What Does the PISA Report Tell Us About U.S. Education?

The statement of the problem seems correct, but the video doesn/t follow through.

Schools filled with poor kids have kids that do poorly on the PISA tests. In other countries, these are the schools and kids that get the most help. In the USA, these schools are concentrated in the South and West (see my earlier post), and get fewer resources than in more affluent areas. The local control of schools, gives local communities scarred by a history of racism, the responsibility for providing well financed good schools and good teachers to their minority communities. Guess what happens.

The good news is that a lot of the country that is more affluent and better educated provides good education for its kids, and those kids show up pretty well on the PISA test comparisons.

By the way, some cultures teach more intensively for tests, and I remain unsure that tests are good enough to measure what is needed for a good life and a good society.