America's moms and dads are getting a good scolding: Your kids are lagging behind students all around the world.
WASHINGTON – America's moms and dads are getting a good scolding: Your kids are lagging behind students all around the world.
The White House says so, with concern bordering on alarm. So do institutions such as the Gates Foundation, citing performance tests, graduation rates and other benchmarks.
But don't measure for dunce caps just yet.
While they're not in first place, U.S. students generally hold their own on international tests. They spend more time in school than the Obama administration would have you believe. And their college graduation rates stack up better than reported.
That is not to say the critics are totally wet, that the U.S. can't do better.
Only about one-third of U.S. students could read and do math at current grade levels on national tests in 2007, the most recent figures available. That means millions of kids are a long way from reaching the ambitious goal of former President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law — that every student read and do math on grade level by 2014.
And the high school dropout rate is dismal — 1 in 4 kids.
But it's all made to look worse than it is by international comparisons, which at best tend to be misleading and at worst are deeply flawed.
The United States has a much bigger and faster-growing population than the other countries that participate in global assessments; China and India do not take part at all. Unlike many global competitors, the U.S. is growing ever more diverse, with a large share of children who are learning English.
Educational trash talk is not new. It is typical at both ends of the political spectrum. Liberals use poor performance to justify school spending. Conservatives use it to make the case for private-school vouchers and tax credits.
Already, Obama is responsible for the biggest increase in federal education spending because of his economic stimulus law.
Here is a look at recent statements about the standing of the U.S. educational system and how they square with the facts.
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