saying we can't teach poor children, as you've been smearing our viewpoint here. We're saying that other countries address poverty in a way that puts those students in a better support position to learn. Schools here are funded locally, for the most part, which also penalizes poor neighborhoods. "American education" is part of a crumbling social support system here. Education Next brushes all that aside and points the finger squarely at teachers and public education, because it has an agenda to privatize education. That is a right wing agenda.

[Hannah Bell]

72. let's here your comment on these statistics:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9618057&mesg_id=9625074


"poor people get a bad deal from American education, compared to other countries"

no, poor people get a bad deal from the american system in total, compared to (most) other countries. nothing specific to education, & even if it *were* specific to education, the proposed "remedies" are diametrically opposed to what's done in "other countries" that supposedly perform better.

[Hannah Bell]

79. edit: "hear" before some smear artist comes to tell me my poor spelling negates my argument.

[Hannah Bell]

71. This result is 1st & foremost an artifact of income distribution: How to Lie with Statistics I01.

1. "Figure 2.5b shows more than a fifth of top performers across the OECD countries come from A BACKGROUND BELOW THE OECD AVERAGE."

Therefore, mathematically speaking:

a. Countries with average income below the OECD average will have a higher percent of students with "backgrounds below the OECD average."

b. Countries with highly unequal income distributions will tend to have a higher percent of students with "backgrounds below the OECD average."

c. The US has a high average income, but it is very unequally distributed. The US has the most unequal post-transfer income distribution of any OECD country other than Turkey & Mexico, & is also one of the most unequal countries pre-transfer.

GINI post-transfer:

Mexico: 47
Turkey: 43

US: 38
Italy: 35

UK: 34
Ireland: 33
Japan: 32
Canada: 32
Korea: 31
Germany: 30

Switzerland: 28
Finland: 27
Sweden: 23

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=INEQUALITY

In fact, another OECD paper says that the poorest 10% in the US are poorer than the poor of less wealthy countries, and we can assume this applies to every income tier at least below the median, because of the pattern of income stratification in the US:

"The average income of the richest 10% (in the US) is US$93,000 in purchasing power
parities, the highest level in the OECD.

HOWEVER, THE POOREST 10% OF THE US CITIZENS HAVE AN INCOME OF US $5800 US$ PER YEAR -- ABOUT 20% LOWER THAN THE AVERAGE FOR OECD COUNTRIES.

The distribution of earnings widened by 20% since the mid-1980s which is more than in most
other OECD countries. This is the main reason for widening inequality in America."

Redistribution of income by government plays a relatively minor role in the United States. Only
in Korea is the effect smaller. This is partly because the level of spending on social benefits
such as unemployment benefits and family benefits is low – equivalent to just 9% of household
incomes, while the OECD average is 22%. The effectiveness of taxes and transfers in reducing
inequality has fallen still further in the past 10 years."

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/47/2/41528678.pdf



Thus, the little statistic you're touting is precisely MEANINGLESS, and this is just the first reason.

Here's more:

1. The rankings are not a comparison of education systems

They quote the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: “If a country’s scale scores in reading, scientific or mathematical literacy are significantly higher than those in another country, it cannot automatically be inferred that the schools or particular parts of the education system in the first country are more effective than those in the second.”

***I note that Japan & many OECD countries test in or around the same year to divide students into academic & non-academic tracks. The fact that students in those countries are busy cramming for these exams which will help determine their entire future, while US students are not -- affects results.


2. The rankings do not indicate the magnitude of difference between average scores in each each country.

Salzman and Lowell: “Without knowing the magnitude of the actual raw score differences on the PISA, we can use the test results to rank countries and populations but not know the importance of differences in rankings.”

3. The diversity of the U.S. population both contributes to economic competitiveness and lowers the average score of students on the test.

They point out that the United States “has a large population and the most diverse demographics of any industrialized nation,” and that averaging across such a mixed group of students ignores the size of the population and the distribution of student performance within that population...

***If you read the OECD paper you linked, it's particularly noticeable in the % of students testing in a language that's not their own. Another noticeable factor is the % of immigrants admitted from high-SES v. low-SES groups. US admits a lot of low-SES immigrants in comparison with many other countries.

http://www.scienceprogress.org/2007/12/pisa-test-scores-and-the-mathematics-of-inequality/


The paper you linked notes some other interesting correlations, such as:

The correlation between science results & science researchers as a percent of the population: a fairly strong correlation, & one in which Finland is again lengths beyond the rest of the pack.

