For years, UW, I have believed that the school system did a better job back in the '50s than is does now. I just found proof.
Here is an excerpt from "Ticket to Nowhere," an article from "Education Next" on our downward trend in education.
>>>>>>Still another international comparison, this provided by the International Adult Literacy Survey, provides a different way of assessing the quality of education in the United States. It was administered during the mid-1990s to a cross-section of 16- to 65-year-olds in 14 European and North American countries.
The United States ranked 12th on the test, trailing Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Germany by significant margins. The news gets even worse: the United States appears to be living on its past. The literacy skills of Americans aged 56 to 65 ranked them second in the world. These highfliers had attended school in the 1950s, at a time when SAT scores reached heights to which they have never since returned, and Europeans were still trying to put together an education system that could serve more than an elite cadre.
Americans who went to school during the 1960s ranked a respectable 3rd; those schooled in the 1970s ranked 5th. But 16- to 25-year-olds, adults who were wandering America's school hallways during the 1980s and 1990s, ranked 14th. In short, the literacy survey records a simple, steady progression downward. Apologists will find excuses for these outcomes, of course. The downward U. S. trajectory is due more to gains elsewhere than to slippage within the United States, some will say, as if this were satisfying. Others may say that U.S. scores are pulled down by its immigrants and ethnic diversity, overlooking the fact that other countries have immigrants too. Lifelong learning opportunities are greater in the United States than elsewhere, it will be claimed, so young folks will eventually reach the levels the oldest group has achieved. No matter that schools are bad; catch-up time will come later on.
But such excuses don't ring true, especially when the literacy test only confirms results from the IEA, the OECD survey, NAEP, and the SAT. No one test can provide the definitive assessment of American education. But when multiple studies yield similar results, the story they tell becomes ever more compelling. By all accounting devices available, the nation at risk 20 years ago has not responded adequately to the challenge set forth in 1983.
educationnext.org |
