Fixing America’s Education Deficit
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.
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Joe I don’t think more school days are the answere. Rather it is these four basic mistakes.
1. Parents
2. To many school administrators.
3. Instead of learning, we are teaching them to take tests.
4. Publicity and finances.
Parents do not get involved and just want the schools to do there job for them. If parents don’t get after the kids after school, they will not achieve in school.
Teachers are bogged down trying to keep up with to many directives put out by to many principles, superintendents and other administrators trying to justify their jobs. They spend more time dealing with crap then teaching.
And most important teachers spend to much time teaching kids how to take tests so that statistics look good. Let teachers teach and see how quickly they will begin to learn.
That is the reason most private schools turn out the best students. They don’t have all of those local, state and federal mandates that they have to deal with before they can begin to teach.
Finally an athlete scores a few touchdowns or rips off 30 points in a basketball game and it’s front page coverage. But let a kid get a perfect SAT score and it’s buried somewhere in the want adds page. Arts and sciences are first to be cut because of financial crush; but there are always enough tax dollars to build state of the art stadiums and gyms for a handfull of athletes.
I really identified with your comment about spreading the intro math out over more time. I know it moved too fast for me and so in reaction to it, I faked it…and fell further behind. Of course testing got me caught and so I was dragged miserably along for quite some time. Finally, at the earliest opportunity, I quit taking math. Big mistake and sad, because early on, I liked math and was good at it.
I really agree with your comment about more days in school equals smarter kids, too. It basically comes down to practice. The more you practice, the better you get.
My brother in-law is a director of a top 10 prep school here in Salt Lake. From what he tells me, the key for his students is parent involvement and example. I’m also guessing that smaller class size, full bellies, play a role. I also know they have a very competitive entry requirement, so they get the cream of the crop. No wonder they do better.
I agree with Pelmo the ideal is for parents to become more involved. but, I have to be realistic. That ain’t gonna happen in the near term. Who’s going to teach them to be better parents? I think changing teacher/teaching/learning requirements will be a lot easier.
In the end, I think it is a normal cycle for us to fall behind. We used to be the new, raw, uneducated mob in a wild new country. It appears, everyone had to fight to survive. I think that breeds a momentum that lasts for quite sometime. Then we, as europe did previously, started getting fat and comfortable. We didn’t have to work as hard. Lots of food and free time. And we took relaxation to a new high. Instead of being part of the stuggle, we watched it on tv. And we watched even more tv. We discovered and explored pleasure to it’s deepest depths.
We also realized we had gotten to the top of the heap in a way that we measured as “success”…more successfully than others…we all like to say. We claimed every “number 1″ we could think of. So, we rested on our laurels….and we still are. We are delusional about it…we still claim we are number 1 in every way and our leaders don’t shake us awake.
We have somehow failed to realize that military might isn’t the same as intellectual might. We have failed to realize that might doesn’t stay mighty all by itself. It takes work and we like pleasure so much more…..
See what happens when you (me) start a blog? Now I think I have something worth saying. And talking is much more fun than shovelling that wet snow that came down last night.
Xman you are right we are #1 at claiming to be #1. I didn’t know it snows in Utah.
Pelmo, I think you’ve got some good points. The administration in many school districts could use a bit of thinning out, and teachers are bogged down. But, I still think if there were more school days, with an appropriate increase in pay for those days, teachers would have more room to operate more creatively and maybe be less bogged down. As for training our kids to take tests, I also think that’s one of the drawbacks of the No Child Left Behind legislation…too much direct correlation between test scores and funding, and money corrupts. And I do agree that parent involvement is key, but these days especially, some families have two parents working more than two jobs or having to travel for business, or having other commitments they have to tend to to put food on the table. Heck, even my own parents who were both teachers had to spend many nights working football and basketball games and other school events…it’s not just the low-income parents but many middle-class parents are stretched pretty thin these days…and while kids go unattended, they may do schoolwork, but if they’re spending more hours in the classroom, there’s a better chance that more will do more schoolwork. Just my opinion though.
Xman, I think you’ve got a valid point, that we’re not hungry anymore. I think when Sputnik launched, that was the last time a real fire was lit under this nation’s backside, as far as hitting the books go. Back then, going to college was more of an infrequent honor, and today it seems many people see it as an excuse to exercise their party muscles instead of stretching their brains. Some of it, no doubt as you suggest, is due to a sense of familiarity setting in…college? Been there, done that. It’s not as big a deal anymore, just something our kids expect to happen to them.
Didn’t know it snowed in Utah?
Where I live is at 4200 feet of elevation. Basically, the valley floor. Right now at about 9:30am it is 16 degrees.
Within 30 minutes to an hour from my house, I can be skiing at Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, Solitude, Park City, Deer Valley, Canyons, etc.
The bobsled track is at 7400 foot elevation. I take a lift to about 10,000 feet to ski.
Yep, plenty of snow here.
You must have southern Arizona confused with Utah. Desert doesn’t always mean dry.
Here’s a pic from my front porch this morning…if I can get it to paste.
No, can’t do it. Don’t know how to paste it here.
You’ll have to trust me. Pine trees covered in heavy snow. Ice cicles hanging, walk and driveway waiting to be scrapped.
Ahhh…snow. It used to snow here…every couple of years we’d get a 4 to 8 inch snow. Even had one that topped 10 inches around 1993. That was the last one we’ve had over 3 inches. My first child was born in 1996 and he’s just about to be a teenager without ever seeing a snow here that was deep enough to make a snowman that isn’t filled with dirt and grass (we’ve made trips to Iowa, etc., so it’s not like the kids have never made a snowman at all…just not at their own house.) Yep…no snow here anymore. We just get 34-degree wet crap all season.
Joe be happy, very happy you don’t get the snow. This is one of the worst winters I can ever remember here. It’s not the amount of snow, but rather the freezing rain and snow which is now filthy dirty mounds of ice. Very demoralizing and making it seem like summer will never come.
Xman I was in Salt Lake City a few years back. You have a jewel there, as it is the cleanest big city I have ever seen. I don’t remember seeing even a cigarette butt on the streets. Drove around the area and saw some gorgeous views. Didn’t particulary care for all those strange liquor laws you have there.
Pelmo,
I can tell you weren’t cruising for the red light girls on 21st south and state street. Pretty grimey down there.
You are right about the butts. Due to the religion, most don’t smoke here.
Yes, SLC is a lot cleaner than most big USA cities I have seen, too. Some cities are scary. Can’t even go into a grocery store that doesn’t have a couple or so security guards.
Yep, getting a drink is a little odd, but it used to be worse. At least it isn’t dry! The liquor stores are pretty pitiful, but I guess they are trying. But what can you expect as far as selection goes, when they don’t drink.
When I was in K-12, most of my classes were taught so slowly and monotonously that I was bored senseless and often demotivated. I suspect that a more strenuous curriculum would keep students from getting so damned bored.
I agree with Pelmo about the problem with an overemphasis on standardized tests. Teaching kids how to take standardized tests is a narrow and not terribly productive approach to preparing them for life.
I personally think that the biggest problem is the anti intellectualism that our society embraces and the corporate media inculcate to keep people too stupid to realize that they are being screwed over.