Makes sense: if a lot of adults are working in the sciences, youth are more familiar with it as a career path, familiar because they know people working in the science, etc -- so are more likely to train for it & be interested in it..

The opposite -- that educating youth for the sciences in a vacuum will somehow produce a larger research establishment -- is clearly not highly likely.

[Starry Messenger]

75. Brilliant, Hannah Bell.

Thank you for crunching the numbers and drilling down into this. This needs to be repeated again:

HOWEVER, THE POOREST 10% OF THE US CITIZENS HAVE AN INCOME OF US $5800 US$ PER YEAR -- ABOUT 20% LOWER THAN THE AVERAGE FOR OECD COUNTRIES.

The distribution of earnings widened by 20% since the mid-1980s which is more than in most
other OECD countries. This is the main reason for widening inequality in America."

The whole analysis is great.

[muriel_volestrangler]

80. Which statistic are you saying is 'precisely meaningless'?

You'll notice I didn't stop at quoting the paragraphs about performance by those below the OECD average socio-economic background (and which didn't actually say anything about the USA). The criticism of the USA comes in the next paragraph, which shows that the USA fails to get many of the students from below its own average socio-economic background to be top performers, compared with most OECD countries and their own average socio-economic background. The stats about how much those above or below the OECD average were top performers don't affect that.

The other stat in the post you replied to that is critical of the US is the one saying that, even assuming no child in poverty was a top performer in either country, then the non-poor children in Sweden out-perform those in the USA. This comes from the poverty stat you quoted in the OP. Again, all you've written above doesn't affect that.

"...it cannot automatically be inferred that the schools or particular parts of the education system in the first country are more effective than those in the second."

True; I'm criticising the US, not just the schools or just part of the system.

[Hannah Bell]

81. All the statistics about what % of top performers come from what economic slice

of the member countries economic hierarchy are worse than meaningless. That applies to EVERY statistic that uses OECD's "average" as an anchor, not just stats about the US.

BTW, the US IS A MEMBER STATE OF OECD. It is included in that average, & it is included in the rank lists derived from that average.

I'll get to the other bogus stat this eve.

I'll start here: "Percentage of students with the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) lower than the national average ESCS, by performance group"

This is nothing so straightforward as income; it's an index measure created by the researchers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

82. They don't use the OECD average as an anchor

They're a separate set of numbers, saying what percentage of top performers (and other levels) come from the ESCS scores below the average for each country.

NO, ESCS isn't as straight-forward as income; you yourself have been talking about the effect of other variables, such as speaking the language of the test as a second language. It is a stab at allowing for some variables:

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) index of economic, social and cultural status was created on the basis of the following variables: the International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI); the highest level of education of the student’s parents, converted into years of schooling; the PISA index of family wealth; the PISA index of home educational resources; and the PISA index of possessions related to “classical” culture in the family home.

http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=5401

[Hannah Bell]

83. There are two sets of comparisons being made. The first looks at how many of the

"top performers" across the OECD countries come from "A BACKGROUND BELOW (or above) THE OECD AVERAGE."

Those comparisons are anchored to the OECD average.

The second set of comparisons looks at how many of the top performers come from a background above or below their own country's "average", & I haven't gotten to that yet.


And "a stab at using some variables" is worse than useless, and no basis to make the sweeping claims you're making.

[Hannah Bell]

84. Now let's look at these ESCS thing.

To supposedly measure & compare the students' socio-economic status, the researchers constructed the fancy-sounding "PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS)".

What is this?

It has three dimensions, all self-reported by students:

1. Parents' education level
2. Parents' occupation
3. Cultural possessions in the home

Cultural possessions in the home:

As reported here:

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/36/34624327.pdf

Students are asked whether they have:

1. "Educational resources" -- things like calculators, dictionaries, desks, a place to study, etc.
2. "Computer resources" -- if they had access to a computer and educational softwear, or an internet link at home.
3. "Cultural possessions" -- if they had any possessions related to ‘classical
culture’ in their home -- books about classical literature or poetry, or a work of art -- in their home.


