[PassedOut]

Thomas Friedman had a piece yesterday about a topic that bothers me a lot: Swimming Without a Suit

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For instance, in the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment that measured the applied learning and problem-solving skills of 15-year-olds in 30 industrialized countries, the U.S. ranked 25th out of the 30 in math and 24th in science. That put our average youth on par with those from Portugal and the Slovak Republic, “rather than with students in countries that are more relevant competitors for service-sector and high-value jobs, like Canada, the Netherlands, Korea, and Australia,” McKinsey noted.

Constance and I were so unhappy with the education our sons were getting (we tried both private and public schools) that we pulled them out to prepare them for college ourselves.

I think that the pay for US teachers is insufficient to attract enough good teachers to educate our kids. Part of the reason for that is a negative attitude toward "book-learning" present in the US culture.

I can remember when George Wallace got votes by ridiculing "pointuh-headed perfessors" and even today people who really know a subject are called "elitists." Fundamentalists take action to stop the teaching of science because science undermines superstitious beliefs.

Although it's good that Obama is taking action to beef up education in the US, I think that he (and everyone else who values education) will have to work hard to change the attitudes that have allowed this decline to happen.

[Trinidad]

In Scandinavia, people swim without a suit regularly. But then again, there are no tides in those lakes...

I could imagine that the fear of swimming without a suit is a bigger cause for the bad results in solving math and science problems than the educational system.

Dogmatic thinking blocks creativity. (And having to wear a swim suit is an example of dogmatic thinking.) And while many people will not recognize that (math... boring!), the one thing you need for solving mathematical or scientific problems is creativity. A culture that is filled with dogma's (do's and don'ts, without a real rational behind it) will not invite creative thinking. It's only natural that such a culture will score worse on problem solving.

Rik

[matmat]

my impression is that in US the point of the education system is to push people through school, not caring about their knowledge or abilities... i.e. high graduation rate is more important than a wealth of skills and creativity.

[kenberg]

My sixteen year old granddaughter is a junior at a public high school. Her parents went to public school, as did her grandparents. I estimate that when she was in sixth grades or so, maybe earlier, she knew a good deal more than many high school graduates. I love her dearly, but she is a good soccer player not a great one and a good student not a great one. The gap in the education she received compared to what takes place in many high schools is a chasm.

There are many reasons but I think I might nominate "pretense" as the number one culprit. Much of this I have said before: I walked to high school as a freshman with a kid who became a plumber. He took sho[ math and became a good plumber, I took algebra abd became a mathematician. This is no longer acceptable. Everyone must "learn" lots of math now. Some years back Maryland decided to put some serious standards in place. Algebra nad Geometry, complete with state examinations, were to be required for a high school diploma. I agreed to participate in the design of the exams. They were pretty decent exams. Then reality set in. The geometry exam is a distant memory. The algebra exam is now algebra and data analysis. The algebra on it is for the most part pre-algebra. The passing rate is set low. If students still cannot pass they can do a project. If they cannot do a project they can apply for an exemption. Having the kid do shop math is looking like a pretty good alternative but is not allowed. It would be elitist or some such thing. So they take a watered down algebra class that makes no sense to them and then the school system smuggles them out with a diploma and congratulates itself on its standards.


There is a move afoot to require Algebra II for graduation. Gotta admire those standards.

[luke warm]

yes, those problems and also the one that started in the late 60s whereby people began being graded subjectively rather than objectively (the so-callled curve)... for at least since then, failure has been something we've tried hard to delete from our vocabulary (it's bad for the kids' self-esteem, doncha know)

we talked about this some in another thread, but some kids just aren't interested in college prep courses, but might be interested in something that could help them in a votech type atmosphere... there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, imo - unless i'm told to think otherwise

[awm]

These sorts of test scores need to be looked at with a skeptical eye.

Most countries are very quick to segregate students by perceived ability. While this has clear advantages, it can also dilute the measurement if the worst students are not included in the test taking population.

The US public school system tends to do less of this early segregation. Because of this, a higher percentage of the top students end up going to private schools. The US private school system is more extensive than in some other countries, and also more frequently offers financial assistance to top students with poor families. The students in these private schools are unlikely to be included in the test-taking population.

So the US is excluding some of the best students from the tests, whereas other countries may be excluding some of their worst. No surprise the US would do badly...

With that said, there are certainly problems with the US education system. Teacher promotions, pay, and (when necessary) layoffs have very little to do with ability because of the impact of the teacher's union. The "no child left behind" attitude sometimes forces teachers to teach to the weakest students or to the tests, hurting the education of the better students. And the typical American school schedule with the long summer layoff gives students more opportunities to forget what they have learned between academic years.

