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Thursday, August 25, 2011

International Rankings That Reformers Ignore: The Children Left Behind | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

International Rankings That Reformers Ignore: The Children Left Behind | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

International Rankings That Reformers Ignore: The Children Left Behind

If there is one drumroll that most Americans recognize it is the familiar chord reformers have played for three decades: U.S. students score perform poorly compared to other countries in math, science, and other academic subjects. The familiar thrum drives the foot-tapping rhythm that reformers have used again and again to show that Shanghai, Seoul, Bangalore and Singapore graduates will out-innovate and out-compete U.S. ones. So the drumbeat over international rankings drumbeat gets played repeatedly.

Largely ignored by many current reformers, however, is the 2010 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)