US Students Sink Further Behind in International Rankings

[Harry Mathews]

8-4-14 By Bill Korach www.thereportcard.org

 

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reports that American students have fallen further behind in their ranking of 65 countries.

	2009 Ranking	2012 Ranking
Math	25	31
Science	20	24
Reading	11	21

 

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. To date, students representing more than 70 economies have participated in the assessment.

The most recently published results are from the assessment in 2012.

Around 510,000 students in 65 economies took part in the PISA 2012 assessment of reading, mathematics and science representing about 28 million 15-year-olds globally.

 

PISA claims they are unique because they develops test which are not directly linked to the school curriculum. The tests are designed to assess to what extent students at the end of compulsory education, can apply their knowledge to real-life situations and be equipped for full participation in society. In other words this is not about teaching to the test which is what we do in America, it is about what knowledge students have learned.

 

The top 10 performers in all categories are Shanghai China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, South Korea, Macao China, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Netherlands. To add insult to injury, students in Slovenia, and the Slovak Republic outperform American students

 

What does good look like? 40% of the Singapore students were scored as “high performers” and 8.3% were “low performers.” In the US it was almost the reverse: Only 8.8% were scored as “high performers,” but 25.8% scored as “low performers.”

 

America spends more per student than any country in the world, and yet we are outscore by countries that spend a small fraction of what we waste. Time and again, America’s educational elite concocts new progressive programs and new spending in the teeth of overwhelming evidence that their programs have failed. Common Core is yet one more example of an unproven program that is bound to cost billions and accomplish the reverse of what was intended. America’s moms know better. We need some fresh ideas and new people in charge so America can again be # 1 in education.

http://education-curriculum-reform-government-schools.org/w/2014/08...