Shanghaied!

2 Replies to “Shanghaied!”

1. Average score, reading literacy, PISA, 2009:
   [United States, Asian students 541]
   Korea 539
   Finland 536
   [United States, white students 525]
   Canada 524
   New Zealand 521
   Japan 520
   Australia 515
   Netherlands 508
   Belgium 506
   Norway 503
   Estonia 501
   Switzerland 501
   Poland 500
   Iceland 500
   United States (overall) 500
   Sweden 497
   Germany 497
   Ireland 496
   France 496
   Denmark 495
   United Kingdom 494
   Hungary 494
   OECD average 493
   Portugal 489
   Italy 486
   Slovenia 483
   Greece 483
   Spain 481
   Czech Republic 478
   Slovak Republic 477
   Israel 474
   Luxembourg 472
   Austria 470
   [United States, Hispanic students 466]
   Turkey 464
   Chile 449
   [United States, black students 441]
   Mexico 425

2. “… the contrast of the U.S. scores with Shanghai’s is not totally appropriate: It is comparing the entire U.S. population — including many who are on free or reduced-price lunches — with China’s cream of the crop, the Shanghai kids.

   Even more important, but far less-known, is that in Shanghai, as in most other Chinese cities, the rural migrant workers that are the true urban working poor (totaling about 150 million in the country), are not allowed to send their kids to public high schools in the city. This is engineered by the discriminatory hukou or household registration system, which classifies them as “outsiders.” Those teenagers will have to go back home to continue education, or drop out of school altogether.

   In other words, the city has 3 to 4 million working poor, but its high-school system conveniently does not need to provide for the kids of that segment. In essence, the poor kids are purged from Shanghai’s sample of 5,100 students taking the tests. The Shanghai sample is the extract of China’s extract. A fairer play would be to ask kids at [Alice Deal, Lafayette, Sidwell Friends, NCS, or St. Alban’s*] to race against Shanghai’s kids.”

   http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2013808513_guest03chan.html

   Moral:
   Don’t let the facts get in your way of your narrative.