Smart thinking on education

[unixronin]

freetrav came up with what I consider a very smart idea about how to make the US educational system (and the products thereof) competitive again.  Instead of the current navel-gazing of No Child Properly Prepared where schools are basically encouraged to teach to the standardized test and call it done, and if schools aren't meeting the standards, we lower the standards (a strategy the results of which we can all clearly see), he proposes that we treat world educational rankings as the target.  Here's his suggestion, slightly edited for clarity and continuity:

I would set the standards as follows:  Look at the world educational ranking, and require a US student to achieve at a level equivalent to the 80th percentile in the country rated #1.  Exception: for English, limit the examination to those countries where English is either official or the chief lingua franca.  For foreign languages, inspection of countries where the foreign language in question is either official or chief lingua franca.

In other words, if the South Koreans are #1 in math, a US district is deemed failing in math if the average score of its students on the South Korean measure does not come out in the 80th percentile.

I'll even go so far as to allow for 'easing in' to the higher standards - say the educational dictatorship is initiated in 2010:  In 2010, the target is 50th percentile, but rises to the 53rd percentile in 2011, 56th in 2012, and so on until it reaches the 80th in 2020.

I think he has something.

Comments

[danjite.livejournal.com]

What I think you are asking is: "Do I think the decline in the USian educational system constitutes a national emergency, as indicated by my icon"?

Absolutely.

I have watched education in the US decline throughout my life. Objective standards shifting and being lowered or eliminated, budgets being slashed- then when counter-increases do happen having all the money go for administration and operations rather than academics.

When I was a lad there were arts programs, afer school programs, new books on a regular basis, free use of musical instuments, field trips and a host of other things missing from urban and most suburban schools today- except the wealthiest and the whitest.

Now if one wants to hire someone young with top math skills, an understanding of physics and a work ethic, students from USian schools don't measure up. (I mostly hired Indians.)

Now, perhaps the decline of US students can (also) be blamed on societal failures and pressures and a generation of parents who tried to be friends to their kids rather than authority figures and things like a chronic attitude of entitlement, but a good, solid school system would be a fine start.

Yes, I realize in point-of-fact, the public school system was never designed to educate, but that was what it's intent had evolved into for a few decades there. Now, for the most part- population-wise- it is just institutionalized baby sitting.

Do you think that the US public educational system's current state doesn't constitute a national emergency when compared to itself 40 years ago and the rest of the industrialized world (except for the UK) now?

If not, why not?

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I tried to present a balanced view of the demands placed on the US education system further down the page. I believe that the US education system suffers from a lack of focus or goals that the population agrees with. We are fighting over what the schools should teach, hence they teach nothing of substance.

If we can unify just the parents of public school students, we would have functioning schools again within a decade. As it stands now, the institutional inertia, supporting not deciding, is very high. Change will be opposed by those purporting to represent the teachers and staff.