Based upon the Petrilli & Scull study for the Fordham Institute, “the U.S. actually produces more high achievers than any other OECD country in math and reading.” Unfortunately, the study also reported that, “the U.S. produces more low achieving students than any other OECD country as well.” (b)
We will probably find most readers are only concerned about the latter. Some speculation about the reasons for the latter are provided in Langley’s article.
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First, “children from underprivileged families hear about 30 million fewer words by the age of 3 than children from privileged families. This word gap leads to substantially different vocabulary development…”
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Second, “Poverty also adds more stress on children, and stress has a negative effect on working memory and consequently hinders concentrated learning.”
Third, less privileged students “often receive fewer resources than their richer peers.” According to the OECD, the United States is one of only a handful of OECD nations that spends more educational dollars on its privileged population than on its underprivileged population.
Fourth, “underprivileged students in the U.S. are also less likely to have access to better-qualified full-time teachers.”
Fifth, and most unfortunate, “Americans often subscribe to the notion that talent is generally the result of inheritance as opposed to an outcome of hard work. The result of this notion is a reduction in expectations of students from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds.”
Some of these problems are more easily addressed than others. But all should be acknowledged and understood, if we wish to create resolutions.
(a) http://langleyeducator.weebly.com/uploads/1/5/3/1/1531550/when_talking_education_april_26_2013.pdf
(b) (Petrilli, M. J., & Scull, J. (2011, March). American achievement in international perspective. Retrieved from Thomas B. Fordham Institute website: http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2011/20110315_EdShorts_PISA/PISA_final.pdf)