We're Number...?

 
(Image: source)

Hold on...let me start with the fingers on my left hand...one, two, three, four, five...now on to the other ...six, seven, eight, nine, ten...and then to my right foot...eleven, twelve, thirteen...aw, forget it -- we're just too far down the list to matter.

Didn't we used to need only one hand -- or just a few fingers -- to figure out where we stood in comparison to everyone else?

"Can the US Compete if Only 32 Percent of Its Students Are Proficient in Math?" (Christian Science Monitor)

Among the top-scoring places in the world that participated in a recent exam, math proficiency of 15-year-olds was well above 50 percent. One US state, Massachusetts, cleared that mark, barely.

Jeremy Kennefick leads an eighth-grade science class at Normandin Middle School. New Bedford, Massachusetts in 2008.

What do Massachusetts, Switzerland, and Singapore have in common? Their students are among the top performers in the world when it comes to mathematical proficiency.

As for the rest of the United States, the comparison is more bleak, according to a new report: The US ranked 32nd out of 65 countries (or cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong) that participated in the latest international PISA, an exam administered to representative samples of 15-year-old students by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

To researchers who authored Wednesday’s report – “Globally Challenged: Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete?” – it’s yet another cause for alarm about the ability of the United States to compete on the global economic scene.

“This is an urgent problem.... We cannot continue to ignore the mathematical education of the next generation if we expect to be a ... highly productive society,” said Paul Peterson, a professor of government at Harvard and co-author of the report, in a live webinar Wednesday morning.

How times have changed.

Comments

[Bailey]

Uh let me guess they all have largely homogenous populations consisting of either Northern Europeans or Upper Pacific Rim Asians?

[roger]

Back in the olden days,American industry needed
skilled and educated people , so they promoted
education, and we had the finest schools in the world.
To day,after shifting the manufacturing base over seas
all they need is consumers,so why waste money on
education?

[Nickelthrower]

Greetings,

I would like to say that I find this shocking but, alas, I do not. My daughter was raised in Texas by her mother and, according to the copies of her report cards that I received, earned nothing but A's & B's during her 12 years of publicly funded education. She moved out to California to attend school (I live near LA) and her placement tests showed that her math, reading and writing skills were that of a 3rd grader.

She has been in "college" now for three years and is just now moving past the remedial classes and into credited classes. As you can imagine, she was quite upset by the whole thing as she graduated high school near the top of her class.

Our educational system is a joke.

[Have your vote count]

What Do You Think?

Do you think the SEC and the Government are covering up or ignoring massive Wall Street Crime?

scroll down on right

vote here: http://usawatchdog.com/zero-interest-rates-lock-in-inflation/

[Double count]

Inflated medical bills mask true cost of care
One man's case illustrates the problem: His medicine to treat Crohn's disease runs the hospital about $6,300 per dose. But the bill he gets is for $38,000.

But according to his most recent bill from Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, the hospital charged $38,064.95 for the treatment. It then discounted that amount by almost $25,000.

Why the sky-high charge and steep discount? Government-run insurance programs demanded reduced prices from healthcare providers decades ago. Private insurers insisted on equal treatment, and soon it became standard practice for medical bills to be heavily inflated to accommodate the contractual discounts.

In other words, with mandated discounts baked into the system, hospitals routinely overstate medical fees — often by tens of thousands of dollars — so their final reimbursement is closer to actual costs.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20110816,0,2277463.column

[Mick Tierney]

It's worth noting that what enabled Massachusetts to clear the bar was its 1993 decision to junk the popular (with educators) curriculum. In its place the state substituted a Core Knowledge curriculum first promoted in E.D. Hirsch's 1987 best-seller, "Cultural Literacy." By 2005 the state's fourth and eighth graders were were ranked first in both math and reading...a feat they've repeated every two years since.

Lamentably, the reason for this accomplishment has been (mistakenly) attributed to the state's heavy spending on education. Other states spend just as expansively but remain woefully lagging. There is no "Race to the Top" ... real education takes time and neither large sums nor large promises will succeed. Hirsch's program deserves to be considered - despite it's unpopularity with the education establishment which just can't seem to understand why the marketplace continues to reject its finished product: the degreed, but unlettered, student.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_hirsch.html

[Real Deal]

The failed US high school system has been an 'urgent' problem for a couple of decades. No fixes were found. So that we now have 2 generations of kids lousy in anything requiring thinking.

But they can talk and click on their iPhones faster than anybody in the world! I wonder are there jobs called professional gadget player? Maybe for $2 an hour?

[Challenge The Status Quo]

Corporate Media: We Censor Candidates Who Challenge Status Quo

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/08/corporate-media-we-censor-candidates-who-challenge-status-quo/

[Think]

The Empire Strikes Out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_OBBmc1iH4&feature=youtube_gdata

[The kids are fallout from corrupted policy makers]

Goldman Sachs VP Changed His Name, Now Advances Goldman Lobbying Interests As A Top Staffer To Darrell Issa
Thursday 18 August 2011

Has Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) turned the House Oversight Committee into a bank lobbying firm with the power to subpoena and pressure government regulators? ThinkProgress has found that a Goldman Sachs vice president changed his name, then quietly went to work for Issa to coordinate his effort to thwart regulations that affect Goldman Sachs’ bottom line.

http://www.truth-out.org/goldman-sachs-vp-changed-his-name-now-advances-goldman-lobbying-interests-top-staffer-darrell-issa/1

[A. Zarkov]

However when you drill into PISA data you will find that America does not have an educational problem, it has an underclass problem. Look at the 2009 PISA report (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011004_1.pdf). Look at Table R1. The average scores are normed to make the US score exactly 500. Thus the combined reading and literacy scores for American 15 year old students rank 14 out the 34 participating OECD countries. About in the middle. Now go to Table R3 where we see U.S. scores enumerated by race. The average non-Hispanic white score is 525 putting this group at rank 3. Go back to Table R3 and you will see that Asian non-Hispanics score 541, putting this group at rank 1. Thus American Asians, educated in America rank are tops in the world. Now look at the Hispanic average score. It's 466. Look at the Mexico score, it's 425. So U.S. Hispanics educated in America score better than Mexican Hispanics. How can we say the American educational system is worse than foreign systems? If PISA is your guide, then it's tops. With Asian students it does better, with white students it does better, and it even does better with Hispanic students. Like Kennedy's missile gap, the education gap is a myth. At least according to PISA.

