I didn't say American schools were performing "adequately" (whatever adequately means), I just said they weren't underperforming. I.e., US schools perform as well as Asian schools for all categories of student we have data on.
I have no doubt that Asian families (in the US, Singapore, Japan, etc) send their kids to Kumon and are terrorized by tiger mothers. Net result: in all these nations, the children of tiger mothers score about 570-600 on TIMSS. So US schools systems educate Asian students pretty much the same as Asian schools.
There is not enough data to compare the results for non-Asian students, since we lack data on (Asian School, Black/Hispanic/White student).
Similarly, people of European descent tend to get scores of about 470-530, with Finland being an outlier at 546. Among this group, Americans of European descent are #6 (at 524). Again, data on (European school, Asian/Black/Hispanic student) student is lacking.
So the data suggests US schools do not significantly underperform either Asian or European schools, at least for the categories of student we have data on.
I.e., if US schools are inadequate, then so are the schools of most of the world.
I have no doubt that Asian families (in the US, Singapore, Japan, etc) send their kids to Kumon and are terrorized by tiger mothers. Net result: in all these nations, the children of tiger mothers score about 570-600 on TIMSS. So US schools systems educate Asian students pretty much the same as Asian schools.
There is not enough data to compare the results for non-Asian students, since we lack data on (Asian School, Black/Hispanic/White student).
Similarly, people of European descent tend to get scores of about 470-530, with Finland being an outlier at 546. Among this group, Americans of European descent are #6 (at 524). Again, data on (European school, Asian/Black/Hispanic student) student is lacking.
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...
So the data suggests US schools do not significantly underperform either Asian or European schools, at least for the categories of student we have data on.
I.e., if US schools are inadequate, then so are the schools of most of the world.