MBAE to Wage Campaign to Raise Student Achievement
November 7, 2013Transition to New College and Career Ready Assessments Has Begun
December 23, 2013
A lot of ink has been spilled recently about the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results released earlier this month. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Florida took the 2012 test as if these states were countries, so we have comparisons of how our 15-year olds compare to their peers around the world. The news for the Commonwealth is mixed.
Not surprisingly, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education emphasized the positive in its press release – pointing out that Massachusetts students led the nation with an average of 527 in reading literacy compared to the U.S. average of 498, Connecticut’s 521 and Florida’s 492. We even beat the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 496 for all students who took the exam. Similarly, theBoston Globe proclaimed “Mass. Students Excel on Global Examinations” with the subtitle “15 year olds top most other systems”.
Once you get past the glowing headlines and the strong comparisons that are highlighted, you’ll find there are some serious causes for concern. Primary among these for Massachusetts is a weak showing on math and science. The Globe article acknowledges,
“Indeed, the gaps between Massachusetts and the highest-performing systems were quite wide. In math, Massachusetts scored 514 points, 99 points lower than Shanghai, the top scorer. In science, Massachusetts trailed Shanghai, the top scorer again, 527 points to 580 points on a 1,000-point scale.
The divide shows the challenges Massachusetts faces in developing a larger and more highly skilled workforce as the state competes globally to attract businesses in the sciences and emerging technologies.”
In a column titled “Can’t We Do Better?”, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman confirms, “The math results of top-performer Shanghai are now two-and-a-half school years ahead even of those in Massachusetts…”
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s statement is worth reading. He said the results “must serve as a wake-up call against educational complacency and low expectations”. In other remarks, he called out Massachusetts for its gap in math and science:
“In math, 19 percent of Massachusetts’ students are high-performers. But in Shanghai, in China’s top-performing system, 55 percent of students—almost triple Massachusetts’ rate—are high-performers in math.
In science, the gap between Massachusetts and top-performing systems is not as wide but it’s still large. In Massachusetts, 14 percent of 15-years olds are high-performers in science; in Shanghai, 27 percent are.”
This “top talent” gap is of great concern to MBAE and is a focus of the work we are doing as part of our New Opportunity to Lead campaign. As Secretary Duncan pointed out, “The PISA results underscore that educational shortcomings in the U.S. are not just the problems of other people’s children.”
Read more about the PISA results in The Atlantic: The Best Educated Generation in American History Isn’t Educated Enough
Watch the video of discussion moderated by Fareed Zakariah on CNN with Thomas Friedman, Sal Khan, Joel Klein, and Wendy Kopp