Note I haven't analyzed the PISA math test as yet, but I'm confident will see something similar.

[Rocky]

A. Zarcov: The web address does not work. Try this one instead:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011004.pdf

The score for Black American students was only 441, which is even worse than the Hispanic score. (Table 5).

For students living in a low poverty area (< 10% getting free or reduced price lunches) the score goes up to 551 (Table 6).

[Bailey]

Zarkovs correct by race our scores are better than most of the races home geographical area/nation. Its not about income either, poor whites from families making 10 grand or under outperform blacks from families making 50-70 grand in the SAT. Also when we read "asian" its actually "upper pacific rim asians" that are being referenced.
The problem is too much third world immigration.

[NO stocks 4 me]

I just wana see The Bernak get some math education..........

[SeetheLight]

BS. My spouse has an IQ of 125-155. Is at the center of the storm of the software test development jobs that went offshore to India. Grew up in England and took the 11 Plus, the IQ test given to all eleven year olds, to cull who goes to university versus who attends trade school Immigrated to the US and was easily capable of doing university work at age 16.

Hasn't had a telephone call for a job interview in his field in 6 years, so "education" is a bunch of bull crap. I'd say the Faux News, Republicans, and CEOs are promoting shite and nothing more. Republicans usually call universities "liberals." Remember this comes from Rupert Murdoch (who never attended a US university) and Rush Limbaugh (who flunked out of Cape Giradeau University).

[A. Zarkov]

@Rocky

Sorry that link used to work, but I guess it changed. Thanks for the update.

Sometimes the average of something is misleading. In a place that's freezing cold half the year, and broiling hot the other half, the average indicates a balmy climate. This applies to these PISA scores which have a bimodal distribution. The average is misleading.

Here is something a lot of people miss. Innovation and advancement in technology and business generally comes from the upper part of the score distribution. It does not matter if the average is middling or low. A country can still be competitive.

Business leaders go around complaining that the American educational system is not producing qualified employees for them. This is a story they make up to get Congress to approve an increase in the number of H1-B visas. It's a lie. The U.S. produces ample numbers of very qualified students as you can see from the PISA scores for white and Asian students.

The educational industry too likes these low average PISA scores so they can plead for more money. It's all a ruse.

[A. Zarkov]

@seethelight

You're correct. In this grim recession even highly educated and smart people are out of work and have a hard time finding a new job. That's what happens in a bad economy. Given the lack of jobs at both the high and low end, why do we continuing to allow vast numbers of people to migrate to America? This can only lower wages for everyone.

Unfortunately both parties support continued immigration. One party is looking for cheap labor, and the other for future votes. The needy immigrants at the low end put additional strain on already over burdened social services. This is madness. America's elites won't debate the issue. They cry racism. They cry xenophobia. We get insults instead of an argument.

I don't understand your beef with Fox News and Rupert Murdoch. The other media outlets are promoting this canard about PISA scores as well. It's not a partisan issue. Note the massive spending to bailout banks and the massive stimulus package did little to help the unemployed. Most of the stimulus money went to state governments who used the funds to pay down debt, not employ people. We have yet another example that the Keynesian multiplier is not greater than 1. You can't spend your way out of a recession without spending wisely. By "wisely" I mean projects with a positive net present value. With a negative net present value, the spending is simply more consumption, and the future cash flows from the project don't cover the debt service costs. In other words capital, is not free and you can't create it out of thin air. At least some of the Depression era spending gave us valuable public capital like bridges and dams. Bridges generate toll revenue. Dams generate electricity. The Keynesian multiplier lies at the heart of the fallacy. Under this theory just spending alone helps the boost the economy, so all spending, even the wasteful is a benefit. Perhaps under some conditions the multiplier is greater than 1, but evidently not in this recession. We will continue to suffer high unemployment as long as the government continues to used a failed economic model.

[Bailey]

Seethelight your husband cant get a job because hes a citizen, the companies have to pay many taxes on him. H1-B visa employees can have the vast majority of their salary as per diam which is excused from many taxes, like payroll taxes. Then the H1-B worker will work for less so the small amount that is taxed is even smaller. H1-B workers are not white so the co. gets its diversity employer points. They are classed as temporary so no govt.health care requirements. NumbersUSA has the entire list of perks the H1-B visa worker holds for a co. which is why liberal scum like Bill gates loves it and perpetuates the myth of no smart Americans. Also anyone smart enough for advanced degrees isnt going to go into debt for a job he knows he will never be hired for, which is why so many foreign students are the ones receiving tech degrees.
Angry yet?

[A. Zarkov]

@Bailey

According to the Wikipedia entry H1-B visa holders have to pay both income and full FICA taxes. So I doubt the employer does not have to pay the employer tax. The H1-B holder than can qualify for Social Security and Medicare benefits if he accumulates ten years of working.

The Indian government protested this taxation.

[Bailey]

the bulk of their compensation can be paid as per diam which is not taxed as salary. Check numbersusa for a detailed article on the suubject.