# Are America’s Students Falling Behind?

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** PolyMatter
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpflQtqkQZ0

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpflQtqkQZ0) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Here’s a question: what’s 12 plus 4 minus 4? A large, nationwide, representative sample of American eighth graders was recently given this problem. 29% — nearly one third of soon-to-be high school freshmen — answered incorrectly. 35% of 4th graders said “3 feet” was a reasonable height for a door. Another 22% said “20 inches. ” And it’s not just math. Only 28% could label all seven continents. Nearly as many couldn’t name even one. Congress began collecting this data back in 1990. For the next twenty years, American students performed better on nearly every subsequent test — showing consistent, long-term improvement. Then, in 2013, something changed. Starting that year, this growth didn’t just slow, and it didn’t just stall — no, our progress actually began reversing. Today’s eighth graders score lower than they did in 1992 — effectively erasing 34 years of progress. And the effects are beginning to spill over into college. A recent UC San Diego report begins by lamenting the, quote, “steep decline in… academic preparation [among incoming students],” noting that “the number… whose math skills fall below high school level increased nearly thirtyfold… 70% of those students fall below middle school levels. ” Next up: the workforce, and with it, according to many, the American economy at large. The world’s only superpower is slowly “collapsing,” they say. The less alarmist predict a stagnant U. S. GDP, soon to be overwhelmed and overtaken by China. But there’s a fatal flaw in this argument… Sponsored by Mad Kings, a new Nebula Original series about some of the most insane modern dictators created by Joseph from RealLifeLore. Identifying the problem with the U. S. education system is difficult because… there really isn’t one. …A “system,” that is. Even before last year’s downsizing, the U. S. Department of Education was never what it sounds like. Unlike most countries, it never commissioned textbooks, set graduation requirements, or even administered standardized tests like the SAT. Even back in 2021, for instance, this entire, nationwide bureaucracy employed just over 4,000 personnel. The New York City department of education, meanwhile, has one-hundred and fifty thousand people on its payroll. At minimum, there are 50 education “systems,” or, more accurately, 13,000 — the number of districts that govern our 128,000 individual public and private schools. In other words: there is no one policy that would affect them all — never mind all at the same time in 2013. …With one exception: the repeal of “No Child Left Behind. ” In 2011, the Obama administration began relaxing one of the rare federal education requirements, giving states greater flexibility to design their own policies. Whether you consider this a good thing — freeing schools from wasteful “accountability theater” — or a bad one — lowering standards and settling for mediocrity — it’s not hard to imagine that this would show up in the data. But here’s the thing: the U. S. isn’t alone. Far from it. This is that post-2013 score decline in America, and this is the equivalent across the entire OECD — 38 countries, representing over 1. 3 billion people, with cultures as different as Australia, Japan, and Mexico. American students are falling “behind,” sure, if what the doomsayers mean is “behind in time. ” But what you can’t leave out is that: so are most students across the entire wealthy, developed world. Here’s another, more plausible theory: smartphones. The timing is perfect — U. S. smartphone adoption, for example, crossed the 50% threshold in 2013. The geography makes sense — smartphones spread rapidly across the entire rich world. …And it aligns with anecdotes from teachers — teenagers became increasingly distracted in the classroom and social media replaced the time they previously spent reading. It also explains a particular feature of the post-2013 data: a striking divergence between the best and worst performers.

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpflQtqkQZ0&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

