U.S. Teens Lagging
December 24, 2010
A news article from last week deserves comment. Entitled “U.S. Teens Lag on International Test,” it reported that students from 34 countries were evaluated based on their performance on competency tests. Students from the U.S. ranked 17th, or exactly in the middle. Some of the higher ranking countries included China, S. Korea, and Japan. Many surmise that the success of these countries may be attributed to the autonomy granted to individual schools (autonomy over curriculum and teacher pay). The articled stated, “The brutal fact here is there are many countries that are far ahead of us and improving more rapidly than we are. This should be a massive wake-up call to the entire country.”
What do you think about this article? What could some of the reasons be for America’s lagging educational system, is this a problem, and what are some of the solutions?
One excellent analysis can be found here: http://www.vdare.com/sailer/101219_pisa.htm
Hopefully the link will stay active.
thanks for the heads up!