Also...has anyone considered that US students don't give a shit about ungraded standardized tests and don't always try their hardest on them? As a teacher, I see this all the time on state tests. High school kids are pretty rational, ruthlessly so. Whatever test we're using to assess their baseline knowledge is one that many of them know has no bearing on their lives. I do not think this attitude is as prevalent in Asian countries
When my state started requiring the ACT for graduation, but did not impose a minimum passing score, the average state ACT score dropped 2 (or 3? don't remember) full points. Shocking!
Uh, doesn’t priority setting involve applying more energy to the things that matter more? A kid may care about their grades and getting into college—and put their energy into those things—without caring a bit about an anonymous test that reflects on their school and district, not themselves.
You’re making a judgment about what matters more. If the school conveyed to the students that this particular test does matter - perhaps by factoring it into grades - they would likewise treat it as something that matters. Other countries obviously have figured out how to do that.
So, the fact that they don't make an effort on a test that doesn't affect their grades is a sign of poor character, and we should fix that by... making it affect their grades?
If so, the proper training, the largely self-motivated approach to the task at hand, is rooted in something deeper for a high school student who is capable of understanding that the activity is superfluous on a personal level. A K-6 kid may do it for their teacher. An 8-12 kid who pushes themselves may well need something more. It’s good to see that, but it’s not a simple indicator of an individual student’s prospects overall. When there are real stakes in play and they know it the response is different, invariably stronger.
It’s not just that the attitude isn’t as prevalent. In Japan (and I believe several other East Asian countries) the stakes for performance on standardized tests are much higher. In the US, SAT/ACT scores are at best one of several factors determining admission to college, while state-level standardized tests (I think we had the MEAP when I was a student in Michigan) don’t factor at all in many cases. In Japan, the college entrance exam is literally the one thing that determines where you go to college. So of course students focus much harder on standardized test performance there!
Totally agree. What many folks refuse to acknowledge is that academic ability is just one part of the equation. The US produces so many brilliant people due to our unique cultural characteristics, i.e., strong belief in self (rational or irrational), ingenuity, adaptability, artistic nature, etc. So, even if we're not at the top of the world in rote academics, the unique individual expression we allow to flourish in our society grants a freedom of thought that is unmatched around the world. Academics are one piece of modern human success, and it is not as large a piece as folks want to believe. There are so many gifts that students in the US receive that cannot be taught.
When I was in high school, 20 years ago, so many students figured out that the state assessment did not matter that they started offering monetary incentives just to show up for the test (let alone to actually try). In my year, they gave up on it and just paid for us all to take the SAT, and used those scores for the state.
Nothing will change. The odds are overwhelming given his family and geographic profile that he'll do quite well, and rates of schoolyard violence are absolutely miniscule. That's an argument from DATA, Judy.
My two brothers and I went to suburban public schools (50% non-white) and state colleges. We all retired in our 50s with top 5% wealth. All six of our kids are in (or went to) public schools and state colleges. They all crush. It's not the schools.
"One more time", "many times before" ... yeah. So, about that.
Freddie, old chum, take this in the spirit of positive criticism:
Could you resist the urge to recycle the same five or six things constantly on this blog? The updates, such as they are, are incredibly minor. Is there anything you haven't written about 10 or 11 times prior that you think we could look forward to .... ?
No, it really doesn't. And the minor updates of "the AI hype is unwarranted" piece and "the current state of mental health discourse is bad" piece, "technology is not really advancing piece" ... you get the idea.
I can relate. You have responsbilities now you didn't have a few years ago. That's a good thing! But you got those opportunities because you were putting more work into the content than you seem to be doing now. Pieces like these feel mailed in. You're capable of more. We know! It's why we pay to subscribe.
Sorry to hear that you are bored. For me, some of the themes that Freddie has been pounding on are finally starting to sink in. Repetition is an important factor in education!
Yes, it really does. He did not repeat himself. He brought up new information. But your head is stuck firmly up your ass, so I guess there's no reason to expect much in the way of rational thought.
Clevelander here! My spouse and I, both college professors, actively chose to send our daughter to the Cleveland metro schools (we live in an inner-ring suburb and also looked at those schools and at the parochial school attached to our church). So far, we love it.
In fact, I have noticed that literally all my academic friends in greater Cleveland (and most of my academic friends elsewhere in the county) choose to send their kids to public schools—though usually that means Shaker Heights, Solon, and other suburbs. The same is not nearly as true of our other white, professional-class friends & acquaintances.
Maybe that’s selection bias (we’re friends with people more like us, or we feel subtle pressure—having had our child quite late—to follow our friends’ examples). And maybe we all have more confidence about our ability to provide our kids with whatever might be lacking in a given school. But I think there’s also something to having taught thousands of young people that makes a person more relaxed about the various ways that kids get to college—and keenly aware how unpredictable intellectual development is. Some 29-year-olds are pretty much what you’d expect, based on their promise or potential at eighteen. Some are utterly transformed.
I'm a retired academic who knows mostly other academics, for better and worse... The middle-class obsession with which college your children will attend always struck me as kind of crass and silly. I used to wonder if it was because I was a Midwesterner living in New England. But as far as I can tell, my academic friends felt the same way as I did. Maybe it's because they know that there are wonderful and awful faculty at every college. (But isn't it just like a professor to think that college is about the professors?)
Yes, and I think the academic job market—you’ll go wherever there’s a job—has reinforced this. Very few of us are in locations we would specifically have chosen or at elite institutions (or sometimes even institutions we previously knew existed), and yet we have wonderful students and colleagues. It really challenges the kind of snobbish, meritocratic beliefs often typical among those of our class.
