American students once again performed poorly on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the global standardized exam that measures academic achievement around the world.
Meanwhile, students in Shanghai posted astronomically-high scores – further evidence that a growing education gap exists between East and West.
PISA is administered every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which is based in Paris. The exam evaluates fifteen-year-old students from dozens of different countries on their mastery of reading, mathematics and science – alternating its area of emphasis with each testing cycle.
In 2000, the test focused on reading. In 2003 and 2006, it focused on mathematics and science, respectively. This year’s test once again focused on reading – an area where U.S. students posted lower scores and lost ground compared to their international counterparts.
Of the 34 nations that participated in this year’s exam, America ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math. America’s absolute score in reading actually fell by four points over the past nine years, from 504 to 500. By comparison, students in Shanghai posted a 556 score in reading.
In 2000, American students ranked 15th in reading, while in 2003 they scored 24th in math. In 2006, American students ranked 21st in science. Absolute scores in math increased by four points from six years ago (which was not enough to keep pace with the rest of the world), while absolute scores in science increased by 13 points from three years ago – good enough to bump America up four spots in the international rankings.
PISA will shift its focus to math in 2012 and science in 2015 – at which point we’ll get a much clearer picture of where America stacks up compared to the rest of the world in those subjects.
It’s clear they’ll have their work cut out for them, though, as students in Shanghai posted a 600 score in math this year – which was 113 points higher than America’s score. Shanghai students also posted a 575 score in science – 73 points higher than America’s score.
Also worthy of concern? Only eight of the economically, culturally and geographically diverse nations participating in the PISA exam had a lower graduation rate than the United States. By contrast, the U.S. graduation rate ranked second in the world in 1995.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the PISA results were a “wake-up call” that American needed to “get much more serious about investing in education.”
Of course what Duncan neglects to mention is that the United States already spends more per student than any other country in the world except Luxembourg. In fact, the PISA report noted that countries like Estonia and Poland are achieving similar results while spending less than half the amount of money that America does.
For South Carolina parents, it’s also worth remembering that the Palmetto state ranks at or near the bottom of the vast majority of America’s key academic measures – this in spite of record funding increases in recent years.
Our state’s public education system has continued to produce nothing but incremental gains among white students while relegating yet another generation of black students to second-class status – even as black “leaders” continue embracing the failed status quo.
South Carolina’s overall graduation rate remains among the worst in the nation – which is consistent with our state’s declining SAT and stagnating ACT scores. Also, South Carolina’s rural graduation rate currently ranks dead last in the country. Meanwhile, our overall graduation rate has improved by a meager 1.5 percent over the last decade – one of the worst percentage improvements in the entire country.
At this very moment there are 109,000 South Carolina school children trapped in persistently failing schools.
In an effort to hide these miserable outcomes from parents, House Speaker Bobby Harrell (aided by liberal lobbyist J. Warren Tompkins) has been working hard to dumb down the state’s costly and inefficient academic assessments. Also, South Carolina remains the only state in America that does not release graduation rates for minority students – yet another effort to conceal the generational failure of our current system.
WEB EXTRA
PISA 2009 Results (Executive Summary – .pdf)
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By Ttiger December 7, 2010 at 10:39 am
Will you ever wake up and quit using “false” data to justify your position?! In China students are tested at every turn. Students have to take a test to see what elementary school they will go to, then they have to test at the end of 5th grade to see what Middle School they will attend. Students have to stand in front of the class in order of their test scores so they know where they stand. “If you didn’t get into one of Shanghai’s top middle schools, your fate would be mediocre classmates and teachers who taught only what was in the textbook. You chances of getting into a good high school, not to mention a good college, would dinminsh.” (National Geographic, May 2008, page 81). The top schools reject 80% of the applicants.
Is this what we want for our schools? We educate everyone! We test everyone! These other countries only test the brightest and the best so of course their scores are better! When we can compare apples to apples then we can talk.
By Halftime December 7, 2010 at 10:43 am
My exchange student has a 16 yr. old friend who is an exchange student in Shanghai. They were Skypeing the other night and she told me that her friend goes to school at 8:30 a.m. and gets home around 9:30 p.m. M – F. They also go half-days on Saturday and spend most of their Saturday afternoons/evenings doing homework so that they can have Sunday off.
I’m not excusing the results of the survey since I agree that the public education system in S.C. is terrible – just adding some relevant context.
By fitsnews December 7, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Good to know “halftime,” now all you need to do is pull a Joe Wilson and ask us why we have such a visceral hatred of America.
-FITS
By James December 7, 2010 at 1:57 pm
I don’t think you have a hatred of America. I simply think you and and the other supporters of vouchers are willing to trash the schools that are doing a good job and sell out 75% of South Carolina’s children for money. Voucher supporters have already abandoned the public schools, and now want a tax break so they don’t even have to support them monetarily. They have no interest in making schools better, or helping black children succeed. Once they get their money, they will gladly let public school children rot in crappy schools forever.
By toyota kawaski December 7, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Dam Fits you freaking fair weather Phan! I go under the knife for a few weeks and i come back and you still are sucking eggs from Uncle Warbucks! This crap you blow reminds my small brain of Charlie Browns teachers/ or the librarian when Snoop and Woodstock got tossed from the library
By tbdb December 7, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Interesting story. By the way, how many charter or voucher-funded schools are located in Shanghai? How about secular or parochial private schools? If anybody knows, please post.
By NoName December 7, 2010 at 4:36 pm
All stories like this….even with the impressive context…. miss the point that all the data is just bull shit and lies from other countries.
Our school crats lie to keep jobs why do you think other country’s crats would not manipulate the shit out of everything for a country win….I mean look at the shiot they do in the Olympics for gods sake.
American schools need something….why not introduce some competition and see what happens….it can get any worse can it.
By James December 7, 2010 at 7:18 pm
“it can get any worse can it.”
Yes, it can. Its not about competition. There will be no increased competition. The parents who want the money already have their kids in Private School and the vouchers are meaningless to the poor. You will be emptying the state treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars and receiving nothing in exchange. Its just a give away program for the parents of private school kids.
By Old Bike Dude December 8, 2010 at 7:40 am
Voucher-crats aren’t concerned about educating all children.
By Peter Pappas December 9, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Is PISA “a Sputnik wake-up” or are international comparisons invalid. Rather than wade into that debate, I’d rather look more closely at the questions in the PISA test and what student responses tell us about American education. You can put international comparisons aside for that analysis.
Are American students able to analyze, reason and communicate their ideas effectively? Do they have the capacity to continue learning throughout life? Have schools been forced to sacrifice creative problem solving for “adequate yearly progress” on state tests?
I focus on a sample PISA question that offers insights into what American students can (and cannot do) in my post “Stop Worrying About Shanghai, What PISA Test Really Tells Us About American Students” http://bit.ly/eChNoY