[blackshoe]

Heh. That bit about grading on a curve reminds me of my first physics prelim in college. I scored 34%. But that was okay - the average was 33.

The algebra vs. geometry think is interesting, as I recall two methods of teaching (or learning) General Relativity. One way is essentially based in algebra, the other in geometry. A lot of students who had trouble with one had a lot easier time with the other. I would be... disappointed to find that only one of them is available now.

[Mbodell]

One change that would make a huge difference in overall educational achievement, particularly at closing the achievement gap, is eliminating/greatly shortening the summer holidays. We are no longer an agrarian society with a need for the kids to help with the harvest. Many poor and middle income kids do not have a rich learning environment over the summer, and they fall behind the richer kids during the summer. There are studies of kids that show this when folks take standardized tests both at the start and the end of each school year.

Another obvious change is spending more $. Lowering class sizes and making the pupil to teacher ratio better also improves performance. And improving facilities and increasing teach pay would also help. $ alone can't solve all problems, but lack of $ can cause problems and $ can solve the lack of $ problem.

Another change that would help would be better social services in general for society. It is hard for kids to learn when they are homeless or aren't getting sufficient food, etc. If teachers need to act like social workers and fill in parents and teachers that is too much. For that matter actual social workers in the school would help also.

Finally, I agree a cultural shift to value learning would be beneficial. Bush's folksy ways help position him as favorable compared to the more knowledgable Gore in 2000, and American culture does disrespect experts and scientists. I'm hopeful Obama can help with some of this shift.

[RichMor]

Hmmm.

Mr. Friedman mentions the current financial disaster and then moves on to bemoan the state of American education.

OK. It's all true, I guess.

But aren't the bozos who blew up the economy a well-educated bunch; MBAs and other advanced degrees, the best and the brightest, etc. ?

[Mbodell]

RichMor, on Apr 22 2009, 12:56 PM, said:

But aren't the bozos who blew up the economy a well-educated bunch; MBAs and other advanced degrees, the best and the brightest, etc. ?

How did the people who were responsible for the financial mess do out of the financial mess? I.e., did the profit or did they suffer? I think this is a case of misaligned incentives and externalities. They made decisions that made sense for them (I.e., they were rational utility maximizers) but these decisions were horrible for the economy in general and some of the firms they were at. Greed isn't always good and the invisible hand doesn't always make rational self interest lead to good things for everyone.

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on Apr 22 2009, 03:25 PM, said:

we talked about this some in another thread, but some kids just aren't interested in college prep courses, but might be interested in something that could help them in a votech type atmosphere... there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, imo

Agreed. If a student has no interest in academics, it's a waste of his or her time. It also puts a drag on students who want to push ahead.

Some of the guys I knew in high school told me years later that they wish they had worked a lot harder in school.

I would like for it to be made easier for those who get motivated later to return to school even with a family to support. Perhaps that would mitigate some of the negative effects of a cultural bias against learning.

[y66]

I was struck by this paragraph in Friedman's op-ed piece:

Quote

Actually, our fourth-graders compare well on such global tests with, say, Singapore. But our high school kids really lag, which means that “the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers,” said McKinsey.

[cherdanno]

Adam, do you have references for what you wrote, or are you just speculating? I would find it unlikely that PISA excluded students at private schools - but of course I could be wrong.

[Mbodell]

cherdanno, on Apr 22 2009, 05:58 PM, said:

Adam, do you have references for what you wrote, or are you just speculating? I would find it unlikely that PISA excluded students at private schools - but of course I could be wrong.

In fact the PISA doesn't exclude students at private schools. The only people excluded are those who are home schooled, who are trained only at work, and who are schooled overseas. Included are normal schools, private schools, foreign schools located in the nation in question (I.e., American high schools in Singapore count in Singapore), students in vocational training, and students who are enrolled part time.

Also, it is based on age, not grade level, so students who have failed a grade or skipped a grade are assessed on their age level, not grade level.

You can see the details of the web site of www.pisa.oecd.org. There is a full 322 page pdf of technical details from the results of the 2000 version of PISA that goes through these details. Chapter 4 (page 39) starts the details of the sampling methodology.

I think the assumption that the US does poorly in cross country education assessment (and there are several different assessment tests that show similar results) for reasons having to do with streaming of students effecting the sample is dubious. If anything the sampling of students likely overstates the US quality since the one group not reached are 15 year olds who have completely dropped out of all forms of schooling. And the US is near the bottom, well below the OECD average, in terms of high school graduation rates so likely has more of these drop out students not counted than most other OECD countries.

[helene_t]

Mbodell, on Apr 23 2009, 08:20 AM, said:

And the US is near the bottom, well below the OECD average, in terms of high school graduation rates so likely has more of these drop out students not counted than most other OECD countries.