For the US, the world’s lone superpower, to be 37th in math, with a below average score, is indeed a crisis under any reasonable definition of the term.
We ARE the world’s lone superpower. I mean, sure, throw in China if you want but that just makes the crisis more obvious - they clean our clocks in stem.
You’re just attacking me. Attack my point. What’s your problem with it? Do you disagree that we’re the lone superpower? A quick google search will confirm (even if you don’t accept that it’s common knowledge)? Or do you think it’s perfectly fine for the US to test below average in math and, if so, why?
Dude, do you realize how self-absorbed you sound? Why do you care about the US being a superpower, let alone the lone one? Or does such a question fly over your head?
I have been saying this for years to anyone who will listen. I've taught science in a well-to-do suburb in Ohio for 24 years now. Our best and brightest are still the best and brightest in the world. Our average students are competitive globally.
The narrative of our schools failing has been pushed purposely to help the attack on public education and the tax dollars they receive.
Yes, education is changing. Yes, there are school districts that need serious help, way more than a school can possibly provide. This only points to a failing system if one is willing to purposely misconstrue stats to make a predetermined argument.
Worth noting that an estimated 1.7 billion dollars was spent on standardized testing last year.
This is estimated actual dollars and does not include things like disruptions, lost instructional time, and stress on students.
There are two main reasons this narrative has been pushed, the testing industry and privatization of schools to extract tax dollars.
If you add in the curriculum support materials prepared by the standardized testing companies who are also the textbook companies, that number is much larger, and it all flows to the same place. Which is why teachers still have to buy their own classroom pencils and, most importantly, why the cost per student at a public school is so high.
Wow. This is interesting. I am going to pause and re-read again. There are not many topics this important that I run into compelling information and arguments counter to what I think I already know. This appears to be one.
We live in a large school district. The school district has lost 20% of its students over the last 10 years while doubling in budget. Most of those tens of thousands of students went to charter or private schools. Meanwhile the district administration doubled in size.
The primary reason parents give up on their local school is the failure to ditching discipline the students who engage in most of the disruptions. Obama era "restorative justice" still lingers around, though it it's gradually getting addressed.
My kids go to public school. Our local school is highly rated and parents move to the area to get their kids in the schools. The teachers are not special, but the parents are motivated and involved. The school gets about half the funding of inner city schools.
Fix the discipline issue and fix the schools. Remove disruptive kids from these schools.
My small school district as a kid had an alternative high school for disruptive kids. Our current school district used to have one as well. Time to bring that back.
I do think overall comprehension and understanding are down. Common Core negatively impacted math, among other things.
I am not a fan of charters, but they are spreading because of school district failures.
Believe it. Big city corrupt district. Spending millions on rebuilding schools that are not needed. Parents pulling their kids from troubled schools. Charters getting more and more from the state legislature.
I'll agree and disagree here. Parents send their kids to a school they believe is safe for their kids, not necessarily one where all the kids are geniuses. That doesn't mean physically safe, per se, (although it can), but emotionally safe, safe from constant disruptions, safe in the sense that the administration and teachers won't let issues fester and will address them head-on. Large urban school districts DO need to get that under control. I know because I work in one.
However, in cities where there are a lot of charters, vouchers, etc., it's been impossible for them to scale academic success. So, even though they've been at a school with strict discipline and finally been "allowed to learn," there's been no real academic movement. Charters may solve the discipline issue on the surface, but it's done next to nothing for the students' academic ability. It's perfectly rational to say, "I want my kids to be in a safe school." However, saying, "I want my kids to be in a safe school, so they can finally learn," has shown to be impossible at a population level after 30+ years of trying.
I think you’re on to something very important with parents’ desire for “safety” on many levels.
My 9-year-old came home the other day with a beautiful photo of himself holding one of the chicks his class and the class next door had hatched this spring in their hallway. . . in his heavily boosted, decent-test scores elementary school in a “failing” urban district. (It’s where we wanted to live, it’s where we could afford. It’s where we thought we’d get along with people and could always walk to at least one decent slice. And we were right.)
When I saw him smiling with the chick, I thought, “I don’t really care that they waste his time and their/our tax dollars on iReady; he feels safe and engaged.” He loved those chicks and, almost entirely because he’s a run-of-the-mill bright PMC kiddo, he now knows a lot more about chicken lifecycles and how to build scientific understanding of something you care about.
I think most of the kids at his public school are being given the opportunity, “are allowed”, to learn. . . to each of their quite diverse potentials. I do not think that that magically means everyone’s potential at his school is above average for his district, his state, his country, or the world. That’s a mathematically impossible standard to hold a safe and engaging school to! It’s especially bonkers given any socioeconomic diversity beyond pure private school. And yet I know people that hold our kids’ school to that raise-all-boats standard and, even less fairly, judge far less socioeconomically stable and safe schools for not achieving safety and engagement (no matter how much money and good will we throw their way).
How can so many people that first really began to understand statistics calculating their own qualification for National Honors Society or likelihood of acceptance to selective institutions fail to understand the role socioeconomics play in school performance?
