Thanks for your responses, guys. To address your points:
Few countries can match America on its diversity and acceptance of diversity, which is a national strength for us I think. But it carries a cost as you alluded to - accommodating so many diverse people. Though of course the government has no obligation to do that beyond the mandates of law, which can be open to interpretation. Maybe there is such thing as "diversity overkill"? I really don't see why objective subjects like math and science shouldn't be taught near-identically across the nation for the 90% of students who fit the "normal" category. I know state's rights and all that, but name me one state that wouldn't like to save on education costs. And even primary-level language, PE, and history studies don't really need to be customized. But instead, we have different districts buying different textbooks and preparing students for different standardized tests at the end of the year, which contributes to waste. And that waste is not due to America's size vs. Finland, but a bureaucratic choice.
Surely we need to tailor teaching to special-needs or non-English speaking kids, but those are a minority in most communities. Shouldn't it be like group health insurance? The majority healthy people pay a little into the program and are mostly left alone, so more resources can be devoted to the sick. But as A said, the poverty issue does the exact opposite. The healthy get more care while the sick are left to get sicker. In Finland, it seems common that higher-performing students finish their in-class assignments faster, and then offer or are instructed to help their struggling peers. Maybe we could see more of that in America, instead of the "every person for him/herself" mentality. The wealth gap here is much larger, but there are still poor people in Finland and Japan. Maybe they have a hard time going to college too, but clearly they have a better chance at a decently comfortable, productive life than poor, marginalized Americans.
A, are you sure that Asian nations filter out poorly-performing schools when they make their national test performance measurements? The WSJ study data was collected by OECD, a 30-nation consortium and Paris-based think tank promoting democracy and free markets. As far as I can see online, there have been no criticisms of the PISA test and data collection methods, apart from wealthy Luxembourg, which complained that the relatively low scores by its students were the result of the test not being administered in that nation's most popular language, Luxembourgish. If Asian states or others are skewing their results, shouldn't the other countries and OECD leadership have an interest in calling them out on it? But I suspect that the top students in all the OECD nations score similarly, as well as the worst students. As Jared Diamond said in Guns, Germs, and Steel, geniuses pop up at a relatively similar frequency across ethnicities, but it takes a good social system to recognize them and allow them to maximize their potential. But you can see the strengths and weaknesses of the education system by removing the outliers and looking at the average students. And clearly the average Yank under-performs. Poverty and education system both play a role, but I agree that poverty is a stronger factor.
Yes as M said, it's not like every European works 10 hrs/wk less than every Yank. Companies and job titles make a difference. But in general, the European commute is shorter, Europeans busy themselves with fewer "activities" for their kids, Europeans have more vacation time (6-8 wks vs. 2-4 here), watch less TV, and probably do spend less time in the office on average. They also don't have to worry as much about making extra money to pay for health care, child day care, college, and retirement, since much of that is state-provided (a fair trade for 10-20% higher income taxes?). Growth rates in the big EU states have generally been lower than America's, and their unemployment is higher. They're not keeping up with us, but they're not so far behind either. And look at the price we pay in stress and time to get that extra 2% ahead of Europe. But it's not like Europe is Utopia; they are in recession too (maybe their banks are in worse trouble than ours) and they face the same problems that we do (immigration, aging population, rising costs of services/energy). But if both of our cultures are unsustainable and eventually go broke, at least the Europeans reinvested their money on improving quality of life for citizens for as long as they could, while we spent it on foreign wars and corporate profits.
-------
Well, the main thing isn't that Asians purposefully weed out stupid kids from taking the test. The key difference is that Asian kids that have special needs (developmentally disabled, kids who don't speak the local language at home, etc) aren't accommodated at schools. Call it culture, whatever, but Asian societies generally aren't very sympathetic or accommodating to kids that have some form of a disability that prevents them from learning (even stuff like dyslexia). These kids, obviously, tend to do terrible on tests, but in the US we test these types of students as well 'normal' students.
So it's not like they are trying to rig the test results, but the kinds of kids that the US goes out of our way to include in our educational system (even, to be a bit un-PC, crack babies and the like) just don't show up in their Asian equivalents. I'm not real sure how it works in Europe, but you'd have to look at to whom they give the test (do they exclude those outside of normal schooling or not?).
And of course it doesn't take into account the fact that American schools, compared to their Asian equivalents, tend to be much better at developing critical thinking skills. Most Asian educational systems emphasize rote memorization. Not that we're all that great at it, but Asian schools are notorious for being all about memorizing mathematical formulas and passages out of literature without critically assessing what they are learning.
