Kyle Roth

The PISA test tests common senses reasoning. The countries that did best on the test were a surprise to everyone. Finland, South Korea, and Poland were all standouts in their own ways, and Ripley compares the policies and learning environments in these countries with those of the US to determine why the US is falling behind, especially in math and science. We talk a lot about parent involvement in the US, but the US actually has above average parental involvement. It turns out it’s not very correlated with success. Parent involvement is most useful when it’s reading to your child every day or asking them deep questions about school and about their opinions of broader issues. In the US we have lots of superintendents over small school districts, so there’s a lot of overhead without much benefit. We’re also afraid of standardization, so each school district has to sort of reinvent the wheel when it comes to curricula and standards. Common Core is an attempt by state education departments to agree to standards together so that textbooks and schools can target their products and training toward a common, well-defined set of goals.