|
|
| Re: Teaching Seen as Crucial in Topping Education Rankings (753884) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > OTChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: Teaching Seen as Crucial in Topping Education Rankings |
|
|
Posted by JayMan on Fri Mar 18 10:45:43 2011, in response to Teaching Seen as Crucial in Topping Education Rankings, posted by SMAZ on Fri Mar 18 01:08:52 2011. Here is the fundamental problem with all this debate. One very big thing is missing: IQThe meeting comes after the recently released results of the Programme for International Student Assessment exam of 15-year-olds alarmed U.S. educators. Out of 34 countries, it ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math. First of all, the U.S. IS NOT DOING POORLY INTERNATIONALLY. Here's what that very same PISA test shows when you break down the results by race: (from http://www.vdare.com/sailer/101219_pisa.htm)  White Americans outperform students in almost every European country. Asian Americans outperform most in East Asia (this is likely due to selective immigration however). The government and commentators will cache this in terms of "poverty", correctly noting that if you control for poverty the results improve. This ignores the fact that poverty is also correlated with IQ -- on the individual level, the county level, and the national level. Schleicher co-authored a report released Wednesday in conjunction with the conference which concluded that for the U.S. to remain competitive, it must raise the status of the teaching profession. An additional report released by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, as well as the PISA exam, identified several effective practices observed in the top performing regions and countries: Secondly, it's not that simple to compare teaching practices from one country to the next -- even one district to the next in some cases, because again of IQ. Higher IQ students (in places like Singapore, Shanghai -- the financial capital of China, or Finland) demand more rigorous curricula, and require more competent teachers to deliver it. And because of the higher IQ of the populations in these areas, more competent teachers are available, because teachers themselves have higher IQ's. In fact, this push to copy the educational practices of high-IQ areas, without appreciating the factor underlying it all (IQ) only does more harm than good. An article in the latest Christian Science Monitor details this painful and torturous process -- the "shock therapy" used in some of the "chronically underperforming" (read: black) schools in the country, that often eliminates the bulk of the teaching staff (who are mostly black) and replaces them with new teachers (mostly white), yet -- naturally (to anyone who understands IQ) -- produces meager results. This will lead to teacher shortages, and much worse, because of the laws of supply and demand. Even if the pay was raised to accommodate it, the inevitable failure of better teachers to improve scores in the black and brown populations in the states will grind away at the teacher base, not to mention greatly wear down morale... The time will come soon when discussion of cognitive ability -- and the racial differences therein -- become no longer taboo in the national conversation, particularly in education where it is clearly relevant, due to the sheer weight of the evidence, particularly in the face of all the efforts over the past century, some admirable, many -- especially the recent ones -- hair-brained, that failed to put a dent in the achievement gap. |
|
|
|