Decision 2012: Education Policy. 10.6.12. JSOnline - Crossroads.
Here is the latest comparison of U.S. K-12 students with their peers in in other parts of the world. As you might have guessed we continue to lag behind other countries. True also, as you might have expected, white students outperform minority students continues to be a problem. The charts show the top 10 countries and the bottom 10 performing countries in both reading and math. As you also might have predicted, our US students perform better in math than reading.
[My opinion on these broad-based studies is that the U.S. is a very diverse country, not only in race, but in culture, family values, religious orientation, economic classes, regional differences, language and others to name a few. Comparing our U.S. K-12 students to countries without this diversity can be very misleading and somewhat skewed. However, as other countries become more diverse, as we are seeing happen now, results may look different in time. Regardless of my opinion, it is important and revealing to us that we certainly have work to do on many levels: curriculum, teacher training, student preparedness to learn, parent engagement, good leadership and collaboration among stakeholders.]How do you feel about this study? Are we on the right track with Common Core?
