Shocking headline in the Korea Times today:
“Korean students outpacing Americans in science, math”
I know. I couldn’t believe it either.
Anyway, from the KT:
U.S. President Barack Obama Wednesday lauded South Korean students for outperforming American students thanks to the nation’s heavy investment in education.
“South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science,” Obama said in a speech at George Washington University to unveil his fiscal policy centering on budget deficit cuts while maintaining heavy investment in education. “They’re scrambling to figure out how they put more money into education.”
Now, not to take anything away from Korea’s investment into education, but I’m guessing Koreans’ performance in math and science probably has more to do with culture and educational priorities than investment. I’m also going to guess that you could put Koreans in the American school system and they’ll still outpace American kids in math and science. I’ll even venture that you can spend all the money you like on non-performing schools and test scores won’t rise without first building a culture that supports educational excellence.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Didn’t you get the memo? It isn’t cool to be smart in North America.
How ridiculous!
I just asked two American guys and a Korean how good they were at math and science, on a scale of one to ten. The Americans said “9″ and “4″ and the Korean dude said “7″. My research totally shows the superior prowess of Americans in both areas. USA!
I wonder how Korean-American kids who started first grade in the US school system do. I’m guessing the gap between them and other Americans would be about the same as between Americans and Koreans on PISA scores.
I really think it has nothing to do with the school systems of any country. I think it has a lot to do with parents and the amount of time parents spend actually giving a fuck about how their kids do at school, and not giving their kids enough time to do drugs and get arrested because they’ve enrolled them in enough afterschool classes that a couple of hours of swearing at their friends in a pc room playing starcraft is about all they can possibly muster the energy to do.
When I first came to Korea I was kind of shocked they didn’t get gifts for their birthday and Christmas…and then I was even more shocked at how many awesome gifts they got when they did well at school. A’s at school? New handphone.
Speaking of the American education system:
http://www.auto123.com/en/news/car-news/21-of-americans-believe-hyundai-was-affected-by-the-quake-in-japan?artid=130164
“Korean students outpacing Americans in science, math,” yet when challenged to do well in a top science and math university…well, I think that’s been covered in another thread.
Still, whatever the reason Obama has a crush on Korean education, anything to jolt the US system into improving is a good thing.
It’s not so bad; Pat Buchanan summarized Steve Sailer’s analysis of the PISA findings:
“Asian-Americans outperform all Asian students except for Shanghai-Chinese. White Americans outperform students from all 37 predominantly white nations except Finns, and U.S. Hispanics outperformed the students of all eight Latin American countries that participated in the tests.
“African-American kids would have outscored the students of any sub-Saharan African country that took the test (none did) and did outperform the only black country to participate, Trinidad and Tobago, by 25 points.”
http://buchanan.org/blog/who-owns-the-future-4587
This may largely explain the achievement gap between the US and leading countries Finland and Korea. As one expert correctly noted in the linked article, poverty in the US has different characteristics than poverty in higher scoring countries. In every classroom in my school are at least a few children whose minds and bodies have been visibly impacted by parental substance abuse. People of all social classes use drugs, but if the habit interferes with their ability to work and manage a household, middle-class and upper middle-class families may descend into the ranks of the poor. The lower one moves down the socioeconomic ladder, the higher fertility rates rise in the US, which partly explains why poverty rates remain high for children. Poor families are highly transient, and their children are disadvantaged by our lack of a national curriculum. Their instruction lacks coherence because they move around so much, and in spite of NCLB, their achievement can be written off by schools since their scores won’t count if they moved into the district after a certain date. One of our kindergarteners has moved SEVEN times already this year as her mother seeks temporary housing wherever she can get it. Republican attempts to hold the budget hostage in order to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood certainly don’t help poor families.
And something else to think about, too: Asian parents hold their children more accountable for academic performance than American parents, who may put most or all of the blame on the teacher or the school if the child does poorly. In fact, NCLB holds teachers and schools completely accountable for getting children to pass achievement tests. One reason why children do not pass is that the tests are long, and the kids get tired halfway through and quit. I’ve seen this happen. I administer tests in small groups and have seen kids who were taking their time to answer start clicking on answers before I’ve even finished reading the question, which suggests that they’re just guessing. Recently, I pulled two kids out of PE to retake a math test because they refused to do any computation on paper the first time. We phoned both mothers, and one mom denied that her son would blow off a test. If a kid decides to quit trying and just guess, there isn’t a darned thing I can do about it. Why should a kid strain himself to do his best on a state achievement test when there is likely not be any consequence either way when the test scores arrive in the mail in July? Meanwhile, we teachers are sweating bullets in the staff development room as our administrators pull up preliminary test score data. The only time US students are genuinely held accountable for passing mandated achievement tests is in high school, when they must pass to graduate with a standard diploma. Seniors in our school district have taken tests repeatedly until they passed so that they could graduate.
“Asian parents hold their children more accountable for academic performance than American parents, who may put most or all of the blame on the teacher or the school if the child does poorly.”
Well, depends. I have a friend who was teaching in a town where most of the parents worked for a Korean car maker. He encountered the same attitude as you’ll come across back home: “Why should my kids get an education? I barely finished high school and I’m pulling in X amount every year.”
Sonagi is spot on.
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