What is the rationale for all United States high students passing three advanced courses in math and science to receive a high school diploma? What is the rationale for “all” high school graduates satisfying the requirements for admission to a four-college program? There is none!
The United States is the uncontested leader of the world in scientific research in respect to published accomplishments, Nobel Prizes, volume of research and expenditures on scientific research. The United States is the leader of the world in technology and the unchallenged leader of the world in the global economy. The United States dominates the world because of its educational systems, including K-12 public education, post-secondary colleges and universities that produce the most highly educated, productive and successful workforce in the world.
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This article by Dennis Redovich is quite typical of those who indicate that the plight of the public schools is a fiction, and who argue that NAEP, TIMSS, PISA and other studies of American educational progress really do not reflect the American educational system.
Gerald Bracey, in the foreword to Redovich’s book say:
“Washington Post ombudsman, Richard Harwood once noted, studies indicate that 70 to 90 percent of what journalists write is what people in positions of authority tell them to write. Under pressure of deadlines, very few journalists get past the press release and read the full report on which the release is based. Often, the report puts a particular spin on statistics, a spin that favors the views of those who are putting out the report. ”
Having read a number of Bracey’s book and articles, I fully agree that the attacks on the educational system are bogus. And I have little doubt that Redovich will cite great examples of bogus statistics and “facts that just ain’t so”. His article certainly gives a glimpse of those facts.
However, therein lies the contradiction. If the American educational system is so great, why is it that the American (adult) population is so ignorant that they buy into bogus statistics, so lazy that can’t read a simple report, so gullible that anything said that massages their prejudgments is believed and re-echoed.
I find it laughable that the public has bought into the argument that more effort must be made in the area of science. There is hardly any disagreement in this regard, from the White House to the back roads. Yet, can there be any argument that the current Washington mob ignores all science if it contradicts their faith or their wallets.
I recently heard a lecture by an MIT professor who cited a survey indicating that 53% of all adults in the United States believe that the earth is only 6000 years old, and that an even larger majority believes that Creationism should stand equally with Evolution and be taught in public schools.
One simply cannot reasonably argue, it seems to me, that the American educational system is or has ever been successful in educating the vast majority of Americans given the recent and prior surveys of adult literacy and numeracy.
So I don’t understand what the American public means when they say that scientific understanding is a key educational goal, and what result they want. Perhaps all they want is enough Christian kids to learn enough science so they can “prove” that the earth is only 6000 years old.