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Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance
How states rank in improving student acheivement
The United States is making only "middling, not stellar" gains in closing the international student achievement gap, says a new Harvard report.
States are not progressing evenly and school-reform efforts and increased education spending are not necessarily paying off, say the authors of “Achievement Growth: International and U.S. State Trends in Student Performance.”
Officials in several states called the study’s results a wake-up call.
Among key findings:
- While 24 countries trail the U.S. rate of improvement, another 24 countries appear to be improving at a faster rate. U.S. progress is not sufficiently rapid to allow it to catch up with the leaders of the industrialized world.
- U.S. test-score performance has improved annually at a rate of about 1.6 percent over 14 years but students in three countries -- Latvia, Chile, and Brazil -- improved at an annual rate of 4 percent, and students in another eight countries -- Portugal, Hong Kong, Germany, Poland, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Colombia, and Lithuania -- gained at twice the rate of U.S. students. Gains made by students in those 11 countries are estimated to be at least two years’ worth of learning.
- Student performance in nine countries -- Sweden, Bulgaria, Thailand, the Slovak and Czech Republics, Romania, Norway, Ireland, and France -- declined over the same 14-year time period
- The top state improvements were seen in Maryland, followed by Florida and Delaware. Also among the top 10 states that outpaced the U.S. as a whole are Massachusetts, Louisiana, South Carolina, New Jersey, Kentucky, Arkansas and Virginia.
- The slowest rate of improvement was in Iowa followed by Maine, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Nebraska. (Nine states that did not participate in early National Assessment of Educational Progress tests were left out of the Harvard study: Alaska, Illinois, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington.)
- In most states, a rising tide lifted all boats. States with the largest gains in average student performance also tend to see the greatest reduction in the percentage of students performing below the basic level.
Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance
Do you know as much as an eighth-grader?
The report warns that because rates of economic growth impact the future well-being of the nation, there is a simple message: "A country ignores the quality of its schools at its economic peril.”
Related: Chicago's big school deal: Longer days for kids, hundreds more teachers
In Iowa, a statement on the website for Linda Fandel, Republican Gov. Terry Branstad’s special assistant for education, said the Harvard study “is more evidence that Iowa must shake off complacency and build a consensus for how to give our students a globally competitive education.” The study also “should lend a sense of urgency” for discussions scheduled Aug. 3 on “how to better use the talents of outstanding educators to improve instructional practices and raise achievement”
Robert F. Bukaty / AP, file
Maine Gov. Paul LePage
In Maine, the study set off a controversy between Republican Gov. Paul LePage and educators.
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“Clearly, the status quo in education is not working,” LePage said in a prepared statement. “Test scores in Maine are stagnant while other states are making progress. In fact, while Maine spent $4,000 more per student from 1990 to 2009 -- well above the average for the states -- student achievement gains were the second worst in the country … Our public school system is failing and we are allowing it to happen.”
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The Maine School Management Association responded that LePage ignored “some facts on student achievement … most notably that students here are achieving well above the national average,” the Bangor Daily News reported. Maine eighth-graders rank among the nation’s top 10 states, and only five outscore Maine eighth-graders in science, the association said.
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Leave a Comment:
Further proof that more money spent on education does not equate with increases in learning or in higher test scores. We as a country have consistently outspent other countries per student and have dissappointing results to show for it.
So cuts in spending on education have NOT been the problem.
Does anyone else think dramatic change in the national focus on education is needed now; immediately? Congress needs to wake up and realize that they are Americans first (not Democrats and Republicans).
The unemployment rate in my state is over 8%, and yet the 'high tech' companies which have Technology R&D and electronics production facilities here are going to India and Singapore and Korea to recruit engineers (they aren't hiring the unemployed American engineers because of their generally inferior academic credentials vs. those educated in Asia). What is wrong with this picture, folks?
Once the US academically 'loses' a generation, we're toast. We'll never catch up because the 'lost generation' will also be the generation which will make future decisions about education, ...and ignorance feeds on ignorance.