The best I can figure is that it has something to do with the liberal PMC questing for the “intact” middle-class values and minds of the other classes of people with whom they are in current political coalition (mostly under and working classes but also including some genuinely rich but dumb hippies). Because we’ve been living in an only partial sham of a meritocracy for around a century now. . . class and intelligence have become more tightly correlated in some areas and ways. The way we doctor test scores and dance around selection bias, you guys, I think we’re pulling a society-level Mary Brown 😬
I relate hard to this post, as someone whose kid is absolutely thriving in a warm, wonderful elementary school that happens to be part of the Cleveland public schools--which per Freddie's post is one of the worst districts in the nation. I too hate iReady and the fact that my kid got an iPad in kindergarten, and I sometimes envy the paper-and-pencil instructional methods that a lot of our private schools have already moved toward. But honestly, that's all I envy them.
I can't predict the future, and it's possible that my thinking will change as she approaches high school. But for our family, the values that our kid gets from an urban public school (both the ones explicitly taught and the ones implicitly conveyed, just by her going there and our enthusiasm for the school) matter much more than any of the supposed advantages of a private school.
"For the record, sometimes when I refer to these accomplishments I get readers commenting “Well, if you look up those teams, they’re all Asian!” Which, number one, no they’re not all Asian."
Of course they're largely Asian. But as you say, so what if they were?
Keep in mind that the United States has a magnetic attraction for immigrants. Not just the kind that are trying to escape something, but the kind that are seeking to make something or improve their lot and see the United States as the place where they can do that.
When they have children, many of those immigrant parents ride their kids like ponies. We've all see it - not necessarily the international science olympian, but the kid of fairly commonplace natural intellect and curiosity, who gets straight As, high test scores, etc. because his parents will accept nothing less.
That's not a slam. Not at all.
EDIT: I should have added that, if the Shanghai Rankings are to be believed, the US is also overall dominant in universities, and US universities attract a LOT of foreign students, many of whom stay. Needless to say, that will be a disproportionately motivated population, academically speaking.
Let me start by saying that I agree with FdB's basic point on education: that school "quality" is just a reflection of student quality (not teachers or pedagogy), which in turn reflects social and economic conditions of the surrounding area. High rates of poverty, crime, homelessness, etc. are not problems that schools can solve, but they are the reason why students at those schools cannot perform. Therefore, we cannot blame "bad schools" or the US education system for overall mediocre results, even though, as the data shows, the results are not as mediocre as the media claims. In other words, schools don't really matter much.
Let me also say that I disagree with FdB's previously stated solution to the underlying social and economic problems, namely communism. I've lived that reality and am astonished that serious people in the West still claim in this day and age that North Korea or Cuba are the way to go! If you want to lift people out of poverty, do what Singapore did. FdB unwisely dismisses Singapore as too small and wealthy, but it is a diverse place whose wealth was generated over several decades through hard work, wise leadership and social and economic policies that promoted growth, stability, the rule of law, and openness to the capitalist world system. Certainly not communism!
And now my main point about this article: FdB says American students are doing fine overall and he gives credit for this to American schools, even though his main argument about education is that schools don't matter much! Sorry FdB, you can't have it both ways. Either schools matter, or they don't. If schools don't matter, let's look at the students, as FdB himself might do if he were to follow his own advice. After all, don't people on the left constantly look for patterns of identity by race, gender, ethnicity, etc.?
For example, who is on those American teams that dominate the International Math Olympiad? Here are the 2023, 2024 and 2025 rosters:
Based on the names, it's mostly (and sometimes exclusively) kids of Chinese immigrant families, it would seem. Team China, by the way, has won the IMO 25 times in 39 appearances, compared to 9 times in 50 appearances for Team USA. So, are the American IMO teams the product of American schools, or the product of Chinese immigrant work ethic and commitment to educational excellence?
I really think the fixation on relative performance is missing the point. Like if someone developed a new method for training long jumpers and was proposing to use it on the US Olympic team, it would seem really weird to say, "But the US Olympic team can already jump much farther than anyone else on the planet!" Similarly, even if the US is the single best place at teaching gifted and talented students, that does not mean there aren't ways to teach them better.
I know that people historically have been focused on relative performance, and that's reflected in the criticisms you address, but I bet a lot of those people are actually concerned about absolute performance and are being imprecise. Like if my kid is not learning to read, I don't understand why I would be at all relieved to learn that many other kids are also not learning to read.
One of my Chinese colleagues, a first-generation immigrant US citizen, complained: "If my daughter does well in math, everyone says, 'Oh, of course -- she's Chinese.' There is nothing magical about being Chinese! It's selection bias. Do you know how hard it is to get out of China and into the US? Only the best of the best, the most talented AND most ambitious, manage to get here. If you go to China, and look at the Chinese people there -- they're just like the US kids."
Agreed! Of course it's not a Chinese thing, it's an immigrant work ethic and commitment to excellence thing. In this particular case, it happens to be Chinese immigrants.
I'm only third-generation Chinese American, and not only is math my weakest academic skill, I also flunked out of college repeatedly! To the extent they exist at all, racial bonuses don't overcome an innate dislike of formal education, and in many ways I suspect I'd have gotten better/more timely treatment for [mental health stuff] if I *hadn't* been Chinese. If one's culture prizes academic excellence, and you can still grind it out despite hating it and hating yourself...well, no one really cares as long as the A's keep coming. Not sustainable though - what's the point of chasing a piece of paper if it literally almost kills you? That too is one of the wonderful things about America, it's still eminently possible to build a fun and worthy life despite lacking formal qualifications for one's smarts and conscientiousness. (Although increasingly more difficult, sadly.)
I was a little surprised how much the last post shifted into a discussion of unions and "woke ideology". Kind of ironic in a post about the propaganda cycle.
