Amanda Ripley The Smartest Kids In The World Summary

The article starts strong when it presents Ripley’s statement involving international test scores. Ripley states that most countries have higher scores on international assessments than the United States and this is because the United States put too much focus on sports (Bowen and Hitt, 2013). Bowen and Hitt argue that the different states vary in test scores in a similar manner to countries that have different test scores to one another (Bowen and Hitt, 2013). Bowen and Hitt than counter Ripley’s statement by presenting research done by Harvard University (Bowen

The authors Mike Rose, Gerald Graff, and Charles Murray are all scholars in education. Each one of them brings concrete facts about education in America. They all believe that education is very diverse and that it can come from anywhere not just school. For example Mike Rose writer of the text “Blue Collar Brilliance” explains how intelligence is used more in labor jobs than normal jobs. He believes that intelligence is overlooked. For example he talks about how when he was in his mothers store he would observe and analyze the things around him. He then started to realize the amount of work that waiters do such as communicate with customers, write down orders, and memorize who ordered what. He believes that intelligence doesn't just come from school and that it can be from anywhere. Furthermore Gerald Graff a professor In education argues that what teachers teach to students in schools limit students intellectualism as he gives personal experiences such as topics that were interesting to him he seemed very knowledgeable and therefore his hidden intellectualism was shown. In addition Charles Murray an American Political Scientists writer of “Are too Many People Going To College” talks about how more people should be going to college. He believes that basic education should be taught early on in elementary and middle school. He also mentions that people who don't pursue higher education doesn't mean there intelligence are any less than the ones getting post secondary

In addition, the high standards are constantly checked by tests that can reveal students’ future prospects. Tom is an exchange student from Pennsylvania who studies in Poland. In Tom’s Polish math class, unlike the American math class, no Polish students are allowed to use calculators to do math. Polish students are trained to be good at calculating just like it is mentioned in the book: “Tom could tell the kids were doing a lot of the math in their minds… their brains were freed up to do the harder work. It was the difference between being fluent in a language and not”(Page 92). After every test, teachers publically announce students’ grades from a 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). Tom expected to see someone getting a 5 for a year but no one ever did. “ ‘Success,’ as Winston Churchill once said, ‘is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.’ ”(Page 92) Kids in Poland have gotten used to failing, but instead of giving up; Polish kids give themselves a boost in academic performance. In 2000, “Polish fifteen-year-olds ranked twenty-first in reading and twentieth in math, below the United States and below average for the developed world.” But after some reforms that included raising the educational standards, Poland “ranked thirteenth in reading and eighteenth in math, just above the United States in both subjects. In the space of three years, Poland had caught up with the developed world”(Page 165).

No under 30 of the 56 different nations that took an interest in the Program for Worldwide Understudy Appraisal (PISA) math test had a bigger level of understudies who scored at what might as well be called the propelled level on our National Evaluation of Instructive Advance (NAEP) tests. While 6 percent of U.S. public and private school understudies evaluated as cutting edge in eighth grade arithmetic, 28 percent of Taiwanese understudies did (Hanushek, 2010). This is revealing to me that different nations are using something we are not that is enabling their understudies to exceed expectations pass the U. S. No less than 20 percent of understudies in Hong Kong, Korea, and Finland were exceptionally expert, and 12 different nations had no less than double the level of very proficient understudies as the U.S. also, different nations (Hanushek,2010). This proof demonstrates that only 8 years prior U.S. understudies were failing to meet expectations in math and

In an intelligence-based economy, education is important to national prosperity and individual success. Huge achievement gaps and opportunities must shrink to non-existence, and every student must receive a well education that prepares them for college and careers in the world as it is today. Comparing the United States education system to other countries shows that the United States scored lower than nineteen other counties and education systems in reading in the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment. Germany and Poland in particular are two countries that have now surpassed the United States. During the same study, scores showed that twenty-nine nations outperformed the United States by a large amount in mathematics, and in science, there have been twenty-two education systems that scored higher than the United States (Heitin).