The students tested are also divided into three groups: those who are within the "average" on this index; those who are below & above this average.

This index is the researchers' proxy measure for SES.

Then they look at the top 6th of scorers on the PISA test & look at how many were in which group on this index.

Then people like Ms. Volestrangler, parroting the right-wing Hoover Institute, say:

"Oh, the US had fewer lower ESCS students in the top 6th than Japan or Finland; this shows that income & poverty don't matter. Therefore, this study shows our schools do worse at educating 'the poor'."

Garbage in, garbage out. The study doesn't even *identify* 'the poor,' let alone show that the US does a worse job of educating them, or other countries a better job.

In every country, top-scorers were concentrated in PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

Private schools are, in most countries, highly associated with top income tiers.

The researchers' SES proxy does not ask the students whether they have helipads, private tutors, indoor swimming pools, or vacation abroad -- no, it asks whether they have calculators or pictures on their walls.

Things that most upper class & middle class homes have, as well as many low-income homes.

Then the researchers used this ESCS data to run a statistical analysis which "corrected" the original strong correlation with private schools.

The SES measure is designed to "vanish" the effect of income on test performance.


There is yet more to say on this bullshit.

[muriel_volestrangler]

86. The massaging of the figures is being done by those who want to excuse the poor US performance

The simple figures are the low test scores by American students. If you want to be straightforward, you should just leave it there, and say "American students are bad at math and science" (and weren't tested on reading, because the American test booklet was printed with misleading instructions).

But the researchers want to understand if there are factors that explain bad performance, across countries or inside them. So they look at the first language of the student, the home background, and more. These factors explain some of the trends in the results, but you're still left with "American students perform badly".

The LTTE in the OP, and you and some others, are trying, somewhat desperately, to find even more reasons why the USA, a rich developed country, isn't really as bad as the simple test scores show, because you can't bear to think that the American culture and educational system is failing its children - both those in poverty, and those that aren't. So you are the ones you are scrambling to find an effect of poverty that means you have to do the 'lying with statistics' bit. So far, you haven't really found anything.

[proud2BlibKansan]

89. Why is an attempt to EXPLAIN labeled as an excuse???

No one is excusing our kids' performance. But much like when the Nation At Risk report came out in the 80s, statistics are being twisted to fit what used to be a right wing agenda to destroy public schools. And it's beyond infuriating to see Democrats do this.

The Democratic party I belong to rose up in the 60s to pass Head Start legislation when they saw the impact poverty had on student achievement. No one blamed teachers or anyone else for excusing poor performance. No one attempted to promote charter schools or to take valuable resources away from public schools. When there was a critical teacher shortage in the 70s, the Democratic party I belong to passed legislation funding student loans that teachers could work off. No one in my party blamed teachers. Democrats did not claim anyone was making excuses. When President Clinton realized our children were being short changed in our public schools and they lacked critical resources, he and the Democratic party pushed legislation through that provided internet access to every school and every classroom in the country. No one talked about excuses. Democrats rose up and did what needed to be done.

And now, when teachers and public school supporters try to EXPLAIN what is happening and why, we are accused of defending the status quo and making excuses. It's just beyond insulting and incredibly demoralizing. And it doesn't do a thing to help our kids.

[JCMach1]

35. Yeah, but you should see their scores on everything else- Math is all they know how to do

when rote learning is involved!

Our corporate masters want to bring this type of curriculum to America!

[seabeyond]

45. i see the kids that do so well in math. it is single focus, for sure.

they excel at the math and have such a hard time with the rest. but then i have a son that does the same with reading. top 5% of top 10% across the nation, thru SAT tests at a young age. math, though???? not so much. it is a struggle. hos reading part of the brain allows for sciences (without formulas) and history to be really easy, and most other classes.

[Primitive Mind]

36. I think part of the answer is in the teaching.....

I live near a cousin that is like a sister to me, and she has a daughter who is very bright in second grade. I also happen to very good at math.

My cousin called me up one day because her spouse was out of town and her daughter was having trouble with her math homework. I sat down, looked over the work, and had the kid effectively solving the problems after ten to fifteen minutes of instruction. I'm not a great teacher, this is a very smart kid. I just used the basic rules I remembered learning in first and second grade.

