Part I. Introduction
Over half a million students aged 15 years old across the world, participated in the International Student Assessment in 2012 program. The International Student Assessment is a test that is administered to sampled students across the world after every three years period. The test normally focuses on math as the main subject, but also entails minor areas in science and reading. This test is very important because it is what policymakers and institutions around the world use to establish a view of the state of education in various nations across the world. The results of student performance in the 2012 series of this test indicate that the United States of America is behind many other countries like Korea and Finland. The results of that test indicated that the U.S scored below average in mathematics and is at number 17 among the 34 OECD countries. It scores close to the OECD average in science and reading and ranks 21st in science and 17th in reading (Darling-Hammond, 2015). Therefore, the United States of America has a poor educational system when compared to the rest of the world.
Part II. Proposed plan of action and arguments
The United States of America is greatly struggling at math education compared to other nations in the world. It got a score below the PISA math mean and ranks 26th out of the 34 OECD countries. The U.S. math score is not different statistically from that of Norway, Russia, Sweden, Spain, Slovak Republic and Italy. Among the top-performers in this test, 55 of them were students from Shanghai-China while the United States only managed to have 9 candidates in this category of academic excellence (Blair, 2014).
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The United States of America uses a lot of money in funding education for each student. The U.S is at number 5 in terms of education spending per student. Higher expenditure on education is not highly predictive of better mathematics scores in PISA. An education system can only be said to be good if it is affordable because of cheap school fees. This is not the case in the U.S where education expenditure $115,000 per student. The Slovak Republic, which scores similarly to the U.S., only spends $53,000 per student (Sellar & Lingard, 2013). The high expenditure on education per student proves that the learning system in this country is poor when compared to the rest of the world.
Scholars have been able to point out some of the reasons for the poor education system in the United States when compared to the rest of the world. The culture within the U.S education system is holding it back. There are a number of educational problems that have arisen from indifference. Issues such as underpaid teachers, overcrowded classrooms, double-schedule schools, broken-down school buildings and inadequate facilities work to derail the education system in the United States of America. According to the OECD 2015 evaluation, 20 countries have higher high school graduation rates than the United States. Among developed nations, U.S students are at position 17 in reading and 31 in math (Ravitch, 2016). Even Poland, with high child poverty rates similar to the U.S, boasts of stronger student achievement and faster system-wide improvement.
It has been noted that the U.S has a poor educational system compared to the rest of the world because socio-economic classes have a significant influence on the performance of students in schools within the country. Socio-economic disadvantage has a significant impact on the performance of a student within the U.S. Students from socially and economically disadvantaged families have very lean chances of performing well in school. In fact, 15% of the variation in student performance within the United States is attributed to socio-economic class differences (Benito, Alegre & Gonzàlez-Balletbò, 2014). This situation is not present in countries like Finland, Norway, Japan and China. In Finland, the student’s socio-economic disadvantage does not determine his or her performance in education (Blair, 2014).
Another important fact is that most teachers within the U.S education system just got about average grades as well as test scores when they were in high school and college. This is not the case in Finland, where it is very competitive for one to become a teacher. It is also still highly competitive for one to gain acceptance into an Ivy League university within Finland. One cannot make it to class in Finland through short-cuts as it is the case in the United States of America (Morgan, 2012). To be a teacher in Finland, one must attain a master’s degree, write a research-driven thesis, and spend a full year in a teaching residency, observing master educators at work and practicing lessons and classroom management.
Unlike South Korea, the United States of America does not show kids that education is highly valued in the country. In South Korea, all roads are cleared on the morning of the national college entrance exam for the many candidates going to sit for it. Even the stock exchange market opens late. These candidates are cheered on by their peers as they enter the examination rooms. It gives them the motivation to perform well in school. The situation is opposite in the U.S, where education is not given any precedence.
Part III. Conclusion
The United States of America has a poor educational system when compared to the rest of the world. There is enough evidence to hold this view starting with the existing worldwide educational assessments conducted by OECD. Hopwever, there are various ways through which the U.S can improve its education standards. The proposed plan includes benchmarking in othr leading nations like Finland and prioritizing the development of the education sector. It is also important for the school teachers to be subjected to rigorous tests and interview processes so that only those who are highly qualified arte considered to serve as teachers in schools. The country has to learn from countries like Finland and improve areas pointed out by researchers as its points of weakness.
References
Benito, R., Alegre, M. À., & Gonzàlez-Balletbò, I. (2014). School segregation and its effects on educational equality and efficiency in 16 OECD comprehensive school systems. Comparative Education Review , 58 (1), 104-134. (JSTOR).
Blair, S. L. (2014). Parental involvement and children's educational performance: A comparison of Filipino and US parents. Journal of Comparative Family Studies , 351-366. (JSTOR).
Darling-Hammond, L. (2015). The flat world and education: How America's commitment to equity will determine our future . New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Morgan, H. (2012). Poverty-stricken schools: What we can learn from the rest of the world and from successful schools in economically disadvantaged areas in the US. Education , 133 (2), 291-297.
Ravitch, D. (2016). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education . New York, NY: Basic Books.
Sellar, S., & Lingard, B. (2013). Looking East: Shanghai, PISA 2009 and the reconstitution of reference societies in the global education policy field. Comparative Education , 49 (4), 464-485.