For what it's worth, your writing on this topic has meaningfully impacted our decision-making. We're about 12-18 months from needing to make the kindergarten decision and are very strongly leading toward the local public school vs continuing with our private preschool or going to the local Friends school. When we consider the low impact of nominal school quality on lifetime outcomes the fact that our neighborhood school is perfectly safe and pleasant (we know plenty of families that send their kids there and they're all happy), we just can't even close to justify the cost of going private. It seemed like there were a handful of other Philly parents in that last thread who made the same decision and were happy with their choice, too.
So all to say, thank you for laying the research out so clearly over the past few years - our family at least has found it very helpful
As parents who just recently got off the expensive daycare/preschool treadmill, lemme tell you that you will LOVE having all that money in your pocket. We were almost certainly influenced to send our kid to an urban public school by the smart parents around us who were doing the same (and by the fact that I’m a K-12 public school alumna myself), but mostly it just seemed dumb to give up on the public schools preemptively, based on no first-hand experience. There’s plenty of time to make the switch if one’s kid turns out to not be getting their needs met.
I have no doubt, and it's a big part of our decision-making. We spend ~$20k annually on Montessori preschool right now, and while we love the school and it's only 2 blocks from our house, I look forward to repurposing that money toward other things. Even setting the money aside, we know so many families sending their kids there that our daughter will know some of her classmates from day 1 and we'll be walking into a community we already know. It's a great setup however we look at it
I’m old enough to remember when pointing out the evidence that elevated per pupil spending failing to deliver commensurate performance gains was a right wing talking point, so FdB aptly reiterating it is evidence of his consistent effort to remain credible and strengthens his other points as well.
As a career teacher I always followed the action - the endless froth over funding, American test scores, teachers unions, etc etc etc - but also always had more important, immediate things to attend to. That was never more true than when I transferred to an inner city high school in LA from one of its feeder middle schools.
It was undergoing a comprehensive makeover, largely under the auspices of a local NGO set-up by a former LA mayor (Villaraigosa) as a kind of public-private venture designed to preserve ultimate LAUSD sovereignty - including our labor contract - while the Partnership for LA Schools was responsible for teacher & admin hiring and a grab bag of other details. We were all district employees but the off-site PLAS staff were not and were heavily invested in the reigning Waiting for Superman, charter-school approach.
We came on board with the ambitious goal of being the best American teachers for the task - typical cheerleader stuff, a bit suspect under the circumstances. (As a vet I thought they might as well have upped the ante and established a loftier goal, the better to fit one of the faddish takes of the moment: why not the best teachers in the US and Finland, where our colleagues were so miraculously effective?) I guess the exhortation must’ve been deemed necessary, the boost we’d need to get by without a working copier for most of the first semester.
Ultimately PLAS was a mixed bag. They did attract some talent, and a woman who ran our in-services for years is now a LAUSD board member. I later had a side gig as a mentor for 3 years (in addition to my regular full teaching duties) and worked with her closely; she had some teaching experience - much as described, a few years in a middle school as a TFA hire - as well as solid academic credentials and delivered well on her duties. Meanwhile the school’s ongoing ‘reconstitution’ - a blanket term applied to every forlorn LAUSH high school where staff and faculty were forced to move-on or reapply for their job, as had happened at my new school - produced a mixed-bag of results.
But it ultimately outperformed the other on-campus option: a ‘co-located’ outfit run by one of the city’s biggest charter operators. They hung around for years, even eventually got the keys to a brand new 3-story building constructed at public expense, but never matched us, the other team playing alongside them with actual ties to LAUSD, in terms of enrollment, teacher experience and retention, or test scores. Despite efforts to canvas the neighborhood and persuade local families to enroll in their program (a move that typically included outright lies about us, the on-site competition), they floundered for years. At one point their graduation - of a sr. class of only 35 kids - had to be cut short because a fight broke out in the audience. The charter operator eventually gave up, closed up shop (they had a history of that in similar situations over a period of many years), and handed the keys back in, leaving the kids they ‘served’ to enroll in the school that was still functioning across the quad. Fortunately I had moved on by then after 7 years of aspiring to Finnish-levels of teaching efficacy in a south central LA school that had some history. That history includes a lot of ups and downs, strange twists and turns, and some amazing alumni: a Nobel laureate in chemistry, an Olympic all-star, and a jazz hall of famer, among others. Of course they were spread out across time. But bear all that in mind when you think about American public education and maybe extend the onus for Finnish-level performance to the General Staff level strategists who keep trying to impose staff-college level solutions on a contest that is decided on a tactical level by people -teachers - they routinely disregard.
Also...has anyone considered that US students don't give a shit about ungraded standardized tests and don't always try their hardest on them? As a teacher, I see this all the time on state tests. High school kids are pretty rational, ruthlessly so. Whatever test we're using to assess their baseline knowledge is one that many of them know has no bearing on their lives. I do not think this attitude is as prevalent in Asian countries
When my state started requiring the ACT for graduation, but did not impose a minimum passing score, the average state ACT score dropped 2 (or 3? don't remember) full points. Shocking!
ETA: It was a 3.3 point drop.
Those kids got dumber overnight!
Isn’t the fact that they don’t care evidence that they aren’t being properly trained?
No?
...no?
Why would 'proper training' involve max effort on a no-stakes examination?
Character building, something our schools are terrible at. If you don’t like that answer, how about priority setting.
Uh, doesn’t priority setting involve applying more energy to the things that matter more? A kid may care about their grades and getting into college—and put their energy into those things—without caring a bit about an anonymous test that reflects on their school and district, not themselves.
