Dozens of Atlanta educators falsified tests, state report confirms

[Curt James]

That approach hasn't worked yet. The U.S. has been one of the top spenders on education but not one of the top performers for a long time. We need a new approach.

Federal Education Spending vs. US Student Performance « The Reactionary Researcher Blog

Believe they're comparing apples to oranges, honestly.

The article you point to states, "a high rate of spending per pupil in the US hasn???t resulted in better performance relative to other countries."

But how do those other countries allocate education? Is every child in China guaranteed thirteen years of public education?

If those other countries only advance the exceptional child then how can anyone fairly compare ALL U.S. children to a small slice of hand-picked highly intelligent children?

Also, one of my favorite quotes:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
???Mark Twain

 

[Curt James]

Was reading the Wikipedia entry for education in China...

Senior secondary education often refers to three years high school (or called senior middle school) education, as from grade 10 to grade 12. Normally, students who have finished six years of primary education will continue three more years of academic study in middle schools as regulated by the Compulsory education law at the age of twelve. This, however, is not compulsory for senior secondary education, where junior graduates may choose to continue a three-year academic education in academic high schools, which will eventually lead to university, or to switch to a vocational course in vocational high schools. [...]
Admission for senior high schools, especially selective high schools, is somewhat similar to the one for universities in China. Students will go through an application system where they may choose the high schools at which they wish to study in an order to their preference before the high schools set out their entrance requirements. Once this is completed and the high schools will announce their requirements based on this information and the places they will offer in that year. For instance, if the school offers 800 places in that year, the results offered by the 800th intake student will be the standard requirements. So effectively, this ensures the school selects the top candidates in all the students who have applied to said school in that academic year. However, the severe competition only occurs in the very top high schools, normally, most students will have sufficient results for them to continue their secondary education if they wish to.

More @ Education in the People's Republic of China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[LAM]

Did hear or read an article that drew that same conclusion. If a child has all the gizmos available -- all those learning gadgets that richer kids have at their disposal -- then their learning almost takes care of itself. Children are literally learning sponges. Too many learn nothing because they have nothing.

From Page 186:

"Relative positions in the labour income hierarchy persist over generations in all OECD countries, although to varying degrees (e.g. Solon, 2002; Corak, 2004, 2006; D???Addio, 2007). Existing estimates of the extent to which sons??? earnings levels correlate with those of their fathers (i.e. the ???intergenerational earnings elasticity???) find persistence to be particularly
pronounced in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States and France. In these countries, at least 40% of the economic advantage that high-earnings fathers have over low-earnings fathers is transmitted to their sons (Figure 5.1). By contrast, persistence is comparatively low in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada, with less than 20% of the wage advantage being passed on from fathers to their sons."

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/62/44582910.pdf

* that is a SUBSTANTIAL advantage

 

[LAM]

"One might have hoped that the rise in inequality would have been offset by greater economic mobility: greater opportunity for low-income families to rise into the middle-class or to see their children do so. But in fact, increases in income inequality were not offset by any increase in economic mobility. Using Social Security earnings data, economists Wojciech Kopczuk, Emmanuel Saez, and Jae Song looked at individuals’ earnings over long periods of time and found that, among male workers, mobility has if anything declined over the last several decades.4 Meanwhile, intergenerational economic mobility remains quite low. Researchers from the Economic Mobility Project (a joint project of researchers from the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the New America Foundation, and the Urban Institute) have found that, according to the most recent available data, a child born into a family in the bottom fifth of the income distribution has only about a 35 percent chance of making it into the middle income group or above, less than the 42 percent chance that he remains trapped in the bottom fifth. There are even some worrisome indicators that children’s opportunities may be more constrained by their parents’ incomes than in the past. For example, a recent analysis examined the likelihood that different students with the same standardized test scores but different family incomes would go to college. The researchers found that family income played a larger role in determining whether a student with a given test score would go to college in the early 2000s than it did in the early 1980s."

Page 2:

Prepared Testimony for Finance Committee Hearing
Is the Distribution of Tax Burdens and Tax Benefits Equitable?
May 3, 2011
Aviva Aron-Dine
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Economics, MIT
http://finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Testimony of Aron-Dine.pdf

 

[Big Smoothy]

Again, are we talking about Atlanta backs, here?

If so, they are almost useless. Not entirely, but almost.

 

[Big Pimpin]

Again, are we talking about Atlanta backs, here?

If so, they are almost useless. Not entirely, but almost.

If we're still talking about the school system we are.

 

[troubador]

But how do those other countries allocate education? Is every child in China guaranteed thirteen years of public education?

If those other countries only advance the exceptional child then how can anyone fairly compare ALL U.S. children to a small slice of hand-picked highly intelligent children?

Also, one of my favorite quotes:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
???Mark Twain

I don't need to answers those questions more than you do.

 

[Curt James]

(snip) sons??? earnings levels correlate with those of their fathers (snip) particularly pronounced in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States and France. In these countries, at least 40% of the economic advantage that high-earnings fathers have over low-earnings fathers is transmitted to their sons (snip). By contrast, persistence is comparatively low in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada, with less than 20% of the wage advantage being passed on from fathers to their sons." (snip)

Curious about that 20% difference between UK, Italy and the U.S. versus Nordic countries, Australia and Canada.

 

[Curt James]

I don't need to answers those questions more than you do.

You certainly don't.

Posing a question, not interrogating.

And, fwiw, I looked for my own answer by Googling a bit. There's a follow-up post somewhere.

 

[Curt James]

(snip) The researchers found that family income played a larger role in determining whether a student with a given test score would go to college in the early 2000s than it did in the early 1980s.(snip)http://finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Testimony of Aron-Dine.pdf

The military helped me break away from my poor high school performance and also from a rather bleak financial history/family income.

Military service > ROTC application > college admission > college graduation > career

There were some hiccups along the way, but the military definitely set me on the correct path towards financial independence.

Schools don't do nearly enough to follow-up on students once those children have graduated. Actually, I guess they don't do anything whatsoever.

 

[dgp]

A sad result of "No Child Left Behind" thanks Bush...

 

[LAM]

Curious about that 20% difference between UK, Italy and the U.S. versus Nordic countries, Australia and Canada.

It is because of the low rate of unionization in the US, UK and Italy, it causes about a 20% decrease in wages.

 

[LAM]

A sad result of "No Child Left Behind" thanks Bush...

NCLB is plan and simple neo-liberal strategy to use standardize testing to make "government" and "union teachers" look inefficient and to manipulate the public into buying into privatizing education.

Standardized testing only works on students that come from the same level of income and that have the same family structure.