Lies and Damned Lies: U.S. Test Scores Actually Near the Top

For years, free market education reformers have claimed that the U.S. public education system is broken—some have even called it a threat to our national security (Reagan’s Nation at Risk report, 1983). They have used this “crisis” to justify everything from No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top to attacks on teachers’ seniority, tenure and due process rights. It has led to a decade of accountability and testing mania that has eaten up instructional time and replaced activities that foster creativity and critical thinking with rote memorization. It has taken away billions of dollars that could have been used for teacher training, recruitment and remuneration, and transferred it into the pockets of test and textbook publishers, private charter school operators, and online curriculum producers.

The claims that America’s schools are failing are grossly exaggerated, if not utterly false. For example, the number of students attempting and passing SAT and AP exams has been growing every year and in every ethnic and social group (see here and here). Furthermore, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, for the first time in history, more than 30% of Americans aged 25 or older—56 million people—have bachelor's degrees, while only 5% did 70 years ago—something that would be impossible if K-12 education was not successfully preparing its graduates for college. According to Good Education, more than one-third of these degrees are now in STEM fields. The data also indicates that gender and ethnic disparities are closing, with 30% of women now holding degrees (compared to 31% of men), while the percentage of Hispanic degree holders increased 80% over the past decade, with over 14% now holding degrees.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Free market reformers love testing because it seems objective and scientific (plus they can massage the statistics to suit their needs). Most people lack the time and expertise to disaggregate the numbers, examine the methodology, and identify biases and experimental errors that can skew the data and influence the validity of their conclusions. Consequently, the media typically report test results without such analyses, proliferating misconceptions and inaccuracies like the notion that U.S. students’ test scores are substantially lower than those in other wealthy nations (as measured by the PISA test).

However, as the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) correctly points out in a new report (that you can read here), lower income students in every country perform more poorly on the tests than affluent students. However, because economic inequality is greater in the U.S. than in virtually every other country with which we are compared, our national average appears comparatively low. To make matters worse, there was a sampling error in the most recent PISA test, resulting in an over-representation of students from the most disadvantaged U.S. schools, thus further depressing the average U.S. scores.

When EPI re-estimated PISA scores, adjusting for the disproportionate number of economically disadvantaged students in the U.S., it found that average U.S. scores in reading and math were substantially higher than the official numbers. Using EPI’s corrected numbers, the U.S. moves to sixth in reading (up from the officially reported 14^th) and 13^th in math (up from the officially reported 25^th) compared with other OECD countries.

Although U.S. students still performed worse than those in the top three countries (Canada, Finland and Korea), the difference was markedly narrowed when adjusted for socioeconomic differences. Perhaps more significantly, economically disadvantaged students in the U.S. performed better than their social class peers in most other countries, including in these three top scoring countries.

Thus, while U.S. educational outcomes appear worse than those of its trading partners (due mostly to its greater levels of social inequity), it is actually doing a better job than its trading partners at boosting the test scores of its poorest students. Furthermore, the performance of the poorest U.S. students has been improving over time, while the performance of poor students in other similar countries has been on the decline, suggesting that U.S. schools are doing a better job addressing the needs of their economically disadvantaged students.

America Has World’s 4th Highest Level of College Attainment

Proponents of free market education reforms have been claiming for years that our schools are failing. One of their most compelling arguments has been that the dismal state of our K-12 public education system is responsible for our low ranking in college attainment compared with other nations.

The problem with this argument is that it is not true. The U.S. actually ranks fourth internationally in college attainment.

The commonly cited data is that the U.S. ranks 13^th out of 34 OECD nations in terms of college attainment. However, this data only refers to the proportion of 25-34 year olds who have received a tertiary education, not the total number of people who have attained a tertiary education. When 25-64 year olds are included, the U.S. ranks fourth in the world, according to the Shanker blog. The rate of college attainment for American 25-64 year olds is 42, which is very close to Japan’s 45 (ranked 3^rd) and Israel’s 46 (ranked 2^nd). Canada is ranked #1, with a rate of 51.

However, even if we only look at college attainment rates for younger Americans, the numbers are still far better than critics claim. According to the OECD data for this age group, the U.S. ranking of 13^th is based on a college attainment rate of 42. This was only 2 points lower than the 8^th-11^th ranked nations and only 6 points behind the 4^th ranked nation. If all the nations with a college attainment rate of 42-44 are grouped together, the U.S. is tied for 8^th with 7 other nations, and if those with a rate of 42-46 are grouped together, the U.S. is tied for 6^th.

