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24 Countries That Have Smarter Children Than America
Business Insider ^ | 12/07/2010 | Gus Lubin

Posted on 12/07/2010 7:43:56 AM PST by SeekAndFind

America's children rate embarrassingly low again on the latest round of scholastic tests from the OECD.

The Program for International Student Assessment, which is released every three years, tests 15-year-old students in reading, math and science.

Basically, America earned a "C." We tied the OECD average rating of 496. Teenagers in East Asia and Europe scored significantly higher.

There's one caveat to these scores. Some countries test a irregularly narrow sample of kids. Like China -- which we're not counting in our ranking because its sample of 5,100 Shanghai teenagers scored ridiculously high.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: children; education; iq
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To: SeekAndFind
'Countries like the Netherlands has a huge and growing Muslim population. "

I should have specified Latin American immigrants.

They do have a Muslim population (roughly 5% of the country). BUT, Muslims who immigrate do have a long history of educational excellence. In fact, it's one of the reasons they immigrate in the first place.

We have immigrants who come to this country - legally - and excel in school. Why? Because their parents have gone through a tremendous amount of trouble to get here, again - legally. The ones who just sneak over the border as they please, don't have that same investment.

Immigration isn't the problem. Illegal immigration is the problem, and NONE of those countries suffer the same kind of illegal immigration troubles we do.

21 posted on 12/07/2010 8:07:13 AM PST by OldDeckHand
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To: Little Ray

RE: our rivals test only their best - we test every one.

That’s why I asked the question in POST #10 above. But then it would be considered racist to even ask that question.

If an MIT professor would feel nauseated and angered at Larry Summers musing about why fewer female students get into the math and sciences... what kind of reaction do you think merely ASKING the above question would elicit?


22 posted on 12/07/2010 8:07:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: a fool in paradise
Americans screwdents can put a condom on a banana and roll a joint in under 30 seconds.

... and sing praise songs about 0bama.

23 posted on 12/07/2010 8:08:00 AM PST by ScottinVA (The West needs to act NOW to aggressively treat its metastasizing islaminoma!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Can’t speak to the rest of the country, but here in CA we have just over 6 million K-12 students and over half are poor performing students directly or indirectly derived from 1/3rd world countries. Little wonder the statistics are driven down.


24 posted on 12/07/2010 8:08:27 AM PST by umgud
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To: SeekAndFind
The Program for International Student Assessment, which is released every three years, tests 15-year-old students in reading, math and science.

I see the problem, our students weren't tested in "self-esteem". If that were the case, our averages would be tops in the world!

25 posted on 12/07/2010 8:12:12 AM PST by ssaftler ("Politically Correct" is neither!)
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To: FreedomProtector
Give every child's family a voucher for the average amount spent on public school

Give. Give. Give. It won't work.

We we stop giving 15-year old illiterate teenagers money to pop out babies we could maybe stabilize our IQ drain.

26 posted on 12/07/2010 8:13:35 AM PST by ladyjane
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To: SeekAndFind

I am not sure why anyone would be surprised. We have had decades of dumbing down curricula in an attempt to make all ethnic groups score the same. The only way to accomplish that is to bring all down to crappy.


27 posted on 12/07/2010 8:13:36 AM PST by gthog61
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To: OldDeckHand

Are home schooled students tested as well or do they fall between the cracks in such rankings?

In other nations where a sizeable percentage may not even attend school, I doubt that they test those who are not schooled.

Sort of works both sides of the equation against the US.


28 posted on 12/07/2010 8:14:47 AM PST by a fool in paradise (The establishment clause isn't just against my OWN government establishing state religion in America)
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To: ScottinVA

MMM MMM MMMM!


29 posted on 12/07/2010 8:15:41 AM PST by a fool in paradise (The establishment clause isn't just against my OWN government establishing state religion in America)
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To: ladyjane

We already give them that much to go to a state mandated prison of incompetence and political correctness.

If we are going to subsidize education, it should be a market system.


30 posted on 12/07/2010 8:17:26 AM PST by FreedomProtector
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To: SeekAndFind
Would it be racist to find out WHICH group in the USA is pulling our averages down?

We already know. Clearly blacks and Hispanics are not performing as well as whites and asians. There is plenty of documentation that substantiate it. Single family households, poor urban schools, poverty, etc. contribute to what is fast becoming a permanent underclass.

Hispanics account for all youth growth since '00--Hispanics accounted for all the growth in the youth population in the past decade. In 2000, Hispanics made up 17 percent of the U.S. population under age 20. They now represent somewhere between 22 and 25 percent of that age group.

31 posted on 12/07/2010 8:18:04 AM PST by kabar
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To: earlJam

I vote for #14 as ‘post of the day.’


32 posted on 12/07/2010 8:20:45 AM PST by TalonDJ
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To: OldDeckHand
Legal immigration is also a problem. We bring in 1.2 million legal immigrants a year. 25% of adult legal immigrants don't have a high school diploma. 53% of immigrant headed households are on welfare. 50% to 60% of illegals don't have a high school degree. We are importing poverty, legally and illegally.
33 posted on 12/07/2010 8:26:03 AM PST by kabar
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To: a fool in paradise
Americans screwdents can put a condom on a banana and roll a joint in under 30 seconds.

You are right. It depends on what the tests cover.

Smart is as smart does.

34 posted on 12/07/2010 8:29:45 AM PST by Ole Okie (American.)
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To: a fool in paradise
"Are home schooled students tested as well or do they fall between the cracks in such rankings?"

I don't know. It would not surprise me if some states have testing requirements for home-schoolers, but I don't think that the "No Child Left Behind" program tests home-schoolers (could be wrong). So, it's likely they aren't counted

"In other nations where a sizable percentage may not even attend school, I doubt that they test those who are not schooled."

That's certainly true in countries like Cuba, who claim farcical literacy rates of 100%. But, just going through that list, I didn't see any country that would quite so cavalier in their reporting.

However, I remember reading last year that the UK drop-out rate was at an all-time high at something just under 10%. By comparison, the US drop-out rate is right around 8%, which would indicate that we measuring some kids (probably at the lower testing margins) than the UK would, simply by virtue that their drop-out rate is a bit more.

35 posted on 12/07/2010 8:30:54 AM PST by OldDeckHand
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To: TheThirdRuffian; SeekAndFind; kittymyrib
America has a bi-modal population. It’s stupid to try to compare averages.

Even if America had a uni-modal population, we would still be pretty far down in the list because doing well academically is not something that is respected in our popular culture or the culture of the average high school.

36 posted on 12/07/2010 8:34:09 AM PST by wideminded
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To: Little Ray

You really think a number of Asian and European countries don’t have kids outperforming ours?


37 posted on 12/07/2010 8:36:09 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: SeekAndFind

Only 24?


38 posted on 12/07/2010 8:38:05 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Hmmm...Poland placed 18th...somehow, all those jokes don’t seem as funny anymore...


39 posted on 12/07/2010 8:38:08 AM PST by stefanbatory (Insert witty tagline here)
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To: SeekAndFind

As long as our children know how to shake the salt onto the french fries America will continue to do just fine...


40 posted on 12/07/2010 8:44:59 AM PST by 2dollarbill
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