You’re making a judgment about what matters more. If the school conveyed to the students that this particular test does matter - perhaps by factoring it into grades - they would likewise treat it as something that matters. Other countries obviously have figured out how to do that.
So, the fact that they don't make an effort on a test that doesn't affect their grades is a sign of poor character, and we should fix that by... making it affect their grades?
If so, the proper training, the largely self-motivated approach to the task at hand, is rooted in something deeper for a high school student who is capable of understanding that the activity is superfluous on a personal level. A K-6 kid may do it for their teacher. An 8-12 kid who pushes themselves may well need something more. It’s good to see that, but it’s not a simple indicator of an individual student’s prospects overall. When there are real stakes in play and they know it the response is different, invariably stronger.
It’s not just that the attitude isn’t as prevalent. In Japan (and I believe several other East Asian countries) the stakes for performance on standardized tests are much higher. In the US, SAT/ACT scores are at best one of several factors determining admission to college, while state-level standardized tests (I think we had the MEAP when I was a student in Michigan) don’t factor at all in many cases. In Japan, the college entrance exam is literally the one thing that determines where you go to college. So of course students focus much harder on standardized test performance there!
Totally agree. What many folks refuse to acknowledge is that academic ability is just one part of the equation. The US produces so many brilliant people due to our unique cultural characteristics, i.e., strong belief in self (rational or irrational), ingenuity, adaptability, artistic nature, etc. So, even if we're not at the top of the world in rote academics, the unique individual expression we allow to flourish in our society grants a freedom of thought that is unmatched around the world. Academics are one piece of modern human success, and it is not as large a piece as folks want to believe. There are so many gifts that students in the US receive that cannot be taught.
When I was in high school, 20 years ago, so many students figured out that the state assessment did not matter that they started offering monetary incentives just to show up for the test (let alone to actually try). In my year, they gave up on it and just paid for us all to take the SAT, and used those scores for the state.
Write about schools again hen your son attends.
Nothing will change. The odds are overwhelming given his family and geographic profile that he'll do quite well, and rates of schoolyard violence are absolutely miniscule. That's an argument from DATA, Judy.
_That's an Argument from Data, Judy_, a TNG season 8 favorite
My daughters both attend. We love their schools. They attend large public schools in a suburban area in Ohio.
My two brothers and I went to suburban public schools (50% non-white) and state colleges. We all retired in our 50s with top 5% wealth. All six of our kids are in (or went to) public schools and state colleges. They all crush. It's not the schools.
"One more time", "many times before" ... yeah. So, about that.
Freddie, old chum, take this in the spirit of positive criticism:
Could you resist the urge to recycle the same five or six things constantly on this blog? The updates, such as they are, are incredibly minor. Is there anything you haven't written about 10 or 11 times prior that you think we could look forward to .... ?
I'm sorry but the dumbass comments on the last education post made this one necessary. If you don't like it take it up with your fellow commenters.
No, it really doesn't. And the minor updates of "the AI hype is unwarranted" piece and "the current state of mental health discourse is bad" piece, "technology is not really advancing piece" ... you get the idea.
I can relate. You have responsbilities now you didn't have a few years ago. That's a good thing! But you got those opportunities because you were putting more work into the content than you seem to be doing now. Pieces like these feel mailed in. You're capable of more. We know! It's why we pay to subscribe.
Sorry to hear that you are bored. For me, some of the themes that Freddie has been pounding on are finally starting to sink in. Repetition is an important factor in education!
Yes, it really does. He did not repeat himself. He brought up new information. But your head is stuck firmly up your ass, so I guess there's no reason to expect much in the way of rational thought.
Should you pay 100% for 50% recycled content?
Some in the USA will be upset so long as any other country scores higher on anything. We probably all know people like this.
Clevelander here! My spouse and I, both college professors, actively chose to send our daughter to the Cleveland metro schools (we live in an inner-ring suburb and also looked at those schools and at the parochial school attached to our church). So far, we love it.
In fact, I have noticed that literally all my academic friends in greater Cleveland (and most of my academic friends elsewhere in the county) choose to send their kids to public schools—though usually that means Shaker Heights, Solon, and other suburbs. The same is not nearly as true of our other white, professional-class friends & acquaintances.
Maybe that’s selection bias (we’re friends with people more like us, or we feel subtle pressure—having had our child quite late—to follow our friends’ examples). And maybe we all have more confidence about our ability to provide our kids with whatever might be lacking in a given school. But I think there’s also something to having taught thousands of young people that makes a person more relaxed about the various ways that kids get to college—and keenly aware how unpredictable intellectual development is. Some 29-year-olds are pretty much what you’d expect, based on their promise or potential at eighteen. Some are utterly transformed.
This is entirely to be expected: student academic outcomes are the product of students, not of schools or teachers.
I'm a retired academic who knows mostly other academics, for better and worse... The middle-class obsession with which college your children will attend always struck me as kind of crass and silly. I used to wonder if it was because I was a Midwesterner living in New England. But as far as I can tell, my academic friends felt the same way as I did. Maybe it's because they know that there are wonderful and awful faculty at every college. (But isn't it just like a professor to think that college is about the professors?)
Yes, and I think the academic job market—you’ll go wherever there’s a job—has reinforced this. Very few of us are in locations we would specifically have chosen or at elite institutions (or sometimes even institutions we previously knew existed), and yet we have wonderful students and colleagues. It really challenges the kind of snobbish, meritocratic beliefs often typical among those of our class.
