Thursday, June 04, 2009

US Public Education: Even Worse Than You Thought

Kevin found this.

“The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools” examined four achievement gaps in education: (1) between the United States and other nations, (2) between black and Latino students and white students, (3) between students of different income levels, and (4) between similar students schooled in different systems or regions.

The findings are alarming. Socio-economic status doesn’t matter according to this report that states (emphasis mine):

“The United States lags significantly behind other advanced nations in educational performance and is slipping further behind on some important measures. In addition, the gap between ours and others’ performance widens the longer children are in school.

The facts here demonstrate that lagging achievement in the United States is not merely an issue for poor children attending schools in poor neighborhoods; instead, it affects most children in most schools.

"A public school education in America is merely a slow, agonizing trip that starts at mediocrity and ends up at miserable failure. Again, quoting from the report:

“The longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers."

When Kevin Fischer and Al Sharpton agree, you first check to see whether the sky is in the usual place. After that, you take things really seriously...

1 comment:

Jay Bullock said...

“The longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers."
Actually, it is more likely because our peers do not keep all children in school as long as we do; most developed nations sort out the academics from the trades and stop testing the trades.