Continued from page 1
February 1, 2008

First, remember that John Stossel, for some reason, has a strong bias against public schools and public school teachers, to the extent that his “reports” have gone beyond the line of fairness even for editorials. Remember the job he did on teachers, setting teachers up, portraying the worst of the worst as the norm?

American secondary students tend to score lower on tests than their counterparts in other countries because we are trying to educate all students, not just the top students. It doesn’t matter that they used an “above average” high school in their comparison. To make the comparison fair, we would have to look more closely at the population of the schools. If the top third of the fifteen-year-olds in the other country would be attending that school, then their scores should be compared to the top third of the students in an American school that serves all fifteen-year-olds.

Consider this statistic from the article: “At age ten, American students take an international test and score well above the international average. But by age fifteen, when students from forty countries are tested, the Americans place twenty-fifth. The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition.” I believe that most industrialized countries are educating ten-year-olds in pretty much the same manner. Apples are being compared to apples. However, by age fifteen, in many countries, students are sent off to different kinds of schools, depending largely on their abilities, and in some places, the education ends at that point. Thus, one group being compared has turned to oranges. They’re not comparing the same things.

I do not know which system is better. It is interesting listening to our foreign exchange students. Some say they like everyone being in school together, but they almost all comment that students in their countries value their educational opportunities more because they have to work for them. I do think we should look into allowing our students to pursue vocational interests instead of forcing them all to undertake a college prep curriculum, but that is a separate issue.

I teach in a small school in a rural area that, in general, does not value education, and we have a lot of extremely bright students who have gone on to successful lives outside of school. Our students are definitely NOT stupid. And I would pit the top X% of fifteen-year-olds in my community against the top X% of fifteen-year-olds in a similar community anywhere in the world. But, since we have a very low dropout rate and most of students do go on to graduate, our sophomore class would probably not fare well in an academic test of the sophomores of an elite school. That is just common sense.

jme

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Memo to the New Secretary of Education and John Stossel: American students are NOT stupid
IMHO (February 2009 Gazette)

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