MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2011
Jay Mathews, for those who hate novels: Unheard of! Darlings, it just isn’t done!
Last Friday, at his Washington Post blog, education writer Jay Mathews broke every known rule in the book! Citing the recent work of an actual expert, Mathews described a pillar of America’s education debate—and noted that this hoary old groaner is just flat-out wrong.
Were American students once number one in the world? Sorry, but no, Mathews said:
MATHEWS (2/11/11): The myth of declining U.S. schools: They've long been mediocre
"U.S. students, who once led the world, currently rank 21st in the world in science and 25th in math," Newsweek reported in September. I hear that a lot. Politicians and business leaders often bemoan the decline of American education compared to the rest of the world. We are doomed, they say, unless we [fill in here the latest plan to save the country.]
So I was surprised to find, in the latest report by the wonderfully contrarian Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, that the notion of America on the downward track is a myth. The data show that we have been mediocre all along, as far back as 1964. If anything, we have lately been showing some signs of improvement.
Duh. America was never “number one in the world” when it comes to these types of assessments. In his report (click here, then click again), Loveless notes that the first major international student testing was conducted in 1964. That study assessed 13-year-old students in twelve different countries. And sorry! After the testing was done, here’s how the twelve countries ranked:
Ranking of Countries in the First International Mathematics Study (FIMS), 1964
Israel
Japan
Belgium
Finland
Germany
England
Scotland
Netherlands
France
Australia
United States
Sweden
Our students outscored Sweden—that was it. (As you may recall, Swedish parents were in a major funk at the time due to those damn Bergman movies!)
There’s much more to Mathews’ post, and to Loveless’ report. But does this information actually matter? Only if you want a discourse which isn’t built around novelized tales—novels created by powerful interests to serve their needs and their fatuous preferences. Everyone from Obama on down has been spreading that silly notion around—the claim that our kids were once first in the world, and that we have been slipping somehow. (It must be the teachers unions!) Powerful policy judgments are built from this claim—a claim which is clownishly wrong.
Obama should be ashamed of himself—but so should the whole mainstream press corps. For some reason, this is a pleasing, novelized tale—a pleasing tale which is bogus.
People! Jay Mathews broke every rule in the book when he offered this outrageous post. When the elites agree on a novelized tale, you’re not supposed to debunk it! That said: Tomorrow, we’ll start to explore a few recent posts where we wish Jay had done a bit better.
Your nation’s clownish public discourse is built around many such novelized tales. One such tale involves Michelle Rhee—and, in very revealing ways, it’s back in the eye of the storm.