In reality, the U.S. is actually one of the most educated nations in the world and our education system should be seen as a success, not a failure.

It is true that our relative ranking has been declining, but this is because the college attainment rates in other OECD countries has been growing at a faster rate than in the U.S., according to the Shanker blog, not because American schools are getting worse.

Should we be concerned?

Of course there is always room for improvement in education. Even if we were number one, it would still be worth considering better ways to educate people. On a more urgent note, the skyrocketing cost of tuition, the stagnant wages for professors, and the declining course offerings and admission rates could all conceivably lead to declining levels of college attainment in the future. Yet teachers (indeed most American workers) have been steadily increasing their productivity in spite of declining wages. So it is entirely possible that teachers and students, alike, will simply accomplish the same with less.

That other nations have been improving their college attainment rates more quickly than us is most likely due to the fact that we already had fairly high rates of college attainment and it is much easier to make large gains when you are far behind.

Considering that many European nations offer free higher education, it is remarkable that we’ve stayed as close to the top as we have. One possible explanation for this is that Americans recognize the value of higher education and are willing to make large sacrifices and saddle themselves with tremendous debt in order to get it.

Another reason is that many European nations still have K-12 systems that track students into vocational versus university programs. In the U.S., a late bloomer who does not appear college ready by high school does not have to go directly into an apprenticeship program or blue collar trade. She could go to community college, beef up her GPA, and transfer to a four-year college later. Likewise, many students who lack the money or readiness for college at age 18-19 (e.g., young mothers) go to work right out of high school and later enroll in college. This may be why the U.S. ranks so much higher than other nations when college attainment is measured for 25-64 year olds.

Brookings Study Indicates Public Education Not So Bad After All

We're #11 Mofo! And Proud of It!

The 10^th Brown Center Report (Brookings Institution), which analyzed PISA and other common standardized test scores, debunked two common myths: that the U.S. once led the world in math and science education scores and that it has been declining ever since. In reality, the U.S. has never led the world on international achievement tests, according to the report. The report also found that some of the states that won federal Race to the Top (RttT) grants actually underperformed states that did not receive the grants on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), thus suggesting that the “reforms” mandated by the Obama Administration are not improving educational outcomes.

According to Brookings scholar Tom Loveless, U.S. science and math scores have been mediocre compared to other wealthy nations since at least 1964 and, contrary to the claims of Ed Deformers and accountability maniacs, they have not been getting any worse. America’s schools are NOT in a state of crisis or deterioration. Indeed, evidence suggests that they have been improving (see Jay Mathews’s Class Struggle). In 1964, we scored near the very bottom, compared with 2010, when we scored near the middle in science and literacy.

Despite the fact that we’ve never been number one (or even close to it) in K-12 math and science scores, the U.S. has continued to dominate the world economically over the past 50 years, suggesting that pundits and critics have been completely wrong about the importance of this metric to our international competitiveness. Furthermore, despite our relatively weak K-12 math and science scores, we continue to pump out some of the most effective scientists and mathematicians in the world, including more Nobel laureates than any other country.

One might conclude from this that our K-12 science and math education has been sufficient for preparing students for the rigors of university level science and math. This would probably be an incorrect assumption. What is probably happening is that some U.S. students are excelling at science and math (primarily the same middle class and affluent students who tend to excel at school, in general) and these students are also succeeding in college, while large numbers of lower income students are struggling across the board, including in math and science.

The improvements in PISA scores, as well as the increasing numbers of lower income and minority students who are taking and passing SAT and AP exams, probably do reflect improvements in teaching, as well as changing attitudes and policies about promoting college and higher level course work to low income and minority students. Yet our inability to score at the top of international tests is not due to the quality of the schools and teachers, which have been improving, but to socioeconomic conditions, which have actually been declining for large numbers of Americans. When disaggregated by class, our middle class students do as well as those from almost any other country. At the same time, the countries with the highest PISA scores tend to have far less childhood poverty and income gaps than we do.

Thus, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, if we really want to see PISA scores go up, along with graduation rates, science literacy, and any other academic indicator, we need to close the wealth gap, end poverty and start investing in education a level comparable to Finland.