Before 2013, the scores of all students were improving at around the same rate. After 2013, as you can see here, the decline was much worse for lower-scoring students. While smartphones distracted everyone, elite schools were among the first to quietly ban them and the most involved, wealthiest parents were among the first to restrict their kid’s “screen time. ” Steve Jobs famously limited his own family’s access to the very computers he built. Now, we’ll see if this theory holds up as more and more schools ban phones and new data is released. Still, no amount of bans will put an end to the headlines about our “national education crisis” because the headlines long predate the phones. In 2010, students from Shanghai scored first on the “Programme for International Student Assessment,” which Obama called a “Sputnik moment” in his State of the Union. Before that, back in 1983, “A Nation at Risk” swept through the country, declaring that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. ” It too mentioned Sputnik. And before that, in 1958, the cover of Time magazine was devoted to our “crisis in education,” warning that the “mediocrity” of our schools may cause us to lose the arms race against the Soviets. There’s a reason pundits have never stopped sounding the alarm about our “mediocre” students: it turns out our students have always been mediocre. For as far back as we have data, the United States has ranked, at best, right in the middle of its peers. Quite often, it’s at the bottom. To quote the Brookings Institute, “…there has been no sharp decline… the U. S. never led the world. ” In 1964, we scored below every country measured but one. In 2000, we were 15th out of 27 in reading. And in 2022, 31 out of 36 in math. The only thing that’s changed over the last 60 years is who we’re told is “outcompeting” us: Soviet military prowess, then Japanese efficiency, and now Chinese STEM-dominance. Each has neatly fit into our pre-existing national anxieties, distracting us from asking a more fundamental question: do we want to be on top? It’s no mystery how to get Soviet or Japanese or Chinese results: simply adopt practices. And yet, over the last hundred years, Americans have chosen not to do so. And not without reason: top scores come with trade-offs: higher rates of childhood depression and anxiety, an enormous diversion of resources from consumption and production toward after-school tutoring and test prep, and a stressful, high-stakes style of parenting that reduces fertility and favors the wealthy. Ironically, these are all challenges that Japan and China have tried desperately to escape — looking West for inspiration and sending their own children to American universities. At minimum, America proves that all-consuming, hyper-competitive, exam-driven schooling isn’t necessary to become the world’s only superpower. But it also invites a further question: have our consistently failing grades actually played a role in our consistent economic success? After all, it’s awfully hard to invent the iPhone, found Walmart, or revolutionize the internet when every waking moment of your day is monopolized by exam prep. The point is not that the U. S. has perfected K-12 education. Quite the opposite. That 30% of eighth graders can’t do simple arithmetic is real cause for concern. …Just not for the reasons typically cited. What this and our average test scores obscure is the real source of the problem: inequality. These are the reading scores of Canada’s upper-class students. These, virtually identical scores are from America’s upper-class. Where they differ is among the most socially disadvantaged — Americans in that group trail far behind their Canadian peers. That, in a nutshell, is why America’s schools are, on average, “mediocre. ” In absolute terms, the U. S. produces more top performing students than anywhere else on the planet and it’s not even close. But because we lack a unified, national school system, our lowest-performing students are

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpflQtqkQZ0&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 12:00)

among the worst in the developed world, dragging down our average. The problem with the “national crisis” narrative is that: it’s unclear whether this will ever show up on the balance sheet. America, as a whole, has grown unbelievably large, powerful, and rich despite “mediocre” average scores for decades, and there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to do so. If we wait for this “mediocrity” to show up in our GDP, that day may never arrive. And those who warned of a “national crisis” will sound like the boy who cried wolf. One example of universally bad education policy was Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Gaddafi made students spend hours each day reading his manifesto, inspired by Mao’s “little red book,” called “The Green book. ” And this doesn’t even make the top twenty craziest things he did. In one episode of his Nebula Original series “Mad Kings,” RealLifeLore explains some of the more… memorable Gaddafi moments, like when he tried to pitch a bulletproof tent in the middle of Central Park or when he proposed “abolishing” the country of Switzerland at the United Nations. Other episodes explain the crazed opulence of Saddam Hussein’s eldest son and Kim Il-Sung’s “eternal presidency. ” If you like my videos, there’s an extremely good chance you’ll love these. Mad Kings is exclusively available on Nebula, the streaming service built by some of your favorite creators, like yours truly. Nebula is also home to dozens of other great Originals, like my series “China, Actually,” giving a more nuanced look at one of the world’s most important countries, “Abolish Everything,” a hilarious comedy debate show and one of my personal favorites, and Arctic to Africa — a four-video journey following two friends traveling all the way from the Arctic Circle to the top of Africa using only trains. Nebula is ad-free, new Originals are being added all the time, and we have fantastic iOS, Android, and TV apps. You can even share guest passes with your friends so they can watch along with you for free. Normally, Nebula costs $5 a month. But you can get a whole year for just $30 — which works out to just $2. 50 per month — right now with the link on screen or in the description. If you’re not a fan of subscriptions, you can get $200 off of Nebula Lifetime with the Lifetime link below.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/24403*