If jlall had been tested the US would have done a lot better

Lot's of intriguing numbers on the Pisa report. Of course, with such a large number of variables one will always find some spurious trends. Anyway:

- There is very strong correlation between the countries' performance in science, math, and reading
- Many developing countries are catching up
- Hi inter-school variance in anglosaxon countries. New Zealand, USA and UK are in the top four (the fourth country is Israel)
- In Jordan and Quatar, females are strongly ahead of males.
- Japanese students have low self assessment of their science capabilities but in fact score quite well (I recall something similar was observed w.r.t. Japanese car drivers).
- Finland, with the highest overall science ratings, also has the lowest inter-school variance.

[Gerben42]

Quote

But aren't the bozos who blew up the economy a well-educated bunch; MBAs and other advanced degrees, the best and the brightest, etc. ?

Why would they be the best and the brightest?

BTW what do people learn in these business schools anyway? It all seems so fuzzy to me. If I want to hire someone with an MBA, what good properties does this person have compared to, say, someone with a degree in Maths?

Quote

Some of the guys I knew in high school told me years later that they wish they had worked a lot harder in school.

That's modern society for you. Being successful at school is seen as uncool, but afterwards, the real world doesn't care if you were cool in school, it wants to know if you are good.

[helene_t]

Gerben42, on Apr 23 2009, 01:29 PM, said:

If I want to hire someone with an MBA, what good properties does this person have compared to, say, someone with a degree in Maths?

They'll be better dressed.

I did a GDBA in finance. The undergratuate part (first two years) was very easy. I felt I had to read some previous years exam questions in business law and work out the answers to those to prepare myself, but the rest of the subjects I passed without ever opening a book or attending a lecture.

At the graduate level, I attended some lectures and did a couple of projects. A lot of specialized jargon but zip substance. One student wrote a project about risk management. His example was the insurance premium one has to pay for a window that has 10% chance of breaking in one year. He modeled this as a binomial distribution. I was in the panel of discussants so I asked why he didn't model it with the simpler and also more correct Poisson distribution. Neither he nor any other students understood that. Even the teacher, who had written a book about risk management which was used at graduate level courses, didn't understand why the number of window breaks in ten years time is Poisson (1) rather than binomial (10,0.1) !

For a more technical subject we had a teacher from the real university because nobody at the business school could get the differentiation of a second degree polynomial right. My fellow students didn't grasp anything of what he said but many had comments on the fact that he was wearing an Icelandic sweater.

[hrothgar]

Gerben42, on Apr 23 2009, 03:29 PM, said:

BTW what do people learn in these business schools anyway? It all seems so fuzzy to me. If I want to hire someone with an MBA, what good properties does this person have compared to, say, someone with a degree in Maths?

I have Masters from MIT's business program as well as the engineering school. From my perspective, the B school curriculeum was much less rigourous.

The major benefits that one gets from business school include:

1. Specialized vocabulary

The analytic methods that we learned aren't significantly different than Maths. In many instanced the techniques employed are less sophisticated. There is, however, a significant difference in the vocabulary that is used to describe the analysis.

2. A large rolodex

3. A small number of specialized techniques (Probably most useful if you are doing accounting or M+A).

For what its worth, in my (current) day job, I spend MUCH more time using methods that I learned on the Engineering and Econ side of things than I did in B School. (As a practical example, we never even talked about Markov Chains in business school. Those professors who do use these types of techiques normally "live" in the Physics department, the Economics department, or some cross displinary computational stas team)

[pdmunro]

I would suggest that the US imports the talent it needs. When I was working in a US university research lab, my personal observation was that about 2/3 of the researchers were foreigners. Half the scientists were from China. There were also a number of Germans, South Americans, etc. Of my flatmate's class from a top Bejing university, over 90% were working in the US.

I wonder what will happen when the Chinese are able to get jobs in their own country?

[RichMor]

Mbodell, on Apr 22 2009, 04:20 PM, said:

RichMor, on Apr 22 2009, 12:56 PM, said:

But aren't the bozos who blew up the economy a well-educated bunch; MBAs and other advanced degrees, the best and the brightest, etc. ?

How did the people who were responsible for the financial mess do out of the financial mess? I.e., did the profit or did they suffer? I think this is a case of misaligned incentives and externalities. They made decisions that made sense for them (I.e., they were rational utility maximizers) but these decisions were horrible for the economy in general and some of the firms they were at. Greed isn't always good and the invisible hand doesn't always make rational self interest lead to good things for everyone.

OK, evil is a bad thing.

But the point of my post is this, a well educated group of people in an industry sector - finance for example - is not a guarantee of general prosperity and happiness.

Friedman seems to assume or imply that all we need to do is ramp up our educational system, stand back, and watch the economy soar.

IMO, this assumption should be examined.

RichM