There’s a simple reason American school students get their pants spanked by kids from nearly every other industrialized nation. The answer can be summarized in three words, and everybody should know The Answer by now.
So, why isn’t The Answer mentioned more?
Maybe because most Americans reject the foul and loathsome answer on so many gut-wrenching levels that they simply refuse to state it.
America Rejects Education Improvement
Many reject The Answer to the education problem due to a stubborn resistance to change.
Others reject The Answer in favor of a belief in personal irresponsibility while alluding to the largely disproven theory that an adult’s intelligence is bestowed at birth. (Many Americans from this camp also believe that, even though they themselves graduated dumber than most foreign graduates, as soon as the diplomas were handed out, the intelligence fairy waved her wand and made them the smartest adults in the world; this lack of rational thinking, in itself, is witness to the inferior American education experience.)
Still others reject The Answer due to sentimental tradition — a tradition they pass on and hang about their children’s necks like so many millstones.
Maybe most of all, Americans reject The Answer because The Answer involves sacrifice. Unlike some generations of Americans, today’s parents seem to want a fairytale answer that gifts their children knowledge for little or nothing.
Despite the increasing swell of earnest middleclass wishing, the fairytale answer doesn’t exist. Consequently, this year the American Class of 2009 will graduate far from the top of the global classroom with their futures heavily curtailed by their parents’ inability to face reality.
So, what is The Answer?
The Answer is so genuinely disgusting and ugly that you may be shocked. Before going there, it’s important to admit that the American school system has a big problem. So, let’s look at reality, and also look at the terrible reality we’re going to face if we don’t fix America’s educational system…
America’s Outclassed Education System
It’s no secret that when compared with students from other industrialized nations, American school students come up way short. Waaaaay short.
For example, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests and compares 15-year-old schoolchildren’s performance across the world. In the 2006 PISA results, American school students didn’t place in the top 20 in Mathematics. They didn’t place in the top 20 in science or reading, either. Kids from Taiwan, Finland, and South Korea scored better than American students. That may be tough to swallow, but even tougher is the fact that American students were also left in the dust by their peers from Liechtenstein, Macau, Estonia, Slovenia…the list goes on and on.
In another study, the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), U.S. students cracked the top 10 by coming in 9th in Math, but they only came in 12th in science — not what you’d expect from the wealthiest nation in the world.
Which countries have smarter students? Japan, Korea, Russia…
The Plight of Outclassed Americans
So, what’s the big deal? Nothing, really, if Americans aren’t concerned about holding their own in the future.
As made evident by the popular Did You Know 2.0 and Did You Know 3.0 videos by Karl Fisch and Scott Mcleod, the future is now. For example, let’s compare the number of 2006 college graduates:
Does that make you a little nervous? The video also points out a few other facts:
- 100% of those 2006 Indian graduates speak English.
- China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.
- The 25% of India’s population with the highest IQs…is greater than the total population of the United States (India has more honors kids than America has kids.)
THAT’s the world the American school system should be preparing our children to live in.
Ways to Fix American Schools
While avoiding The Answer, Americans have suggested a number of ways that might fix the outclassed American education experience.
One suggestion is free preschool for everybody. This isn’t a bad idea, and isn’t without merit. However, it doesn’t fix the big problem, because according to international testing results, American first graders are on a par with the brightest kids around the world. It’s after entering first grade that they begin falling behind.
Another suggestion is to throw more money at the problem. This idea doesn’t have much merit either, because some of the top-ranked countries spend far less per student on education.
Maybe we should have better teachers? Better teachers would definitely be a plus, but other countries have their own share of mediocre teachers. It’s just not The Answer.
What about more school days?
What if, instead of squeezing an introduction to integral calculus into a single school week (and having the students who didn’t “get it” feel lost for the rest of the semester…), the lesson was spread out over three weeks, and the teacher had plenty of time to make sure each student had a firm grasp on that foundation before moving ahead and building on it?
Bingo!
Practice Makes Perfect
Hypothetical question: Two athletes of equal ability prepare for a race. Over the course of three months, one athlete trains with her coach for 15 hours a week; the other athlete trains with the same coach for 20 hours a week. Which athlete would you put your money on, the one with 45 hours of coaching or the one with 60 hours?
Better yet, what if the same two athletes followed their unequal training schedules for 12 years?
I’ll tell you what would happen: The athlete that had 3,120 more hours of coached training would leave the less-trained athlete in the dust.
The Answer: More School Days
The Answer is ugly and despised, but it’s the not-so-pretty truth: Most American school students attend classes 180 days each year. Most students in India, China, South Korea, and Japan attend school 220-240 days per year. Do the math. Why is it such a big surprise that those foreign students are leaving American students in the dust?
Yes, those 240 days include some Saturdays. And yes, their school days are longer than American school days. And yes, they don’t get three months off for summer vacation.
Do the foreign students like having to attend class 240 days out of the year? Of course not. I’m sure many would rather be working a summer job at a fast food restaurant and earning money to buy a cool outfit or an Xbox 360, or hanging out at the swimming pool, or playing summer sports like their American peers.
Funny how some Americans think it’s fine for the kid who spends the most time and effort on the field to earn a first-string spot on the football squad. And yet, many of those same parents believe their kids should be able to spend less time and effort in the classroom than their foreign peers, and yet still earn a first-string job in the global economy.
Think about this: China now produces eight times more scientists and engineers than the U.S., and India produces three times as many. As a result, more and more multinational high-tech corporations are choosing to set up shop in those countries instead of the United States, because the kids in those countries put in the hours, and the sweat, and they earned it.
With 60 more school days per year, foreign students leave high school with a total of 720 more days of classroom time than American students. That’s the equivalent of an extra 4 years in the 180-day American school system.
Say what you will about the quality of time in class, or the ability of the teachers to educate. It would take a fantastic improvement in average teaching ability to make up a four year deficit in class time.
Still refusing logic, some argue that less days in school means American children, though not as book smart, will leave school more well-rounded than the foreign students with the higher test scores. But by the same argument, hundreds of millions of third-world citizens are more well-rounded than products of our American educational system.
If a well-rounded third-world type of life is what we Americans set our sights on, that’s what we’ll likely achieve.
The stage is set, and the band is ready to play, and a new day in America is almost here…unless it turns out to be like so many other presidential inauguration days when promises were made and flags were waved but what was really going on was a nation fooling itself and making a lot of noise as an excuse to turn her eyes away from the tired, poor, huddled masses she was treading on.
