Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion 2012 PISA results are out

No surprises for the US, unfortunately.


Perhaps the Common Core will help, especially if implemented properly.

As Steve Sailer explains in

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/graph-of-2012-pisa-scores-for-65_4.html
Graph of 2012 PISA scores for 65 countries/economies
December 4, 2013

and other posts on his blog, the performance of Asian and white American students is comparable to that of students in East Asian and European countries, respectively. I think the raw performance of the U.S. educational system is OK, neither great nor awful, and doubt that Common Core will make a big difference, but I think we ought to be paying less for that performance.

What do you think of this piece?

http://www.theatlantic.com/educatio...isnt-mediocre-its-deeply-unequal/280827/

NZ has dropped a lot. There is great blaming and gnashing of teeth. I don't think I want our schools to outperform the Asian ones - they sound horrible.

Does anyone have any insights - other than higher socio-economic level - on the reason for MA's high performance?

Note that US student's belief in abilities was higher than OECD avg., while anxiety was lower despite performance.

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results.htm

Some have credited the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993:

http://educationnext.org/accountability-overboard/
Accountability Overboard: Massachusetts poised to toss out the nation's most successful reforms
By Charles D. Chieppo and James T. Gass
Education Next
Spring 2009

Some may say that the US States to the left of the graph in figure 1 (lower performing than the US average) might want to investigate what the US States to the right of the graph (high performing) are doing differently and determine whether adopting or adapting those practices may help their students' educational gains and test performance.

Some may say that 47 of the US States performing above TIMSS average for Science (as shown in figure 4) is pretty respectable.

Personally I am wondering how many US kids in the low and below low may have great untapped potential... gifted kids turned off by the system, tuned out, and at risk of dropping out.

In reading the article's comments, some may say that A. Hairyhanded Gent shared an authentic account which is both insightful and indicative of the history and possible steps toward solutions.

Lastly, some may say it is not enough for the children of a State or a Country be well-educated. Because none of us choose our origins: our family, nationality, IQ, and more are mere circumstances of birth, pure chance... I commend all outreach efforts to assist/encourage each and every person attain more of their potential... empowering them to help others.

Key findings for the U.S. from the official report:

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-US.pdf

• Among the 34 OECD countries, the United States performed below average in mathematics in
2012 and is ranked 26th (this is the best estimate, although the rank could be between 23 and
29 due to sampling and measurement error). Performance in reading and science are both
close to the OECD average. The United States ranks 17 in reading, (range of ranks: 14 to 20)
and 21 in science (range of ranks: 17 to 25). There has been no significant change in these
performances over time.
• Mathematics scores for the top-performer, Shanghai-China, indicate a performance that is the
equivalent of over two years of formal schooling ahead of those observed in Massachusetts,
itself a strong-performing U.S. state.
• While the U.S. spends more per student than most countries, this does not translate into
better performance. For example, the Slovak Republic, which spends around USD 53 000 per
student, performs at the same level as the United States, which spends over USD 115 000 per
student.
• Just over one in four U.S. students do not reach the PISA baseline Level 2 of mathematics
proficiency – a higher-than-OECD average proportion and one that hasn’t changed since 2003. At
the opposite end of the proficiency scale, the U.S. has a below-average share of top performers.
• Students in the United States have particular weaknesses in performing mathematics tasks with
higher cognitive demands, such as taking real-world situations, translating them into mathematical
terms, and interpreting mathematical aspects in real-world problems. An alignment study between
the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and PISA suggests that a successful
implementation of the Common Core Standards would yield significant performance gains also in
PISA.
• Socio-economic background has a significant impact on student performance in the United
States, with some 15% of the variation in student performance explained by this, similar to
the OECD average. Although this impact has weakened over time, disadvantaged students
show less engagement, drive, motivation and self-beliefs.
• Students in the U.S. are largely satisfied with their school and view teacher-student relations
positively. But they do not report strong motivation towards learning mathematics: only 50%
students agreed that they are interested in learning mathematics, slightly below the OECD
average of 53%.

Has anyone demonstrated that the students in differing geographical areas are equally educatable? If student potential varies, then doesn't that need to be taken into account when evaluating the education systems? If low potential students obtain average results, they must be in a high-performing education system, right?

Points well taken. The graph shows DC as the lowest performing followed by AL, MS, CA, HI, AZ, NM, NV, LA, NC, OK, WV, GA, AR, IL all performing below the US average. It may be interesting to see a study conducted along the lines of parental involvement described anecdotally in the comments by A. Hairyhanded Gent.

Possibly closely related to this, the book summarizing decades of research studies How College Affects Students, describes students becoming aware of how their own choices impact their successes (and failures) and begin to attribute their successes (and failures) to their own actions and efforts, rather than external locus of control. Thereby taking ownership for their goals, directions, and outcomes.

Applying this at the elementary, middle, and high school level... the successes/failures may possibly be related to the combined academic and support choices, actions, and efforts of the pupil and the pupil's family. For a large number of families to choose a path other than academic success, might there be a perceived greater benefit to lack of academic success?

A number of the lower performing States may also have larger numbers of families in which the parents do not speak English. Throughout the history of the US, immigrants have chosen this hardship over the hardships in their native land, and have sacrificed so that their children and their children's children may have a better life enjoying the personal liberties and freedoms which citizens of the US strive to maintain, enjoy, and promote in sharing with others. With a steady influx of new families, the overall scores may appear lower while any performance gap may close within a few years for each individual student.