Education Spin

Quality of education in this country varies widely, even within in the same state. I completed a teacher certification program four years ago, but decided not to go into that field. In the process of being certified, I observed several different classrooms in different schools. Needless to say, the wealthier communities are supporting better schools, the middleclass communities have mediocre schools, and the poor are crammed into dumps. That's what you call an "obervational study," so take it for what its worth.

This is just another example of politics. If you want something passed, make sure you emphasize all of the negatives, maybe even embellish a few, hoping people will just take your word for it. Then, when your initiative passes, you can turn around and say "see, things aren't so bad." Witness the political theater that has been unfolding right before our very eyes over the economy in the last month.

If you support these core initiatives:

-Effective, empowered teachers and school leaders;
-Student assessments that stress 21st century skills;
-Universal access to high-quality early education;
-A safe, healthy learning environment; and
-Affordable college for all students,

Then let President Obama know! Visit EDVOTERS.ORG and sign the petition today!

You mean Barry was being disengenious regarding the actual education system?? Nah....he promised change..... :).

If you support these core initiatives:

-Effective, empowered teachers and school leaders;
-Student assessments that stress 21st century skills;
-Universal access to high-quality early education;
-A safe, healthy learning environment; and
-Affordable college for all students,

Then let President Obama know! Visit EDVOTERS.ORG and sign the petition today!

I just did a quick Google search ans the below is right, may I advise the author to do the same:
If you are fact checking, you might want to bother to get your facts straight - TIMSS is not an NCES project but a project sponsored by dozens of countries around the world and led by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educatonal Achievement (IEA) (http://www.iea.nl/). Further, we are statistically significantly lower in mathematics achievement than 5 (just 5) other countries: Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. In a statistical sense, this means that we have tied for 6th place. Not mentioned by anyone is that we are in 11th place (absolute) in 4th grade mathematics and, after considering the statistical significance, we are tied for 9th place with the Netherlands, Lithuania, Germany and Denmark.

I don't know about the accuracy of the percentages and comparisons in this article, but I do know that the bright little fifth grader who lives across the street from me has been on the A - B honor roll since I've known her and she always aces the FCAT. And yet, this bright little girl knows that 3 x 4 = 7, 5 x 9 = 14, etc. I admit that I learned the multiplication tables a lifetime ago, but even my children learned them in the second grade.

So I have to wonder if the reported percentages haven't been fudged just a bit by eliminating things our children have to know to survive in the world.

It looks to me like the author of this piece also did some "cherry picking" to try to argue with Obama's point.
I find it interesting how there are these statement "if you look at this study Obama's right, but if you look at THAT study he is only half right" that's more like coconut picking by the author, let look at the illiteracy rates between industrialized countries and see where we stand, let look at TIMMS and consider the amount of money we spend on education in contrast to other countries and see if we are able to compete.
The author needs to watch Jay Leno's Tonight Show and see the sort of boobs we turn out with a college degree.

I have seen American College educated people in first year classes in Europe struggling to keep up with simple class assignments, because there is a higher standard requirement in Western Europe schools, where the average College educated American is the equivalent of a Western European High schooler. Americans tend to shine after "Masters Degree matriculation".

Why don't we hireWall Street CEO types as teachers. They could run the educational system further in the ditch while awarding themselves big bonuses. They could then shill for the chamber of commerce in the process. It would be one way the increase teacher pay! We wouldn't want to risk losing these geniuses who worked such mircles in the private sector.

The only reason that this story is even mildly noteworthy is that President Obama promised this visceral change from past politics. This review of his claims just adds more evidence that the change promised was a campaign ploy to a people who were so disparate that they wanted...needed...to believe. We should not be surprised. We still have a politician heading our government. We will always have a politician heading our government. Politicians always lie and cheat and steal. We get what we deserve. Why do you think that Congress exempted themselves from the RICO statutes? That is the only piece of honest legislation that they ever passed...at least they admitted their vulnerability and honestly protected themselves.

"Figures lie and liars figure"

I am a student and let me tell you, the education system sucks. This "No Child Left Behind" crap is the worst thing that's ever happened to the schools. It penalizes schools that don't have the money for good educations and makes the kids take continuously monotonous tests that are a waste of time. We need to start a year round school system that gives smaller breaks more frequently so that kids are continuously learning and expanding instead of letting their knowledge decay over the summer and then wasting 2 months at the beginning of the school year relearning half of what they should already know. We need to start pushing kids to strive to excel and push themselves to take harder courses instead of coasting by on the basics because they are too lazy to do anything else. I understand that there are lots of kids who struggle in areas like math and reading because I was one of them (I hate math), but I look around at school and I mostly see kids who take easy classes so that they don't have homework or because they just don't care. So then school districts waste money funding really basic "Slacker" courses which takes away from AP, or IB courses. I think that if Obama wants to fix the education system he needs to talk o the people who know more about it than the people who sit on Capitol Hill all day looking at surveys and test scores.
Test scores don't tell you jack about what schools are like. Obama needs to put together a group of High School and College students that would be like ambassadors from their States who will work together with Congress to generate some good and plausible ideas for this country. This is not only good for Washington to actually get a real perspective on what student life is like, but also a great opportunity for students who are interested in government and politics.

To say that Obama "throws trillions of dollars" at anything is a ludicrous statement. Before Bush started his presidency, our country had a surplus, and after, we have a severe deficit and an economic crisis. He was the one throwing money we didn't have to spend in order to fight a war that wasn't ours to fight.

The president lied! Impeach him! Impeach him! Oh wait, it's ok if it's Obama.

Scumbama isn't so good at math either... He doesn't know how much money a Trillion tax payer dollars is. He throws Trillions of dollars he does NOT have, at problems he helped create.

This is an insightful article. Great research and balanced narrative. I happen to believe that the president is somewhat justified in his attempt to whip up people into work with these gloomy stats. But I applaud you for calling him out and showing the complete stats for critical minded people to do their own analysis and take their own conclusion.
Could you convince you colleagues from the financial and political news desks the next time we face unrealistic boom (always ahead of a recession) or a drum up to go to war (let;s not name names)?

If Obama's embellishment makes the country realize that there absolutely needs to be serious improvement to the public education system, then I completely support it. People need to realize just how important education is and just how UNimportant state wide testing is. No Child Left Behind is perhaps the biggest joke that has ever been imposed on the educational system and I'm personally glad that the Obama administration is working to fix it.