CB on TF

Burell pokes Friedman in the eye.

Call me crazy, but I suspect we could make a connection between the wealth gap and the achievement gap in those halcyon days to the "decline of education" Friedman is wringing his hands about here.

I think there are all sorts of reasons why both American education pales in comparison to the position of America as a global power and why America faces the economic difficulties that it does. But when Burell notes that:

Friedman's fixation on test score rankings divorced from poverty rankings needs fixing. But it's standard in education punditry today. We ignore poverty, and instead only focus on schools and teachers.

he seems to overlook the part where TF quotes the 'ifs':

If America had closed the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and had raised its performance to the level of such nations as Finland and South Korea, United States G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher. If we had closed the racial achievement gap and black and Latino student performance had caught up with that of white students by 1998, G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher. If the gap between low-income students and the rest had been narrowed, G.D.P. in 2008 would have been $400 billion to $670 billion higher.

The McKinsey Report suffers in its lack of definition, particularly with regard to any explanation of 'performance' that goes beyond comparative test scores. But, unlike some folks (perhaps even TF), I tend to read this not as prescriptive -- as in "let's us business-types show those durned teachers how if they just taught better, we'd all have more money"; but rather as damning -- as in "if" US education (and in the comparison with Finland and South Korea, the focus is directed here at math, science, and technology) were not lagging behind its global peers (and had not for the years 1983-98), "then" the result would have been a smarter and more competitive US populace and therefore (by Mc/TF standards) higher GDP.

This is basic economics stuff, it's just that the numbers crunchers don't always see the myriad social realities and the folks on the other side of the spectrum don't trust the reasoning.

Burell is absolutely on target in criticizing the report for its failure to recognize the impact of poverty on education in the US (even more importantly the distribution of poverty -- after all, on paper South Korea has got more poverty than the US [in terms of percentage of population / not raw numbers]). He also rightly gets under TF's skin for seeming to simplify exactly what the 'decline' of anything actually means. But I think in the end this report actually might offer a glimmer of hope in the ironic fact that it pars big economics with the international comparisons in education and in doing so, puts the educational comparisons in the limelight. It therefore could serve as catalyst for a more open and widespread discussion -- one much more open than the report itself could ever be.

Face the Devastation

Devastating stuff from the new McKinsey report. Friedman is practically willing to let the report speak for itself.

According to the report:

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

There are millions of kids who are in modern suburban schools “who don’t realize how far behind they are,” said Matt Miller, one of the authors. “They are being prepared for $12-an-hour jobs — not $40 to $50 an hour.”

And the kicker:

According to the report,

If America had closed the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and had raised its performance to the level of such nations as Finland and South Korea, United States G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher. If we had closed the racial achievement gap and black and Latino student performance had caught up with that of white students by 1998, G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher. If the gap between low-income students and the rest had been narrowed, G.D.P. in 2008 would have been $400 billion to $670 billion higher.

When 2 + 2 = Huh?

A reader asks:

Where is the data for US math and science ed in comparison to the rest of the world?

There are a couple different good sources. First is the 2007 study from the National Center for Education Statistics. As of that data, US fourth-graders rank 11th behind Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Russia, England, Latvia, and the Netherlands. By eighth grade, according to their data, US students moved up to ninth-place behind Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Hungary, England, and Russia.

And the strongest individual US state was Massachusetts.

As far as high school stats go, a comparative study was published in 2003 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. US tenth-graders were ranked 28th out of 39 countries.

In a major 2006 study arranged by the Program for International Student Assessment, Finland took top honors both in math and science. As for US students?

In math, only four countries had average scores lower than the United States. Students in 23 countries had a higher average score, and those in two countries did about the same as the Americans.

While there are myriad reasons for the disparity in math scores among students, a key similarity between math heavy-hitters Finland and South Korea is that both societies are heavily invested in 21st century access and connectivity and the understanding and responsibility that comes with the new connectivity.

Peer Pressure

And as if on cue considering my last post, eSchool publishes an article detailing concerns the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have with trying to figure out what can be done about how US students compare to their International peers.

Said advisory group co-chair Janet Napolitano, former governor of Arizona and current secretary of Homeland Security for the Obama administration, "The time is now; we must ensure that our students are prepared to compete and innovate in the 21st century".

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment:

Finland ranked first out of 30 industrialized countries in 2006 in math and science and in 2003 was first out of 29 countries in reading and second in problem solving. Korea came in first in math in 2006, second in reading in 2003, and first in problem solving in 2003.

American 15-year-olds ranked 25th in math and 21st in science achievement on the most recent international assessments in 2006.

And what is Finland's position on educational technology?

An official publication of the Finnish government called "Education, Training and Research in Information Society: A National Strategy for 2000-2004" states:

By the year 2004, Finland will be a leading interactive knowledge society. Success will be based on citizens' equal opportunities to study and develop their own intellectual capacity and extensively utilize information resources and educational services. A high-quality, ethically and economically sustainable mode of operation in network-based teaching and research will have been established (Ministry of Education 2001).

Further evidence for Finland's commitment to educational technology and the development of an interactive knowledge society can be found in these publications housed by UNESCO's Observatory Portal.