Dear NYC Families,
I have been in the education field here in NYC for over 11 years. If there is one thing that I have learned from my years of experience it’s that children here in the US are severely slacking when it comes to their international counter parts.
One of my personal and business goals is to help change this in some way in my community. I hope you will join me in some way in this quest.
I will not indulge you with the entire article which you can access by clicking here, however I will leave you with the conclusion of the article.
Sincerely,
Franco Verdino
FasTracKids & Eye Level Regional Director
P.S.
In case you read the article you will see that South Korea is #1 in the world according to the most recent Harvard Study. Eye Level is the #1 supplemental education program/company in South Korea. Check it out if you haven’t done so already.
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U.S. Students from Educated Families Lag in International Tests
Conclusions
Lacking good information, it has been easy even for sophisticated Americans to be seduced by apologists who would have the public believe the problems are simply those of poor kids in central city schools. Our results point in quite the opposite direction. We find that the international rankings of the United States and the individual states are not much different for students from advantaged backgrounds than for those from disadvantaged ones. Although a higher proportion of U.S. students from better-educated families are proficient, that is equally true for similarly situated students in other countries. Compared to their counterparts abroad, however, U.S. students from advantaged homes lag severely behind.
As long as the focus remains on distinctions within the United States, then the comfortable can remain comforted by the distance between suburbia and the inner city. But once the focus shifts to countries abroad and fair, apples-to-apples comparisons are made, it becomes manifest that nearly all of our young people—from privileged and not-so-privileged backgrounds—are not faring well.
Some say that we must cure poverty before we can address the achievement problems in our schools. Others say that our schools are generally doing fine, except for the schools serving the poor. Bringing an international perspective correctly to bear on the issue dispels both thoughts.
The United States has two achievement gaps to be bridged—the one between the advantaged and the disadvantaged and the one between itself and its peers abroad. Neither goal need be sacrificed to attain the other.
Eric A. Hanushek is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Paul E. Peterson is professor of government and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. Ludger Woessmann is professor of economics at the University of Munich and director of the Ifo Center for the Economics of Education and Innovation. An unabridged version of this report is available athks.harvard.edu/pepg/.