The Sky is Not Falling After All: US Schools Rank High Internationally

It is commonly believed that public education in the U.S. is in miserable shape, with terrible teachers causing high dropout rates and worse educational outcomes than our trading partners. There are test scores (PISA) that confirm this, with the U.S. ranking lower than countries like South Korea, Finland, Japan and Hong Kong. And Ed Deformers have glommed onto such data as proof that the system needs a dramatic makeover and use the data to justify everything from privatization schemes to the dismantling of teachers’ unions.

A new analysis of international data by Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution suggests that the U.S. may not be as far behind their counterparts as previously thought, according to U.S.A. Today.

The rankings tend to be given in raw numbers such that countries with statistically indistinguishable scores appear to have different rankings. Thus Hong Kong (607) and Singapore (599) were listed has 1^st and 2^nd place for fourth-grade math scores in 2007. This is misleading, as their scores were virtually indistinguishable statistically. By grouping together in first place, all the other nations would move up in rank.

Loveless examined the scores and rankings more closely and grouped nations together that had statistically indistinguishable scores. By doing so, Hong Kong and Singapore were grouped together as tied for 1^st, while Netherlands (535), Lithuania (530), U.S. (529), Germany (525) and Denmark (523) were grouped together in fifth place.

McGraw-Hill: Elevate Teacher Status (So We Can Sell More Books)

According to a new report published by McGraw-Hill, if the United States wants to improve the quality of its education system, it needs to elevate the status of the teaching profession by recruiting more qualified candidates, training them better and paying them more. Yes, you heard me. Pay teachers more.

However, while the report did mention that teachers are overworked and underpaid, it also pointed out that many high performing countries (like Finland) pay their teachers less than we do, and emphasized that raising teachers’ status is more about changing public perception. In other words, we don’t really have to offer teachers more money, we just need to be nicer to them and perhaps give them a little more autonomy. This message, of course, should sit nicely with those who want to crush teachers unions and slash their pay and benefits. The report also laid the blame partially on teachers themselves. (Stop whining so much about your health benefits when our children’s future is being torn out from under them!)

Dr. Steven Paine, co-author of the report and a CTB-McGraw-Hill Vice President, completely revamped his state’s curriculum when he was Superintendent of West Virginia. He felt that a similar plan nationwide could lead to much higher outcomes for students of all backgrounds. He also proposed adoption of national content standards (Common Core Standards). Obviously, this would suit McGraw-Hill, as it would force states to purchase new textbooks, tests, and curricular support materials, much of which McGraw-Hill would supply. However, it would do nothing to improve the material well-being of students, which is the most significant factor influencing their academic success. Indeed, poverty creates a significant achievement gap before kids have even started kindergarten. Spending a lot of money on new books, tests and curriculum, while ignoring poverty and stressful home lives, will do little to help poor students and is just another taxpayer give away to edu-profiteers like McGraw-Hill.

Interestingly, the report did mention that socioeconomic factors play a role in students’ academic performance, but offered nothing by way of a solution. Of course that is no surprise. Corporate bosses are not going to propose a redistribution of the wealth or increasing taxes and social spending.

The report held up Ontario, Canada as a model for the U.S., where the “heavily unionized” teachers are NOT a roadblock to “successful education reform.” Dr. Paine related how the Premiere and his staff sat down with the union and established common goals. The message for the U.S. is that we need more employee-management collaboration, something Arne Duncan has been pushing for some time. Of course a true collaboration would be nice, one where the politicians ask what we need, listen to us, and then make it happen. However, the Duncan model is more along the lines of “Do what I say and do it now and I won’t send you to your room without supper.” We are already seeing numerous examples of this with union bosses like Randi Weingarten sitting down with political and corporate bosses to hash out how far she can push teachers before getting pushed down the staircase herself.

Overall, one should be very suspicious of any education reform recommendations coming from corporations that benefit financially from public education. Paying lip service to the deplorable status of the teaching profession is an inexpensive bone to throw teachers in exchange for their support of Common Core Standards and their brand loyalty to McGraw-Hill. In the competition for education dollars, the charter schools and educational management organizations have been winning the biggest victories lately, while the publishers, who were the biggest initial winners under NCLB, are seeing their market share decline. The attacks on NCLB and the threat to modify or alter it (or, God forbid, abolish it entirely) must have the big publishers like McGraw-Hill and Pearson quaking in their boots.