Diane Ravitch quotes Fareed Zakaria”
“In truth, though, the United States has never done well on international tests, and they are not good predictors of our national success. Since 1964, when the first such exam was administered to 13-year-olds in 12 countries, America has lagged behind its peers, rarely rising above the middle of the pack and doing particularly poorly in science and math. And yet over these past five decades, that same laggard country has dominated the world of science, technology, research and innovation.”
Sweden and Israel have poor scores on the same tests, yet are high on investment, entrepreneurship, and innovation. There are characteristics that are more important than test scores:
“They are flexible. Their work cultures are non-hierarchical and merit-based. All operate like young countries, with energy and dynamism. All three are open societies, happy to let in the world’s ideas, goods and services. And people in all three nations are confident — a characteristic that can be measured.”
What Zakaria does not mention in this quote is that Sweden does not have tons of poor kids – I don’t know about Israel – and we do have whole regions of the country that think dinosaurs were ridden by cavemen and those parts of the country write their own curriculum but are also tested. Is that fair?
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