In the ongoing debate between Tom Loveless of Brookings and Andreas Schleicher of the OECD, score one for Loveless.
Loveless has steadfastly maintained that the astonishing scores from Shanghai are almost meaningless because of the missing students.
At a conference in Great Britain, Schleicher admitted that about a quarter of the children in Shanghai were not sampled for the PISA exam. Yet he continued to maintain that the children of menial workers in Shanghai know more than the children of professionals in other countries.
Now if only he could produce a scintilla of evidence that the PISA rankings foretell the economic future of any country tested.
Maybe he might explain how it is that the U.S. is the most powerful economy in the world despite the fact that its students have persistently scored about average in the international league tables or even in the bottom quarter over the past 50 years.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Now if only he could produce a scintilla of evidence that the PISA rankings foretell the economic future of any country tested.”
Does Schleicher argue this himself or is that argument an inappropriate extrapolation of the data on the part of others? Schleicher’s recent TEDx talk all but crowns Finland’s approach because it is able to achieve equity + achievement.
I urge every viewer of this blog to click on the two links.
Then ask themselves: where do we constantly see such self-serving massaging of numbers and torturing of logic?
Michelle Rhee: I took my kids from the 13th to the 90th percentile. Bill Gates: 98% of teachers get nothing more than a perfunctory “satisfactory” on their teacher evaluations. Numerous charters: 100% graduation rates.
But notice how, when pressed to explain their numbers and conclusions, that hard data suddenly becomes very squishy and the reasoning behind the unfounded figures suddenly changes.
In relation to something else, Dee Dee recently wrote on this blog “Have they no shame?????”
With all due respect, that has to be a rhetorical question.
😎
Dare I say we’ve been “shanghaied”???
Don’t you mean a “rheetorical question”? 🙂
Thy psychometric data from Japan and Korea are quite solid and indicate an average IQ of 107-108. In view of the genetic similarity of these populations with the Han it seems likely that the average IQ of the Han is also pretty high. The PISA scores of Asian-Americans were actually higher than the PISA scores of Japan and South Korea and only about 20 points below Shanghai. Since Asian-Americans are not exclusively East Asians it is likely that East Asian students in US schools perform at levels close to the general East Asian population. US whites outscored all European countries except Finland. I think the US whites outscored New Zealand but since the New Zealand population has a significant Maori component it is possible that New Zealand whites may have done slightly better than US whites. Clearly though US whites are among the top performing white populations. US Hispanics outscored every participating country in South America. Remarkably US blacks outscored most Middle Eastern countries.
The PISA results clearly demonstrate that the US education system results in high levels of performance. Admittedly the US system is very costly. A small and very poor European country like Slovakia had pretty decent results with a very small amount of spending.
Jim, why are you obsessed with IQ scores?
Because of the all psychological variables IQ has the greatest explanatory power.
And not just IQ scores, but racial groupings. I find the stereotyping so ugly, as I’m sure you do, Diane.
And how do your endless comments on IQ, Jim, contribute anything to the discussion?
“Remarkably US blacks outscored most Middle Eastern countries.”
Because PISA tests are essentially IQ tests. Most of the other variables are standardized away by the uniformity of the education system, leaving income and IQ as the main determinants.
That was easy.
Does it matter, though? It served the political narrative of reformers when the tests came out. Amanda Riley and Secretary Duncan appeared on scores of news programs trumpeting the fierce urgency of test scores. Ripley sold a LOT of books. She’s now called on to opine regularly on all things educational since that book.
Once the political-media narrative is set it’s nearly impossible to undo.
if we had a real rigorous debate, the people who trumpeted the scores to advance their preferred narrative would be CALLED BACK and asked the address the errors, to correct the record, but they won’t be. The narrative will just continue to roll along, untroubled by facts.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I’m not quite as pessimistic (tho I might be, if I were surrounded by deform gov as you are in Ohio). True, the political-media narrative at the 3 major networks is just as you describe. PBS hasn’t come around yet, but I notice Rose (on his PBS show) has been sticking to celebs & brain researchers, & they do carry Bill Moyers who is virulently anti- that narrative.
But media loves a controversy. 6 to 8 months ago I’d get virtually nothing on my google-news filters for ed, ed reform etc. I’m getting at least a few articles a day now, thanks to controversies stirred up by parents/voters in many locations.
The Teacher..The Truth
Just a look at the Faces
Of the Children in the Race
It’s so easy to observe
A Scene of Colossal Disgrace..
The Child…The Dream
I live in a great America..
I dreamed of my only one chance
To experience the joy of learning firsthand
Instead I partake in a Testing Dance
The Child…The Test
I hear about the sands..
And the Sea to Shining Sea..
I am tested on the passage
But I sense not ..of its glee
The Child…The Wish..
If I could stop a moment…
and Touch.. and… Feel the Sand..
Then maybe I can learn..
To value my Freedom in this Land
The Child..The Reality
I do not ask for riches
I do not ask for more
I know what this Race is all about
A Test and my Perfect Score
The Child..The Truth
Who cares about my life???
I often wonder as I test
I raced so long .. it was no fun
I failed …though.. I raced my best
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140306/OPINION01/303060008/Gov-Rick-Snyder-EAA-worthy-experiment
Governor Snyder deliberately misleads Detroit parents on he and Eli Broad’s experiment in “blended learning” in the above op ed. The Snyder/Broad privatized district is bleeding students, so they have to sell it hard before it completely crashes.
Snyder and Broad pushed hard to expand their experiment all over Michigan, to 150 schools, although they have no idea if “blended learning” has any value whatsoever. They were stopped by a few Michigan lawmakers. If they hadn’t have been stopped, they would now be moving to convert 150 public schools into Eli Broad’s “vision” of what Michigan schools should look like.
Interesting Even our “beloved” secretary of education admitted that the U. S. had vastly outperformed the Chinese in number of patents, and Nobel prize winners. Rarely mentioned now.
YEARS ago Bill Moyers had a program: The World of Ideas on which he interviewed a Chinese scientist who decried the fact that Chinese students did not learn to think “scientifically”. They just learned the “facts” as presented by their professors. Small wonder that we THEN outperformed them in patents and Nobel prize winners. Perhaps that may change as our politicians interfere with learning and promote test taking.
That’s one side of the explanation. The other side is that Nobel Prizes may not be as indicative of innovative merit as they once were, that individuals tend to file for patents in the U.S. more easily because legal protection is better than in China, that in India and China, much technological work is done by brain grunts who go unheralded while their companies file fewer, but more significant patents. (i.e. less entrepreneurship means less patented pet rocks).
All in all, it’s nice that we decry the further Manderinization of American Schools, but unimpressive when we turn around and call the current system, which is simply mass-mandrinizing without steroids, the ‘Great American School System’ after we’ve spend a career so fruitfully documenting its mountain of idiocies.
Be more like the Chinese — (and like the oligarchs) lie.
This is very big news actually. PISA is fraudulent. Mr. Schleicher, a key advisor to Arne Duncan, ought to resign. Shanghai’s scores should forthwith be withdrawn from the official PISA results and steps taken to assure that future results are honest.
Get rid of PISA period. It leads to “…three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”—(Gates, Rhee, & Duncan—3 Stooges).
“…explain how it is that the U.S. is the most powerful economy in the world…” I’d like to take a shot at that. The US has the largest military in the world, and the most unregulated banking. Income inequality in this country is obscene. We may have the biggest economy in the world, but it is based largely on consumerism, not production. And it is very fragile.