Every few years of so, there is a row caused by the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) scores ....
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| Anti-American Headline For No Reason .... |
..... these are measures of educational attainment for 15 year olds across the globe.
Nearly always, the headlines in the West are that we do badly, and the Chinese are doing well ..... there is often a thinly veiled Anti-American flavour to the headlines .... in 2014 for example, the good old BBC couldn't resist this e.g. "US teens trail global peers in money matters." This after PISA included financial literacy in the tests which impacted scores.
Even more oddly, for a BBC that is oh so racially conscious, the headline image was a group of very white Anglo-Saxon kids .... not an image they would normally use to depict the US teens (black or racially mixed, has been the norm for at least a decade, but obviously not for negative stories!). Strangely like the rest of the media, the headline actually ignores facts: Like the fact that France, Austria, Italy and Israel all actually performed worse than the US in 2018 ..... even though not impacted to anything like the same degree by racial demographics as the US are.
Of course, the perception is that the under-performance of Western (including US) kids then or now, is not limited to just economics and financial matters, but also in reading, maths and sciences as well. However, hidden within this comparative failure in the PISA reports, is that within the US figures, there are marked racial characteristics to the results, which mean that for example, American Asians appear to do comparatively well against Asians in other countries, and similarly American whites do well in comparison with whites in other countries.
There are actually three main parts of the standardised PISA test, which are the standard reading, maths, and science. The scores are calculated on a SAT-like 200 to 800 scale, with 500 supposed to be the rich or OECD countries mean average, although the OECD average in 2018 was actually 488.
In 2018, for those three score areas, when you look at the results by the racial demographics of those tested:
Now the reasons why this factor is not reported by the media, is that PC and Multi-cultural politics, mean that racial differences in anything except sports, can't be a factor in any public funding decision.
So, the fact that the US mixed race students had a PISA score of 492 (above the OECD average of 488), but that the US Hispanic students with 470, and US Black students with a score of 436 were both well below the OECD mean average, can't be reported or overtly identified,
Of course, this means that when you take the US students as a whole, their mean score average on the tests was only 495, just above the OECD average. The UK by the way, had a 2018 figure of 504 (which would also have been impacted for good or bad by much the same factors as the US figures).
So it could be argued that the only reason the US under-performs compared to other developed countries, is because of its racially mixed demographics. However almost each specific demographic group within the US has higher PISA scores than the same demographic group in any other country. Conversely the students tested in China, are in a homogeneous society, and so do not have any under performing groups bringing their scores down.
Ignoring these factors, doesn't actually help those under performing groups in any society, and doing so simply means that resources to identify and help these groups catch up, are not deployed effectively, and we simply degrade the education for those who are doing well.
The longer we let PC considerations distort the truth of situations, the longer it will take to try and help those falling behind.
Nearly always, the headlines in the West are that we do badly, and the Chinese are doing well ..... there is often a thinly veiled Anti-American flavour to the headlines .... in 2014 for example, the good old BBC couldn't resist this e.g. "US teens trail global peers in money matters." This after PISA included financial literacy in the tests which impacted scores.
Even more oddly, for a BBC that is oh so racially conscious, the headline image was a group of very white Anglo-Saxon kids .... not an image they would normally use to depict the US teens (black or racially mixed, has been the norm for at least a decade, but obviously not for negative stories!). Strangely like the rest of the media, the headline actually ignores facts: Like the fact that France, Austria, Italy and Israel all actually performed worse than the US in 2018 ..... even though not impacted to anything like the same degree by racial demographics as the US are.
Of course, the perception is that the under-performance of Western (including US) kids then or now, is not limited to just economics and financial matters, but also in reading, maths and sciences as well. However, hidden within this comparative failure in the PISA reports, is that within the US figures, there are marked racial characteristics to the results, which mean that for example, American Asians appear to do comparatively well against Asians in other countries, and similarly American whites do well in comparison with whites in other countries.
There are actually three main parts of the standardised PISA test, which are the standard reading, maths, and science. The scores are calculated on a SAT-like 200 to 800 scale, with 500 supposed to be the rich or OECD countries mean average, although the OECD average in 2018 was actually 488.
In 2018, for those three score areas, when you look at the results by the racial demographics of those tested:
- The US Asians score was 549 - this makes them the third highest scoring Asian group in the world - trailing only Singapore and the four richest cities in mainland China.
- The US Whites at 521, outscored all white majority countries tested except Estonia. In fact US White students even edged Japan and South Korea by one point, which isn’t what you would get from the headlines of US failure.
Now the reasons why this factor is not reported by the media, is that PC and Multi-cultural politics, mean that racial differences in anything except sports, can't be a factor in any public funding decision.
So, the fact that the US mixed race students had a PISA score of 492 (above the OECD average of 488), but that the US Hispanic students with 470, and US Black students with a score of 436 were both well below the OECD mean average, can't be reported or overtly identified,
Of course, this means that when you take the US students as a whole, their mean score average on the tests was only 495, just above the OECD average. The UK by the way, had a 2018 figure of 504 (which would also have been impacted for good or bad by much the same factors as the US figures).
So it could be argued that the only reason the US under-performs compared to other developed countries, is because of its racially mixed demographics. However almost each specific demographic group within the US has higher PISA scores than the same demographic group in any other country. Conversely the students tested in China, are in a homogeneous society, and so do not have any under performing groups bringing their scores down.
Ignoring these factors, doesn't actually help those under performing groups in any society, and doing so simply means that resources to identify and help these groups catch up, are not deployed effectively, and we simply degrade the education for those who are doing well.
The longer we let PC considerations distort the truth of situations, the longer it will take to try and help those falling behind.
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