For the US, the world’s lone superpower, to be 37th in math, with a below average score, is indeed a crisis under any reasonable definition of the term.
"For the US, the world's lone superpower"
Christ.....
We ARE the world’s lone superpower. I mean, sure, throw in China if you want but that just makes the crisis more obvious - they clean our clocks in stem.
Yeah so when you wonder why nobody takes you seriously, this is why.
Cheers.
You’re just attacking me. Attack my point. What’s your problem with it? Do you disagree that we’re the lone superpower? A quick google search will confirm (even if you don’t accept that it’s common knowledge)? Or do you think it’s perfectly fine for the US to test below average in math and, if so, why?
Your point is so wrong and absurd that it doesn't need addressed.
I hope this is helpful.
What point is wrong and absurd?
Dude, do you realize how self-absorbed you sound? Why do you care about the US being a superpower, let alone the lone one? Or does such a question fly over your head?
It doesn't seem to affect our power's superness.
We were 37th in math or lower 60 years ago.
Thank you Freddie for writing this.
I have been saying this for years to anyone who will listen. I've taught science in a well-to-do suburb in Ohio for 24 years now. Our best and brightest are still the best and brightest in the world. Our average students are competitive globally.
The narrative of our schools failing has been pushed purposely to help the attack on public education and the tax dollars they receive.
Yes, education is changing. Yes, there are school districts that need serious help, way more than a school can possibly provide. This only points to a failing system if one is willing to purposely misconstrue stats to make a predetermined argument.
Worth noting that an estimated 1.7 billion dollars was spent on standardized testing last year.
This is estimated actual dollars and does not include things like disruptions, lost instructional time, and stress on students.
There are two main reasons this narrative has been pushed, the testing industry and privatization of schools to extract tax dollars.
Follow the money.
No, also they hate teachers and think that messing with the union will hurt Dem funding.
If you add in the curriculum support materials prepared by the standardized testing companies who are also the textbook companies, that number is much larger, and it all flows to the same place. Which is why teachers still have to buy their own classroom pencils and, most importantly, why the cost per student at a public school is so high.
Wow. This is interesting. I am going to pause and re-read again. There are not many topics this important that I run into compelling information and arguments counter to what I think I already know. This appears to be one.
He's not the only person who has told you that, time and again.
It must be hard to be you… Going on comment threads, attacking people you don’t know over nothing of substance…
We live in a large school district. The school district has lost 20% of its students over the last 10 years while doubling in budget. Most of those tens of thousands of students went to charter or private schools. Meanwhile the district administration doubled in size.
The primary reason parents give up on their local school is the failure to ditching discipline the students who engage in most of the disruptions. Obama era "restorative justice" still lingers around, though it it's gradually getting addressed.
My kids go to public school. Our local school is highly rated and parents move to the area to get their kids in the schools. The teachers are not special, but the parents are motivated and involved. The school gets about half the funding of inner city schools.
Fix the discipline issue and fix the schools. Remove disruptive kids from these schools.
My small school district as a kid had an alternative high school for disruptive kids. Our current school district used to have one as well. Time to bring that back.
I do think overall comprehension and understanding are down. Common Core negatively impacted math, among other things.
I am not a fan of charters, but they are spreading because of school district failures.
Which district?
I don't believe you that they've lost 20% of their students over the past 10 years while the budget doubled.
Believe it. Big city corrupt district. Spending millions on rebuilding schools that are not needed. Parents pulling their kids from troubled schools. Charters getting more and more from the state legislature.
I'll agree and disagree here. Parents send their kids to a school they believe is safe for their kids, not necessarily one where all the kids are geniuses. That doesn't mean physically safe, per se, (although it can), but emotionally safe, safe from constant disruptions, safe in the sense that the administration and teachers won't let issues fester and will address them head-on. Large urban school districts DO need to get that under control. I know because I work in one.
However, in cities where there are a lot of charters, vouchers, etc., it's been impossible for them to scale academic success. So, even though they've been at a school with strict discipline and finally been "allowed to learn," there's been no real academic movement. Charters may solve the discipline issue on the surface, but it's done next to nothing for the students' academic ability. It's perfectly rational to say, "I want my kids to be in a safe school." However, saying, "I want my kids to be in a safe school, so they can finally learn," has shown to be impossible at a population level after 30+ years of trying.
I think you’re on to something very important with parents’ desire for “safety” on many levels.
My 9-year-old came home the other day with a beautiful photo of himself holding one of the chicks his class and the class next door had hatched this spring in their hallway. . . in his heavily boosted, decent-test scores elementary school in a “failing” urban district. (It’s where we wanted to live, it’s where we could afford. It’s where we thought we’d get along with people and could always walk to at least one decent slice. And we were right.)
When I saw him smiling with the chick, I thought, “I don’t really care that they waste his time and their/our tax dollars on iReady; he feels safe and engaged.” He loved those chicks and, almost entirely because he’s a run-of-the-mill bright PMC kiddo, he now knows a lot more about chicken lifecycles and how to build scientific understanding of something you care about.
I think most of the kids at his public school are being given the opportunity, “are allowed”, to learn. . . to each of their quite diverse potentials. I do not think that that magically means everyone’s potential at his school is above average for his district, his state, his country, or the world. That’s a mathematically impossible standard to hold a safe and engaging school to! It’s especially bonkers given any socioeconomic diversity beyond pure private school. And yet I know people that hold our kids’ school to that raise-all-boats standard and, even less fairly, judge far less socioeconomically stable and safe schools for not achieving safety and engagement (no matter how much money and good will we throw their way).
