Who’s Learning What?

Right, because getting 55% on a math test is so much better than 47%. Looks like we’re all in trouble.

isn’t it important to look at how in some of these countries, they take kids out of schools to work in factories if they’re not doing well?

The United States’ poor showing in Science and Math are and will continue to put us at a major competitive global disadvantage. Our overall education system needs a serious overhaul and specifically the teaching of math and science needs attention to engage more students in the excitement of these critical fields. We need to reward great teachers and those choosing math and the sciences as careers.

i thought singapore was always in the top few. 

Finland is also the country with the highest English language scores from among countries where English is not an official language.  What on earth are they doing over there that we’re not doing here?  I know it’s not fear tactics, because all of the Finnish exchange students I’ve ever met have a casual and light-hearted attitude towards schooling.

is there link to the full country listing?

Where is Brazil on this list? = (

I’d just like to indicate that these rankings should be taken with a grain of salt… For example, Hong Kong is always ranked highly because their tuition is exam driven.  The practice of science is context specific but HK students are by and large taught through memorization tactics, which lack contextual meaning.  This becomes very evident in college where true understanding versus factual knowledge is required.  These memorization tactics also are faulty for long term because you will fail to retain all the information in the long run (not even that long).  For example, I can memorize the answers to 2X2, 3X3, and 4X4 and in a year I’ll probably have forgotten one of them and be screwed.  If I had simply learned how to figure out the answer it wouldn’t matter how many aswers I forget, as long as I recall how I can figure it out again.  The only thing these rankings show is that we are likely underserving a large portion of our students, rather than any valid comparison of meaningful abilities. 

There are many intangibles that testing never takes into account. American kids even with lower test scores are some of the most well rounded, creative, and aware kids around. I wish we tested better, but it’s only one measure of success. 

@TwiningOne of my uncles is teaching high school level science in a Helsinki suburb.  Finnish education seems to seek to instill a reward of education deeper than just the utility of facts, but also the joy of learning for the sake of intellect and ability.  Here in the USA, we primarily view education as a means to an end and not an end in itself.  In doing this we devalue the ability to learn and the rewards thereof.  And as such we’re going to just resort to standardized tests and demoralized students whose capacity to engage in deep critical thinking will be proportionally diminished.

can a link to the test information be posted on-line. I believe it would be ignorant to claim china’s school curriculum is based on memorization unless you have experience in their education system or have proof. Their are many socioeconomic reasons as to why students in the states are more successful, one being opportunity. Another point is, are you looking at the few or the many? This ranking is probably based on the average. 

Reply to Anonymous on January 25, 2009 at 12:30 pm “This becomes very evident in college where true understanding versus factual knowledge is required. “HA! I mean in college when you learn as much stuff as you can the night before the test, take the test then forget all of it….yeah..OK.

Hm.  Looks like Nokia stock is a good recession buy.

I believe that we are missing something when we equate intelligence to a score from a text.   the ability to score hightly on a test can be an end in itself, but provide no creativity or ability to know what to actually do with knowledge gained.   So the question is -  How many rockets has Finneland launched into space?  Or what is the ratio of food grown to people that get fed from that country?  Applied math and science cant be measured on a fracken test!

I’d just like to point out that in the United States we test EVERYONE, from the kids who have college-level reading skills to the kids who need to have their tests read aloud to them. In other countries, these slower kids won’t be educated, but in the US we educate them because we know that for 99% of them, an education will help them lead a better life. The US also tests the kids who don’t care, because it’s a law that they have to attend whether they want to or not. In other countries, these kids would have dropped out a looong time ago and would probably be working a minimum-wage job at Wal-Mart or  Huck’s. Differences in testing and schooling should be noted in charts like these.