But the vast majority of educational inequality in America is inside each school, according to the PISA test score report. Statisticians mathematically teased out inequality between schools versus within each school and found that, in the U. The remaining 80 percent is inside each school. Imagine five schools, each with 10 students.
Students in the first school come from the poorest families and students in the fifth school come from the wealthiest. The other three schools lie between the two extremes.
If you calculate the average test score for the 10 students in each school, you would see that the average test score for each rises with wealth. In the U. In a simplified diagram of the U. This is a sharp contrast with other schools systems around the world. In Germany, for example, there is much less variation in each school. Student test scores are clustered closely together under each roof.
But there are greater differences between schools with the least advantaged schools scoring much lower than the wealthiest schools. In this case, no one in the least advantaged schools is approaching the the scores of the most advantaged schools. Why the U. Even if the family incomes are similar in each school, American schools might have more cultural diversity with some families emphasizing the importance education more than others.
In other cases, there might be a wide range of incomes in a large high school and student performance mirrors that wide range. Other scholars have come to the same conclusion in their analysis of international test scores. Although the debate over interpreting the data is likely to continue, one thing seems clear. We need to rethink reform. While it is vital to fix dysfunctional schools where too few students can read well and add fractions, these PISA test results show that we also need to understand what goes wrong at our most functional and revered suburban schools where the bottom students get left behind.
The United States is not investing as much in human capital as other developed countries. As a result, its comparative advantage is falling behind. For example, U. This means they are falling behind many other countries, such as Japan, Poland, and Ireland, which have greatly improved. In fact, U. The Program for International Student Assessment tests year-old students around the world and is administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In , when the test was last administered, the U. It did worse in math, ranking 30th. The U. That's well below the scores of the top five, all of which were Asian nations: Singapore at , Macao at , Hong Kong at , Taiwan at , and Japan at China was not included in this ranking, since only four provinces participated. The top five highest-scoring countries were Singapore at , Macao at , Estonia at , Japan at , and Finland at When analyzing the U.
In fact, there's been no detectable change in U. These low scores mean that U. While Silicon Valley is America's high-tech innovation center, one reason for its success is the cultural diversity of its foreign-born software engineers. Many companies simply outsource their tech jobs overseas. However, some studies look at current students and their abilities in different subjects.
One of the most-reviewed studies regarding education around the world involved , fifteen-year-old students. Each student was administered tests in math, science, and reading similar to the SAT or ACT exams standardized tests used for college admissions in the U.
These exam scores were later compiled to determine each country's average score for each of the three subjects. On the down side, there are many nations whose educational systems are considered inadequate. This could be due to internal conflict, economic problems, or underfunded programs. NAEP also tests U. Between and , the average scores of both fourth- and eight-graders improved from to on a 0-to scale , although for 12th-graders the average score remained at Note: This is an update of a post originally published Feb.
It has been updated to include more recent data. Fresh data delivered Saturday mornings. It organizes the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values.
Even in a polarized era, the survey reveals deep divisions in both partisan coalitions. Use this tool to compare the groups on some key topics and their demographics.
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