How can so many people that first really began to understand statistics calculating their own qualification for National Honors Society or likelihood of acceptance to selective institutions fail to understand the role socioeconomics play in school performance?
The best I can figure is that it has something to do with the liberal PMC questing for the “intact” middle-class values and minds of the other classes of people with whom they are in current political coalition (mostly under and working classes but also including some genuinely rich but dumb hippies). Because we’ve been living in an only partial sham of a meritocracy for around a century now. . . class and intelligence have become more tightly correlated in some areas and ways. The way we doctor test scores and dance around selection bias, you guys, I think we’re pulling a society-level Mary Brown 😬
I relate hard to this post, as someone whose kid is absolutely thriving in a warm, wonderful elementary school that happens to be part of the Cleveland public schools--which per Freddie's post is one of the worst districts in the nation. I too hate iReady and the fact that my kid got an iPad in kindergarten, and I sometimes envy the paper-and-pencil instructional methods that a lot of our private schools have already moved toward. But honestly, that's all I envy them.
I can't predict the future, and it's possible that my thinking will change as she approaches high school. But for our family, the values that our kid gets from an urban public school (both the ones explicitly taught and the ones implicitly conveyed, just by her going there and our enthusiasm for the school) matter much more than any of the supposed advantages of a private school.
"For the record, sometimes when I refer to these accomplishments I get readers commenting “Well, if you look up those teams, they’re all Asian!” Which, number one, no they’re not all Asian."
Of course they're largely Asian. But as you say, so what if they were?
Keep in mind that the United States has a magnetic attraction for immigrants. Not just the kind that are trying to escape something, but the kind that are seeking to make something or improve their lot and see the United States as the place where they can do that.
When they have children, many of those immigrant parents ride their kids like ponies. We've all see it - not necessarily the international science olympian, but the kid of fairly commonplace natural intellect and curiosity, who gets straight As, high test scores, etc. because his parents will accept nothing less.
That's not a slam. Not at all.
EDIT: I should have added that, if the Shanghai Rankings are to be believed, the US is also overall dominant in universities, and US universities attract a LOT of foreign students, many of whom stay. Needless to say, that will be a disproportionately motivated population, academically speaking.
Let me start by saying that I agree with FdB's basic point on education: that school "quality" is just a reflection of student quality (not teachers or pedagogy), which in turn reflects social and economic conditions of the surrounding area. High rates of poverty, crime, homelessness, etc. are not problems that schools can solve, but they are the reason why students at those schools cannot perform. Therefore, we cannot blame "bad schools" or the US education system for overall mediocre results, even though, as the data shows, the results are not as mediocre as the media claims. In other words, schools don't really matter much.
Let me also say that I disagree with FdB's previously stated solution to the underlying social and economic problems, namely communism. I've lived that reality and am astonished that serious people in the West still claim in this day and age that North Korea or Cuba are the way to go! If you want to lift people out of poverty, do what Singapore did. FdB unwisely dismisses Singapore as too small and wealthy, but it is a diverse place whose wealth was generated over several decades through hard work, wise leadership and social and economic policies that promoted growth, stability, the rule of law, and openness to the capitalist world system. Certainly not communism!
And now my main point about this article: FdB says American students are doing fine overall and he gives credit for this to American schools, even though his main argument about education is that schools don't matter much! Sorry FdB, you can't have it both ways. Either schools matter, or they don't. If schools don't matter, let's look at the students, as FdB himself might do if he were to follow his own advice. After all, don't people on the left constantly look for patterns of identity by race, gender, ethnicity, etc.?
For example, who is on those American teams that dominate the International Math Olympiad? Here are the 2023, 2024 and 2025 rosters:
https://www.imo-official.org/results/team/year/2023/country/USA/
https://www.imo-official.org/results/team/year/2024/country/USA/
https://www.imo-official.org/results/team/year/2025/country/USA/
Based on the names, it's mostly (and sometimes exclusively) kids of Chinese immigrant families, it would seem. Team China, by the way, has won the IMO 25 times in 39 appearances, compared to 9 times in 50 appearances for Team USA. So, are the American IMO teams the product of American schools, or the product of Chinese immigrant work ethic and commitment to educational excellence?
How many years should a Chinese "immigrant family" be here, before they're just a Chinese American family?
I really think the fixation on relative performance is missing the point. Like if someone developed a new method for training long jumpers and was proposing to use it on the US Olympic team, it would seem really weird to say, "But the US Olympic team can already jump much farther than anyone else on the planet!" Similarly, even if the US is the single best place at teaching gifted and talented students, that does not mean there aren't ways to teach them better.
I know that people historically have been focused on relative performance, and that's reflected in the criticisms you address, but I bet a lot of those people are actually concerned about absolute performance and are being imprecise. Like if my kid is not learning to read, I don't understand why I would be at all relieved to learn that many other kids are also not learning to read.
One of my Chinese colleagues, a first-generation immigrant US citizen, complained: "If my daughter does well in math, everyone says, 'Oh, of course -- she's Chinese.' There is nothing magical about being Chinese! It's selection bias. Do you know how hard it is to get out of China and into the US? Only the best of the best, the most talented AND most ambitious, manage to get here. If you go to China, and look at the Chinese people there -- they're just like the US kids."
Agreed! Of course it's not a Chinese thing, it's an immigrant work ethic and commitment to excellence thing. In this particular case, it happens to be Chinese immigrants.