So I'm hardly saying that the US is an educational paradise - I'm in complete agreement about standardization; it's really stupid to have all of this reduplicated effort to develop basic curriculum (and of course gives the fundies a chance to put in their nonsense), and schools in areas with endemic poverty that are underfunded are in really bad shape.
But it isn't clear that these tests that are given out are really that comparable across systems nor does it account for tests of how well it preps you for later success, which is one of the main criticisms of No Child Left Behind; that we are gunning for Asian-like increases in test scores, but what are we really gaining to get there? On the other hand, I think we do have to introduce some accountability into the classrooms; I think the majority of teachers are probably pulling their weight, but we've got to have some way of punishing those that are deadweight. I've read some literature that has suggested that maybe we should use evaluations by principals, but that brings in all of the political and petty bullshit drama that goes on in the workplace, so it's not a clear win either. Maybe some combo? It's a tough issue...
--------
That's very descriptive, and I agree with your points.
I think it's unfortunate that some Asian and other families consider learning disabilities to be "shameful". They might prefer to hide it and make the kid "tough it out", rather than seek out special assistance. Or maybe the state doesn't have much to provide in those areas. But on the flipside, learning disabilities are grossly overdiagnosed and overmedicated in the US, maybe other places too. Now there's a syndrome for everything. It's never the fault of parenting of course. My little angel is sick and has special needs! It's almost a badge of honor to claim to have some learning challenge (Bush with dyslexia). Surely some drug companies, doctors, and DTC advertising are partly to blame for this. Sorry to be un-PC also, but there is such a thing as lazy, stupid, unmotivated, and unfocused (both parents and students). Some cases are real of course, and some steps can be taken to give the kid a better chance at success. 30 years ago, there was no such thing as ADHD, and now the APA estimates that up to 15% of young people may be receiving some sort of treatment for it. Give me a break; maybe that figure should be at 5% at most. Kids are usually excitable, but that doesn't mean they're disabled. They have to be TAUGHT to behave and concentrate. Yet with all the added awareness and treatments now, have nationwide test scores changed much? In fact, an investigation in AUS showed that autism was being overdiagnosed among students in order to gain more education funding. Sad. All these drugs just keep kids SEDATED so they are more easily controlled by irresponsible adults, but the side-effects can be catastrophic (suicides among Prozac and Paxil-taking youth, etc.). And who knows what the long-term effects will be? We need more time to collect the data, but by then these kids will have grown up in an environment that tolerates or promotes substance abuse as first response to "fix" problems.
http://psycport.com/stories/krdigital_2004_06_08_eng-krdigital_eng-krdigital_065551_6431782967861404803.xml.html
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24643013-5003426,00.html
http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/mentalhealth/a/psymeds_suicide.htm
I see what you mean about critical thinking. "Critical thinking" is subjective though, and probably only the best 10% of US schools/teachers even start to cultivate that, but it's still better than "conform and work hard like robots" Asian schools. I do appreciate that some US schools push for creative outlets like senior project, fiction writing, internships/research, group entrepreneurial contests, etc. that other nations might not. However, creativity and self-expression are less useful if a student doesn't have solid fundamentals first. I'd rather have a robot who knows his/her stuff decently but will never be a visionary, rather than an empowered, opinionated "free thinker" who might come up with interesting ideas that are unfortunately based on ignorant assumptions and superficiality (a.k.a. a bullshitter). We have enough of those in America. Plus for many companies and nations in history, creative visionary people are only 10% of the labor force at most, and the rest are robot-like workers. I can't argue if that is a good or bad model, but it's the prevalent model so far for humanty. I think the world and America might benefit more from a surge in comprehension than a surge in creativity.
However, that is probably a factor why East Asians are one of the most educated and highest-earning groups in the US, yet probably the least represented in politics and top-level corporate management. Jerry Yang just bit the dust, but at least South Asians have a governor in LA and a CEO of Citi, to name a few. So even though US-born Asians didn't attend Asian schools, somehow those cultural traditions persist? Well, no point in conducting an exercise in stereotypes.
But as you said, standardized test scores in school are limited data, and not very predictive of future career success. However, they do open doors for higher education, which of course is correlated with career earning power. More teacher accountability would help a lot as you said, though the unions and bureaucracy are tough negotiating partners. Today in France many teachers are on strike due to proposed head count reductions. It has been a political pissing match for decades. Conservative Sarkozy spoke badly of teachers he didn't think were pulling their weight, though 54% of France supported the strike. And Obama is also in a pickle between teacher unions and education administrators over how to balance reforms/accountability, merit-based pay, tenure, firings, smarter testing, and whatnot. But that is another can of worms.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/145843/output/print