Amanda Ripley followed three foreign exchange students who visited these three nations to see what made their education system superior than the U.S . She documented her journey in the book The World's Smartest Kids and How They Got That Way. In the book Amanda follows Kim as she studies in Finland, Eric has he studies in South Korea, and Tom has he studies in Poland. These three nations have different education systems but

Amanda Ripley the author of the smartest kids in the world and how they got that way worked for Time and other magazines generally stayed away from talking about the delicate situation of education. Until an editor asked her to write a story about Michelle Rhee the new leader of Washington D.C’s public schools she “[slipped] into the fog of education”(1) and to her surprise she became very interested. She began wondering “Why were some kids learning so much-and others so very little”(2) when comparing kids from all around the world to the United States. In some cases kids were “literally begging”(2) to solve problems, while in other cases they were “bored out of their young minds”(2), these contrasting events cause the United States to mostly

(Audience Hook)When someone shows a chart of the top 10 scoring nations and economies worldwide in the field of education, the USA doesn’t even reach the list. According to the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) the US scores below average in Math; Science and Reading scores don’t look all that impressive, either.

In many countries, including Mexico and the United Kingdom, socioeconomic disadvantage have a substantial impact on students’ performances. According to the latest international math and science evaluation conducted by the OECD, Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), both countries have had trouble reducing the influence of socioeconomic status on student’s accomplishments in recent years. Socioeconomic disadvantage and heterogeneity presuppose the need for a change; due to the reality that a truly successful educational system does not rely solely on a high academic performance. This change would imply a more equitable and inclusive educational system in both Mexico and the UK.

Aimee, I agree with you. “The culture that surrounds our students and/or children is what shapes their knowledge”. I did not even think to relate these theories to my life and how I grew up within the school system. I have to admit and agree with Piaget’s theory that states that “children learn from their experiences within their own culture”. When you mentioned living in the country, a light bulb came on inside of my head. I grew up in the country from age 0 to 9. I still remember having to catch the bus to school and how early my siblings and I had to wake up to get ready for school, because we lived right on the outskirts of the city. Less than a mile away from the next small town.

This reading was interesting because it looked at the education systems of different countries and compared it to the education system of the United States. The focus was on countries that have better records at improving academic achievement than the United States. It also discussed seven patterns that likely contribute to

Since, the starting of PISA the results from the assessment along with TIMMS, and PIRLS have received a number of mixed reactions from countries around the world. According to Patrick Gonzales a research analyst at the National Center of Education and Statistics the United States 2012 PISA findings were not surprising. According to PISA 2012, the United States currently ranks 17th in reading, 27th in mathematics, and 20th in science (PISA 2012 US, 2012). Over the years, the results from the Nation’s Report Card an ongoing national assessment of fourth, eight, and twelve graders provides a similar insight into of what students can and cannot do in the U.S. Therefore, PISA results did not provide much new insight into the strengths and weaknesses

Many of the countries or cultures that have been transformed by the flattening of the world have been affected because of their upper hand through education. We as Americans have gotten used to being elite over the years due to our high economic standing and educational excellence, but in recent years, the educational agenda has increased in other countries, while America’s education has seemed to decline. This is an area in which we need to

Reframing education for the collaborative global innovation age seeks to build a better future by improving not only academic achievement but also educating children in a way that prepares students on how to live a practical and fulfilling life. Fischetti’s, J.C (2014) article, ‘The Rubber Duckies Are Here: Five Trends Affecting Public Education Around the World’ (2014), presents ideas about the many issues in public education and how it is crucial to move forward out of this poor way of teaching and into the improved twenty second century way of teaching. Fischetti proposes that schooling should be reframed around an equity based agenda, and that new approaches should be adopted to change the paradigm of schooling such as, changing educational policies to better reflect effective learning rather than ineffective testing, and changing the notion of value-added measures as a standard used to judge teachers and schools based on student’s academic results. To convey these ideas, Fischetti describes the international movement on a metaphorical level with the use of the rubber duckies to symbolise the movement of these global reforms, and the structuring of paragraphs emphasises the points the author is trying to impart and how it relates to contemporary education.

PISA is a 3-year cycle of international assessment, which has been organized by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 2000. The primary aim of the PISA assessments is to determine the extent to which young people, who are 15-years old, have acquired the wider knowledge and skills that they will need in their real-life challenges with considering a literacy perspective in reading, mathematics, and science. According to PISA 2012 overall results, Turkey ranked 44th, 42nd, and 43rd positions across the 65 countries in mathematics, reading and science, respectively (OECD, 2014b).