I'm only third-generation Chinese American, and not only is math my weakest academic skill, I also flunked out of college repeatedly! To the extent they exist at all, racial bonuses don't overcome an innate dislike of formal education, and in many ways I suspect I'd have gotten better/more timely treatment for [mental health stuff] if I *hadn't* been Chinese. If one's culture prizes academic excellence, and you can still grind it out despite hating it and hating yourself...well, no one really cares as long as the A's keep coming. Not sustainable though - what's the point of chasing a piece of paper if it literally almost kills you? That too is one of the wonderful things about America, it's still eminently possible to build a fun and worthy life despite lacking formal qualifications for one's smarts and conscientiousness. (Although increasingly more difficult, sadly.)
I was a little surprised how much the last post shifted into a discussion of unions and "woke ideology". Kind of ironic in a post about the propaganda cycle.
For what it's worth, your writing on this topic has meaningfully impacted our decision-making. We're about 12-18 months from needing to make the kindergarten decision and are very strongly leading toward the local public school vs continuing with our private preschool or going to the local Friends school. When we consider the low impact of nominal school quality on lifetime outcomes the fact that our neighborhood school is perfectly safe and pleasant (we know plenty of families that send their kids there and they're all happy), we just can't even close to justify the cost of going private. It seemed like there were a handful of other Philly parents in that last thread who made the same decision and were happy with their choice, too.
So all to say, thank you for laying the research out so clearly over the past few years - our family at least has found it very helpful
As parents who just recently got off the expensive daycare/preschool treadmill, lemme tell you that you will LOVE having all that money in your pocket. We were almost certainly influenced to send our kid to an urban public school by the smart parents around us who were doing the same (and by the fact that I’m a K-12 public school alumna myself), but mostly it just seemed dumb to give up on the public schools preemptively, based on no first-hand experience. There’s plenty of time to make the switch if one’s kid turns out to not be getting their needs met.
I have no doubt, and it's a big part of our decision-making. We spend ~$20k annually on Montessori preschool right now, and while we love the school and it's only 2 blocks from our house, I look forward to repurposing that money toward other things. Even setting the money aside, we know so many families sending their kids there that our daughter will know some of her classmates from day 1 and we'll be walking into a community we already know. It's a great setup however we look at it
One of my daughters is taking the kids out of Catholic School, and putting them in public school, because the tuition got completely out of hand.
I’m old enough to remember when pointing out the evidence that elevated per pupil spending failing to deliver commensurate performance gains was a right wing talking point, so FdB aptly reiterating it is evidence of his consistent effort to remain credible and strengthens his other points as well.
As a career teacher I always followed the action - the endless froth over funding, American test scores, teachers unions, etc etc etc - but also always had more important, immediate things to attend to. That was never more true than when I transferred to an inner city high school in LA from one of its feeder middle schools.
It was undergoing a comprehensive makeover, largely under the auspices of a local NGO set-up by a former LA mayor (Villaraigosa) as a kind of public-private venture designed to preserve ultimate LAUSD sovereignty - including our labor contract - while the Partnership for LA Schools was responsible for teacher & admin hiring and a grab bag of other details. We were all district employees but the off-site PLAS staff were not and were heavily invested in the reigning Waiting for Superman, charter-school approach.
We came on board with the ambitious goal of being the best American teachers for the task - typical cheerleader stuff, a bit suspect under the circumstances. (As a vet I thought they might as well have upped the ante and established a loftier goal, the better to fit one of the faddish takes of the moment: why not the best teachers in the US and Finland, where our colleagues were so miraculously effective?) I guess the exhortation must’ve been deemed necessary, the boost we’d need to get by without a working copier for most of the first semester.
Ultimately PLAS was a mixed bag. They did attract some talent, and a woman who ran our in-services for years is now a LAUSD board member. I later had a side gig as a mentor for 3 years (in addition to my regular full teaching duties) and worked with her closely; she had some teaching experience - much as described, a few years in a middle school as a TFA hire - as well as solid academic credentials and delivered well on her duties. Meanwhile the school’s ongoing ‘reconstitution’ - a blanket term applied to every forlorn LAUSH high school where staff and faculty were forced to move-on or reapply for their job, as had happened at my new school - produced a mixed-bag of results.
But it ultimately outperformed the other on-campus option: a ‘co-located’ outfit run by one of the city’s biggest charter operators. They hung around for years, even eventually got the keys to a brand new 3-story building constructed at public expense, but never matched us, the other team playing alongside them with actual ties to LAUSD, in terms of enrollment, teacher experience and retention, or test scores. Despite efforts to canvas the neighborhood and persuade local families to enroll in their program (a move that typically included outright lies about us, the on-site competition), they floundered for years. At one point their graduation - of a sr. class of only 35 kids - had to be cut short because a fight broke out in the audience. The charter operator eventually gave up, closed up shop (they had a history of that in similar situations over a period of many years), and handed the keys back in, leaving the kids they ‘served’ to enroll in the school that was still functioning across the quad. Fortunately I had moved on by then after 7 years of aspiring to Finnish-levels of teaching efficacy in a south central LA school that had some history. That history includes a lot of ups and downs, strange twists and turns, and some amazing alumni: a Nobel laureate in chemistry, an Olympic all-star, and a jazz hall of famer, among others. Of course they were spread out across time. But bear all that in mind when you think about American public education and maybe extend the onus for Finnish-level performance to the General Staff level strategists who keep trying to impose staff-college level solutions on a contest that is decided on a tactical level by people -teachers - they routinely disregard.