In quality assurance, you need to be very careful what you measure, because you will always optimize towards what you do measure. As I've watched my kids' schools deal with crap like No Student Left Behind, I'm completely convinced we are not optimizing for learning or creativity in any way.

When you look at how well kids can learn when they are interested and curious and how little our schools use that curiosity, there is no question that things can be better. Just because we've done it for 100 years doesn't make it the right or best way (especially when schools became factory training grounds in the late 19th/early 20th centuries). Test scores are a horrible way to measure success in education because it fails to show anything about creativity and ability to continue learning, which are the things a knowledge-based economy need more than anything.

There are a lot of really good teachers out there who are completely hobbled by the structure of the system. It's a complex problem, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to come up with better solutions.

FWIW, I think we should start smaller. I would like to see students move through their education not with an age-based cohort, but rather a capability-based cohort, and they can get pushed back to a lower cohort if they aren't achieving (my understanding is this is how China's system works; if I'm wrong here, please correct my knowledge). That would remove the "bored smart kids" that cause problems in class and who fail out as soon as they hit something hard (that almost happened to me in college) and it would remove the "frustrated dumb kids" who give up on being "able" to learn from the equation. Both of these groups would just be challenged at their level, and the teacher would be able to focus the lesson plan around it.

I think you nailed it: school isn't optimized for creativity, it's optimized for creating workers. But I don't think that just applies to the factories of the 19th century.

The highest institutional rewards are given to the students who most effectively suppress their own desires, just like in the workplace. The students I knew in school who excelled at school didn't enjoy going to class, doing homework, or the challenge of memorizing answers for a test that they would forget as soon as the test was over. Most of them were smart, but the key ingredient was their ability to suppress their own desires. And I have no doubt that they have been successful in the workplace for the exact same reason.

I'm not sure you read the article thoroughly.

His point in putting in the test score table is to say it's focusing people on the wrong things.

Just note the title: "America’s Problem: How the World is 'Beating Us' in a Battle We Don’t Necessarily Want to Win". The battle is the test score battle. The scare quotes around "Beating Us" mean that he's calling into question the notion. And in case that isn't clear, he then says explicitly: we probably don't want to win.

Beyond this, I would argue that the good schools in rich areas aren't the problem. I went grew up in the shadows of NASA and my schools were all excellent -- my teachers all had masters degrees in what they were teaching, they loved their job, and they were well compensated for it. The issue is one of this achievement gap between the well funded suburban schools (my HS marching band had a budget ~500k/yr) and impoverished schools (both inner city and elsewhere). For those on the other end of the achievement gap, having a standard set that roughly equates to what is required to be an educated member of society seems entirely appropriate. Keep in mind that standards, at least in my experience, don't fetter education. For example, when I was in school, it was generally understood that if you were in calculus as a junior, you could probably pass your algebra I based exit exams so we spent our time on calculus.

Also, keep in mind that school is intended to teach you more than just history, math, etc. This is also where we learn to socialize. I guarantee you that my introverted self wouldn't have kissed a girl as early as I did if I wasn't forced to socialize with people for 170 school days a year. I learned how to make friends and how to balance my need for solitude with deeply fulfilling relationships -- something that would have taken much longer has I not been in school.

This isn't to say that my experience is biased towards the upper end of the achievement gap. In fact, while I'm in grad school in Boston, I'm volunteering at a charter school in its inner city and trust me, there are many problems with inner city education but the least of which is standardized testing. Traumatic home lives, poor materials, no cultural understanding of the value of education, etc represent far larger hurdles.

Indeed, I believe we should quibble about the standards and have a national discussion about what an educated member of society should know instead of debating the value of a standard at all. I believe that these standard have gone too far (plumbers probably don't need calculus, for example) but having a base-line of education is never a bad thing.

Yea, I still can't get my head around letting a 16 year old specilise based on some sort of long term plan. The problem with a lot of 'education reform' ideas is they take a more is better approach without separating those things that are useful for everyone vs. the foundations for continuing to focus in that area.

IMO, there are basic skills that everyone needs, such as understanding compound interest and letting students decide they don't need to know the basics is a horrible idea. That said being able to name the platonic solids is not a life skill. IMO, have some basic stills you need to graduate, let students test out of classes, and have stream lined versions of subjects that focus on what's important vs. what's been traditionally been taught.

PS: I question why someone would think a semester of Drivers ED is optional for anyone that's not blind, but we still need 4 years of English to graduate irregardless of actual proficiency.

We may be discussing different things, but I don't agree with your assertion that specialization comes later in educational systems outside the US.

I lived in france when I was 12-13 (and attended French schools), and at the end of 3eme, I filled out a form indicating whether I intended to focus further science/math or letters. My dad wanted science/math, I wanted letters, the whole thing was resolved when we went back to the US.

In college, I spent a year at trinity (in Ireland), and I found that "majors" focused almost exclusively on one subject. Medicine and Law were done at the undergrad level, starting at age 18 or so (though they lasted longer than a typical bachelor's degree in the US). Math students studied math almost exclusively - to the extent that they branched out, it might be physics or CS. The "general undergraduate requirements" were far more considerable in the US.

Lastly, as a grad student here in the US (at UC Berkeley in Industrial Engineering), I definitely noticed that much of the initial coursework appeared to be review for the international students. This may partly be due to strong math education overseas, but I also think that the earlier specialization had a lot to do with it - when you only focus on math as an undergrad, you can do a lot more of it. I actually think this may turn out to be a big problem for students who came up through the US - I see some merit to our more generalized system (I think Paul Graham referred to it as a "late binding" educational approach in an essay). But in grad programs with high attrition rates, the US educated students may be at a disadvantage the first couple of years even if they are very talented.

EDIT - It occurred to me what you might be saying here... students may specialize in a subject earlier overseas, but the curriculum for that subject is much more standardized than it would be in the US. I can see how that would be the case.

> we are shown a table showing the PISA score of a lot of countries and we see the US in a very bad position

The whole premise is broken. While USA's PISA scores may be far from impressing, that is mostly because the American educational system is fighting a different battle than its counterparts in other countries. When you put them on the same battlefield (by correcting for demographics, immigration), it has nothing to be ashamed of: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...