America Leads the World in Nonsensical Comparisons: What Really Matters?
Efforts to improve our schools have always been spurred on by comparisons between our nation and others, which usually find us somewhere in the middle of the pack. In the 1950s the Russians were winning the space race because Ivan studied 12 hours a day, while his American counterpart goofed off at the soda parlor. In 1983, once again, the nation was "at risk" because we had allowed our standards to fall so low.
More recently we have heard the alarm sounded as a result of our performance on the PISA, where we once again find ourselves in the middle of the pack.
But as I shared a few weeks ago, we are at the very bottom of international rankings when it comes to child