Mercedes Schneider reviewed Mike Petrilli and Brandon Wright’s article asserting that poverty does not explain the poor performance of American students on international tests. Although she teaches high school English in Louisiana, Schneider has a Ph.D. in research methods and statistics, and she brings her understanding to bear here.
She faults the authors for failing to cite sources for some of their claims. She disputes their findings.
She writes:
In the closing of their article, Petrilli and Wright state that poverty cannot be used as an “excuse” to “explain away America’s lackluster academic performance.” They call it “a crutch unfounded in evidence”– as though their porous offering is solid evidence refuting the role of poverty upon standardized test scores.
Not so.
Too many holes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s easy to do research when the conclusion is predetermined. Who needs that pesky data to verify results, just publish the summary and collect the funding provided by hosts who bought your integrity with a few bucks.
Ever heard of those thirty pieces of silver?
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Stanford Report, January 15, 2013
“There is an achievement gap between more and less disadvantaged students in every country; surprisingly, that gap is smaller in the United States than in similar post-industrial countries, and not much larger than in the very highest scoring countries.”
“You can’t compare nations’ test scores without looking at the social class characteristics of students who take the test in different countries,” said Carnoy. “Nations with more lower social class students will have lower overall scores, because these students don’t perform as well academically, even in good schools. Policymakers should understand how our lower and higher social class students perform in comparison to similar students in other countries before recommending sweeping school reforms.”
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/january/test-scores-ranking-011513.html
It is invalid to compare a city or city-sized state with a country that has the 3rd largest population in the world, and that is the United States with more than 316 million people and the highest rate of childhood poverty among developed countries.
NOT A COUNTRY: Shanghai-China, with a population of 24 million in 2014, was ranked 1st on the 2012 PISA and by age 15, many students have been tested out of the public schools and are in vocational training or back home and out of school. Only the top test takers stay in school after age 15. High school is age 16 to 18. In fact, Education is required and free for Chinese citizens age 6 to 15 though parents must pay small fees for books and uniforms. Chinese children all get a primary and middle school public education.
Singapore, a city state with a population of 5.4 million, was ranked second and only 10% of the population lives in poverty—-and children from impoverished backgrounds attend school on fees subsidized by the government and food is provided not by the wages earned but by charitable donations.
NOT A COUNTRY: Hong Kong (another city in China) with a population of 7.2 million was ranked 3rd and child poverty rates in Hong Kong-born families have fluctuated between 14.3 and 15.8 % over the past three decades.
Chinese Taipei, with a smaller population (23.5 million) than the state of California (38.8 milllion), ranked 4th. Relative to 12 Western countries, in Taiwan, eight percent of children lived in households with incomes that were below half of the population’s median income.
Therefore, South Korea, a real country, with more than 50 million people and a poverty rate of 10.2% was really ranked FIRST on the PISA but that ranking comes with a price. Korean children are the least happy in study among developed countries, the government said on Tuesday, citing the stress of the country’s educational pressure cooker. South Korea ranked at the bottom among 30 countries in terms of children’s satisfaction with their lives, the country’s health ministry said, followed by Romania and Poland.
NOT A COUNTRY: Macao-China with a population of 566,375 is another city in China and is not a country or a city state.
The SECOND country to rank on the PISA was Japan with a child poverty rate for children under 18 of 16.3%.
Liechtenstein, a TINY by wealthy city state, with no poverty listed by unicef.org, has a population of 36,925 and does not count no matter what rank it had on the PISA (ranked 8th).
Switzerland is a country with 8 million people and is ranked 3rd when compared to other countries, and the childhood poverty rate is less than 10%
The Netherlands, a country with a population of 16.8 million and a childhood poverty rate of 6% is ranked 4th among countries.
The United States has more than 316 million people. In 2013, the percentage of 5 to 17 years olds in families living in poverty in the United States was 21%. Today it is closer to 24%. The U.S. has more than 50 million children in this age bracket, and 12 million live in poverty.
To compare poverty rates by country, click on this link that leads to The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/15/map-how-35-countries-compare-on-child-poverty-the-u-s-is-ranked-34th/
The only country on the list with a higher poverty rate than the U.S. is Romania and it is ranked much lower than the United States on the PISA. Check for yourself
Click to access pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf
And as long as cities and city states are listed in the PISA ranking, let’s see how well Massachusetts did on the PISA. If Massachusetts Were A Country, Its Students Would Rank 9th In The World.
By digging deeper into the Free Enterprise analysis, I found that if Massachusetts were allowed to report subject scores independently — much the way that, say, Shanghai is allowed to do so — the Bay State would rank 9th in the world in Math Proficiency, tied with Japan, and on the heels of 8th-ranked Switzerland. In reading, Massachusetts would rank fourth in the world, tied with Hong Kong, and not far behind third-ranked Finland.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2014/09/29/if-massachusetts-were-a-country-its-students-would-rank-9th-in-the-world/
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For which variables, that are uniquely American and impossible to uncouple from U.S. poverty, did the researchers allow?
The impact on education from (1) the cultural context of American violence and poverty? (2) U.S. family disintegration and poverty, in part resulting from discriminatory and excessive rates of incarceration? (3) over- commercialization, in predominantly poor neighborhoods? (4) the U.S. legacies of racial discrimination? (5) the vulnerability of poor students, living in close proximity to unwarranted wealth? (6) the motivational disconnect between rags-to-riches stories and, American working families living, in communities, new to economic and political oligarchy?
Limited research parameters and no effort to control for variables, matched with immensely broad comparisons, equals biased and contemptible research, beyond redemption.
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