Since the instructions said to show her work, we just attached the work she had done using what I had shown her and sent the homework in. That promptly got the kid in trouble for "using incorrect technique". Further inquiry revealed that the method they were teaching involved seperatin the number out instead of solving the problem as a whole. 25-13 became 20-10 and 5-3, which I could tell was just confusing the living daylights out of the kid. Now they are working on 100-x=y where x and y being between 1 and 99 and x+Y=100 where x and y are positive integers type problems and the kid couldn't understand the poblems until I showed her the old way of doing it.

I don't know if it is all teachers/school districts, but my sisters kids are/were having the same problem in another state. The teaching methodology in use seems to be logically flawed. I think this causes kids to give up on math thinking they're no good at it.

[seabeyond]

46. i think this is an extention of everything teachers fault. i know just what you are talking about

i have one son that has to see math done a number of ways, before "getting" one method. another son that needs the basic. the schools though, have such pressure, they teach the kid three methods of figuring out problems.

when youngest was doing column addition, i could not believe what they were having him do.

told him.... knock it all off and do the basic, old fashion way.

schools are being plummetted so they are having to try all ways to reach all students, and this is one of the results. not a good result i feel. but it is the effort to satisfy the public.

[Fumesucker]

49. I've helped my grandkids with math homework sometimes and I'm noticing the same thing..

I'm no mathematician but I'm not bad at all at math and I find some of the methods the kids are supposed to use to find the answers remarkably confusing. It's been long enough that I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head but the educational establishment seems to have taken what should be fairly straightforward calculations and made them overly complex, I agree that it's confusing for the students quite often.

I don't blame the teachers as much as I do the educational establishment as a whole, the teachers are basically teaching the way they have been told or taught to teach and I suspect that if they deviate much from the accepted procedure they'll find themselves in hot water with their superiors.

[Gaedel]

56. This isn't new.....

In 1957-1958, I was a freshman in college majoring in engineering. One of my room mates was majoring in English. Prior to my freshman year, all B.A. majors were required to take College Algebra in the first semester and College Trigonometry in the second semester. For our year, the head of the English Department had prevailed on the head of the Mathematics Department to substitute a "philosophy-based" two semester General Mathematics course for all B.A. majors at the school. My room mate was hopelessly lost in the course and asked me to help him (being as I was doing pretty good in my engineering math courses). I was hopelessly lost even trying to read his text book (if a "set A" is a number with a cardinality of X......). It was rather hopeless blather as far as I was concerned.

Not to knock teachers, but much of the change in educational theory is change for change's sake. I was taught to read phonetically in the 1940s. My brother, two years younger, got caught up in "sight reading" and was hopelessly handicapped in school. He became a better practical engineer than I was, but never could get a degree.

Maybe we need to get rid of "teachers" who bail out of the classroom to become "educational theorists" working for DOE or their state conterparts or who are employed as as "curriculum specialists" in local school districts. To them, promoting "change" counts as accomplishment for their annual appraisal.

[Fumesucker]

66. I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was new..

And I agree with you that it isn't new.

I was about ten years behind you and saw some of the same things, I recall "New Math" was in vogue about the time I left HS.

It's interesting that you mention phonetic versus sight reading, I'm a phonetic reader and have no problem with words I've never seen before, sight readers are lost if they haven't been formally introduced to a word, they can't even make a sound in their mind for a word they do not already know.

[Nikia]

55. There are huge differences in what schools teach

Schools that have more challenging curriculm from the start tend to be schools that serve wealthier communities. Of course there are many exceptions and some schools are more advanced in some areas than others. This could be for a variety of reasons: incoming preparation, teaching ability, parental involvement, exceptions from both the school and family, nutrition, home life, class size, and probably several other factors. The divergence in curriculm happens right from the beginning. It is no suprise that by high school that there would be big differences in math scores amongst students.
There are students who succeed inspite of slower curriculm. It might benefit some because they are would otherwise fall behind in some areas and might become frustrated in school altogether. To avoid boredom and not advancing to ones full abilities though requires the family support and self discipline to learn beyond the curriculm. This is probably harder in math than other subjects because family members may be less knowledgeable of advanced math and there aren't a lot of exciting books on the subject like there are in many other subjects.

[maryf]

65. K&R nt