We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1!
On this Fourth of July, we should take time to remember how amazing America is! We are the best at everything! We have the best military, the best president, the best economy, the best food, the best people, the best soccer team (the World Cup is rigged), the best hockey team (so are the Olympics), and – it goes without saying – the best education system. Just look at these statistics: in percentage of GDP spent on education, America ranks 53…wait, what? 53rd!?! Who’s beating us? Countries such as Mexico, the UK, Poland, Ukraine, France, Israel, Botswana, Iceland and Cuba, to name a few. Well that source is clearly an outsider skewing with the results…what, it comes from the CIA!?!
Well let’s look at testing. The US is clearly getting good at that – we must be first in those categories. According to 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data, America scored lower that the average on the combined science scale, ranking 22 out of 33 nations tested. On the mathematics literacy scale, the US also scored lower than average, ranking 27 out of 33. What happened? I thought America was the best at everything.
For years, the media has reported that “America has been slipping” in world education rankings (2005, 2008, and 2009). One thing I think needs to happen is to get students to reinvest in the educational process, and in order to do that, we need to let them not only see the relevance in what we are teaching, but allow them some more choice in what they are learning.
