MATT SMITH spoke of Re: U.S. Education to DAN TRIPLETT on 11-10-96
MS>DT> While there are public school systems in the United States
MS>DT> struggling  to
MS>DT> provide a quality education for all children, there are many more
MS>DT> who  are doing as good a job educating their children as the
MS>DT> countries DT> to  which we like to compare ourselves. In
MS>DT> "Comparing Apples to Apples:  What
MS>DT> International Studies Tell Us," (1996) a key finding is sited.
MS>DT> The  article states that "8th grade proficiency scores in Iowa,
MS>DT> North  Dakota,
MS>DT> and Minnesota were the same as those in the top-performing
MS>DT> countries  
MS>    These three states are _very_ unrepresentative of America.
There weren't meant to be representative which you would have been aware 
of if you had read more carefully.
MS>    All three are almost all-white, with very few English-
MS>as-a-second-language kids.
MS>    These states have disproportionately very few "hard to educate"
MS>kids  compared to the rest of America.
MS>    And you call this study "research"?  
You are arguing out of context.  This is a good example of where 
American Schools are succeeding.  I grew up in Minnesota and depending 
on where you live there can be a great deal of racial diversity.  As for 
hard to educate kids, Minnesota has it's share of urban problems and 
it's minority population has seen a great deal of growth in the past 10 
years.  Have you ever visited Minneapolis or St. Paul?  
 
MS>DT> lowest-
MS>DT> performing states--Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, and
MS>DT> Mississippi--was  about the same as in the lowest-performing
MS>DT> country, Jordan." So to  make 
MS>DT> a blanket statement that American Public education is not doing
MS>DT> its  job 
MS>DT> is unfair. Some states are doing a very good job. To lump all
MS>DT> states  together and brand them all failures is not fair or
MS>DT> accurate.            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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MS>    Statistically, more kids live in heavily-urbanized states plagued
MS>by  big-city problems than live in states like the three
MS>nearly-all-white ones  you mentioned.
So what's your point?  The authors of this posting acknowledge a 
sociological difference....as you well know...see below...
MS>DT> To what can we attribute the difference? Why are some states
MS>DT> doing  well 
MS>DT> and others not so well? Bracey ( May 1995) lays the blame on
MS>DT> social  factors. "...social factors, not instruction or
MS>DT> curriculum, account  for 
MS>DT> most of the variation between states, according to research...
MS>DT> Four factors--parental education, family structure, poverty
MS>DT> rates, and  community type--can predict a state's ranking in NAEP
MS>DT> scores  
MS>    True.
MS>    Which means that kids in many districts are effectively in
MS>schools like  Jordan's, a country with a high poverty rate and many
MS>refugees.
I think that this report suggests that sociological factors, ones that 
are beyond the control of the schools, play a decisive role in 
determining the success/failure  of our American Educational system 
overall....
Dan
--- GEcho 1.11+
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