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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (11973)	7/7/2004 10:05:49 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Respond to of 20773

Just after that one at position 41..tough stuff, but understandable. That is, the dilemma debate from the middle 1700s up to the 1970s in the US congress, or at least in the committees. PS You would be surprised on who immigrated to US from Lithuania?? (but they are doing better and better, every year)

To: epicure who wrote (11973)	7/8/2004 8:42:38 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

The only non-English language I could attempt to post in would be Spanish. I choose not to because if I did, I'd sound incoherent ... just like... Re. int'l comparisons: International comparisons of student performance, can be found by googling on PISA, PIRLS, and TIMSS. You can look up what the acronyms mean if you're interested. In general, US students tend to come out pretty close to average in international comparisons. Nothing to brag about, for sure. Here's PISA scientific, mathematical, and reading comparisons for OECD countries: pisa.oecd.org pisa.oecd.org pisa.oecd.org Below is a link which shows how US 4th graders compare on reading internationally. The US happens to come out above average on this comparison. Not at the top though. But that's not why I've posted this. Consider this background material. nces.ed.gov Now, for a little digging below the surface. Here's a look at US 4th grade reading scores broken down by racial/ethnic group: nces.ed.gov Notice there's a wide range between the various groups. Make a note of the scores of the US white 4th grade reading scores. Remember the scores? Now go back to the international comparisons table here --> nces.ed.gov and look at the top scores internationally. Still remember the scores you made a note of a moment ago? After you've recovered from the shock, skim down the list of countries and ask yourself how many have a population as diverse as the US's. The answer is damn few. Most countries are very homogenous particularly those which tend to come out on the top of international comparisons. Now consider this excerpt, particularly the table, from an article on a couple of international comparison studies (PISA and TIMSS) of 28 OECD countries plus four other countries: If Mr. Paige and Mr. Finn had asked, "How do the scores of the various ethnic groups rank them among the nations in PISA?" they would have seen the answer in this table giving "Ranks of American Ethnic Groups": Reading Math Science White students 2nd 7th 4th Black Students 26/29th 27/30th 27/30th Hispanic students 26/29th 27/30th 27/30th For blacks and Hispanics, the first rank is among the 28 OECD nations; the second includes the other four countries. Asians do not constitute a large enough sample to generate a separate score. TIMSS produced an almost identical table. edweek.org Before you start composing a reply about race, stop and think. Race, per se, has nothing to do with the score variances shown above. Culture does though, as comparisons of African and West Indian immigrants to American-born blacks show. Just the other day, July 7, Clarence Page's noted that roughly half of black students admitted to Harvard turn out to be immigrants or children of immigrants from the West Indies or Africa. Do we have an inferior educational system in the US? Breaking down US scores by ethnic/racial groups shows the US is capable of educating people pretty well by international standards. So maybe we should ask whether we have a very serious ghetto culture problem. For more information, I suggest you ask Mr. Cosby.