Our (Lack of) Standards

I teach.  Ergo, by definition I am a participant in the upbringing and education of today's students and tomorrow's leaders, educators, inventors, writers, politicians, lawyers, etc.  You might be able to see why, therefore, I became immensely disturbed upon hearing the following bit of news this morning on the radio:

US Students are falling behind their international counterparts in Reading, Math, and Science

I had two questions after hearing that:  How far behind?  And Why?  The "why" part leaves something to be desired, as there can be multiple interpretations and just as many actual reasons as there are speculative theories.  I happen to have some of my own, but we can save those until later.  I think the "How far" is much more important at this juncture.  It should also be noted that 15 year olds were the ones surveyed and the survey consisted of 41 different countries. 

I have found two websites with good, informative explanations.  The first is on Info Please.com and shows the upper and lower rankings of a country based on 2003 test scores.  For example, the US varies between 29th and 31st in Math with Honk Kong, China securing the 1st position, trailed closely by Finland and South Korea.  In Reading, Finland secures spot numero uno closely followed by South Korea again and then Canada.  (Or northern neighbors seem to know what they're doing).  We, sadly, fall into 12th place but can fall as far back as 23rd, depending on what section of the country you are analyzing.  Lastly, in Science, Finland is AGAIN in the top spot trailed only by Japan and then Hong Kong.  We fall 20th-27th. 

In the other online posting, The Washington Post, things don't look any better, and this is a survey of 15 year olds from 2006 of 30 different countries.  In Science, we were 17th out of 30, and 24th out of 30 in Math.  In fact, with regards to Math, we tied with two other countries (the names were not given in the article) and were only ahead of four other countries.  Rather pathetic, if you ask me. 

There's also an article on Great Schools.org that goes into further depth on their perceptions of why Finland does so well in comparison to the world.  Take it for what it's worth.

I've also heard it rumored that US students rank highest in self-esteem.  I'm still working to find the evidence to back it, but it really wouldn't surprise me.  We've become a society of "every student gets a medal if not a trophy," of "well, it's okay, you can have 3, 4 or 10 chances," of spoon-feeding information, and of parents bailing out their children into the upper twenties.  What are we doing to our kids?  When do they have to learn some responsibility and hard work?  I can't imagine it's all the school system's fault.  Things are relative and connected, and you can't really and truly fix one without addressing and tweaking the others.  However, regardless of where we start, reform or dire attention is clearly necessary.  Accion is needed.  Playing the blame game?  Not so much.