A thought on education

The United States ranks low among OECD countries in international tests of educational achievement. That is a matter of concern in an increasingly globalized world. As the following graph shows, performance of kids on these tests is strongly determined by socio-economic status. Kids from poor neighborhoods don't do as well as kids from rich neighborhoods.

Source: OECD: Lessons from PISA for the United States

What can we do about the situation. It seems to me that good teaching is important. Good teaching of course comes from well motivated, capable teachers. They have to have small enough classes and enough time with those classes to teach well.

Is testing important. My experience in teaching suggests that it is important to find out how well the students are doing. It also seems to me that students learn to perform well be performing and getting feedback as to how well they have performed. Tests can be opportunities for student performance and feedback. On the other hand, poorly designed tests are not going to help the kids nor the teachers.


"The Five States Where Teachers Unions Are Illegal Have The Lowest Test Scores In America"

Based on 2007 test scores the trend is weaker: NC is 47th; TX is 45th; SC is 39th; GA is 26th; VA is 25th. These rankings come from a composite of ACT and SAT scores among high school graduates, which is a measure that accounts for different participation rates.

"The states that actually have lots of teachers in teacher unions tend to be the states that have done the best in terms of academic success in this country."

"Comparison of standardized test scores and degree of teacher unionization in states found a statistically significant and positive relationship between the presence of teacher unions and stronger state performance on tests. Taking into account the percentage of students taking the tests, states with greater percentages of teachers in unions reported higher test performance."

I suspect that there is an underlying variable here. There is something about the liberal culture in states such as  Maryland, Massachusetts and New York that results in both good schools and strong teachers' rights. I suspect that there is something about the conservative culture in North Carolina, Texas, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia that results in both kids doing poorly on tests and few teachers' rights. It might hark back to Civil War times, when the first group of states sided with the Union and against slavery, and the second group formed the core of the Confederacy.