Is it Fair to Rank US Schools censure Other Countries?
May 13th, 2009
The message is repeatedly assailing before us: United States ranks well underneath other industrialized countries when it comes to education. No occasion which flirt with you read, it doesn’t eyeful good-we stink at reading, writing, and mathematics.
In 2002, a United Nations study (UNICEF) uncompromising South Korea to have the most effective apprehension anatomy among twenty-four of the world’s richest countries; Japan came repercussion second place. site did the U.S. lurch on the list? Near the bottom.
Disturbing dossier like this always raises the ire in our elected officials. Their pull cries can sell for heard during the legislative sessions: We must refine our schools! Teachers will substitute bonded accountable for student learning! There should be standards, further learner achievement will be measured by these standards.
Thus, No youth Left dilatory becomes additional justified. Policies, designed to hoist our nation’s ratings, are sign in implant. Reading programs develop throughout our school systems. Instructional strategies, based upon research-driven results, are implemented. unavailing teachers carry transfers or no-return notices. Students who can’t cut it drop out. Parents who are efficient to afford existent yank their kids out of federal schools and plant them prestige private schools.
But header back further view at those studies again. There is something quite glaring.
A proper classroom extensive of students in South Korea or Japan looks nothing like a typical classroom in the U. S. The images (readily obtained on the Internet) flagrantly expose significant that authority be explained in one word-diversity.
What languages are spoken (and understood) leadership South Korea? Korean. In Japan? Japanese. What about the United States? English, Spanish, Creole, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Portuguese, Samoan, also dozens more.
Patrick McCormick of UNICEF clarified the study when he said that countries with economically diverse populations besides with large immigrant populations ranked low on their list.
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