Originally posted by Lokrian
I always hear how bad out results are in the US but I have never dug into it enough to know exactly how we know this.
I am impressed that you challenge this statement. We're so used to it that I think most people take it for fact without thinking hard about it. To compare school systems between countries is -very- challenging to do and still be statistically sound for many reasons. One being American school systems vary intensely from one local area to another. We have no national curriculum. We educate -all- students who wish to be educated in our public school system, regardless of ability level. These factors are often different from those in the countries whose performance ours is being compared to.

I am not here stating that no comparison can be made, or that everything in our school system is perfect and should be left alone. Simply pointing out that the next "Japanese students kick the U.S. student's asses at XYZetc." article we come across can and should be looked at with a critical eye. Blaming teachers, or parents, or administrators, or the president, or anyone for why we are not performing as well as another country in my opinion has not served a productive purpose thus far. Our country, and thus our educational system, is quite unique. We need to think about what we want for it on its own terms and work from there.