If American society doesn't get serious soon about placing education 'first' among many priorities for this nation, the Chinese and Indians are going to eat our lunch, and relegate the economic power of the United States to the dust bin of history.
The survey was improvement but not overall quality of the education. Louisiana is on the list but it also ranks third worst in public schools in the country. What is required is not showing "improvement" but test scores from all the states against test scores from other countries.
This is not surprising. The study cited in the story above measured improvement by students, and was done by Harvard. The study you cite measured money spent per student and was done for the teacher's union.
This BULL$HIT still doesn't & won't put food on the table & gas in the cars of the 99% American People! Before we can make HONEST GAINS IN EDUCATION, we need to FIRST REMOVE CORRUPTION from out political system and SECONDLY, GET BACK TO A TRUE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT and then, AND ONLY THEN are our children ever going to catch up with the international children! The corrupt Republican corporate MONARCHY keeps taking away from the 99% American People, until now, their only recourse is SURVIVAL! Until we solve this MAJOR ISSUE, we are heading the WRONG WAY! The rise & fall of the Roman Empire ALL OVER AGAIN! CORRUPTION AT ITS FINEST! UNCONTROLLED Capitalism WILL NOT work, CANNOT work and WILL NEVER work for the 99% American People and their children! It will continue to work, BUT, ONLY FOR THE ONE-PERCENTERS until each time there is NO MORE MONEY TO STEAL from the 99%, then it's back into DEPRESSION! So, until we can solve this MAJOR ISSUE, we will continue with the corruption until we repeat the Roman Empire's cycle of death! Too much for the 1% and NONE for the 99%! Mr. Harvard, like exlax ETCH-A-SKETCH, you are OUT OF TOUCH with the 99% American People!
Better learn your history. We're not a democracy, we're functionally a republic. and that "corrupt" political system was put there BY The 99%, or at least 51% of you. Before you jump in and try and blame all the problems of this country on the "1%" you should probably realize that your as much the problem as anyone else.
I know that parents are stretched to the breaking point these days, but it is a parent's responsibility to turn out productive citizens and educated workers who have a chance in this increasingly difficult economy. Involve yourselves in your children's education, get to know your children's teachers, sit at the kitchen table with them at night while they do their homework, and make sure that your kids are developing good study skills. If they are not academically inclined, then teach them a trade at home, or connect them to a friend that can teach them, and they can at least have that skill to develop or fall back on. Give them something. In short, do your kids a favor and PARENT them. We live in a very modest home, on one income, in a rural area with more cows than people, and our high schooler has a 3.75 GPA, and is writing a science book this summer. He has had some excellent teachers along the way, but a parent is the best teacher of all.
Our education is improving, but it is not enough. American students do not study hard. If they spend more time on study, they will make more progress. They spend too much time on social life.
Separation of education and state is the key.
Educators are interested in teaching for testing, unions and their jobs.
Politicians are busy in getting re-elected.
Students in the end do not learn much.
I am quite appalled that the lack of basic understanding of the education systems in other countries by the Harvard researchers. The education system in the US is a very different animal, that being that all students are included in the testing, even those with learning disabilities or difficulties. Those students tests are scored equally with "normal" and "excelling" students. However in many European countries, such as Germany, students are separated out, those with the skills for college into a separate track from those who don't. So what the study fails to quantify, or even recognize, is that you are comparing our entire student population against the the BEST of the students in many European countries.
To those who want to slam teachers.....i think you should realize that outside of big cities, where the unions control wages and conditions, teachers are pathetically paid and are doing the job out of love for the profession and a true interest in trying to educate our youth. Would you work a 14 hour day, 6 days a week with a Masters degree for $32,000 a year? Oh yeah, and have to worry every day that if some parent got upset that you didn't treat their little Johnny just they way they wanted they could go cry to the school board and you probably would have a job the next year? THAT is what's wrong with the education system, not that teachers aren't high quality!