Maggie Carragher

Education 100

America, Take Comfort in

Mediocrity

Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in

commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation being overtaken
by competitors throughout the world. The 1983 Excellence in Education
report, A Nation At Risk responded to American students rather
unimpressive performance on international standardized tests. A Nation at
Risk outlines my previous views on the United States international
education posisition, except maybe a bit too dramatically. I assumed that
Americas below-average scores truly indicated the quality of our education
and top scoring nations, usually East Asian counties, to have the best
equipped students for the future. However, after studying several foreign
schooling systems, I realized that each offers its own set of costs and
benefits. And in the United States case, we do not usually perform well on
international standardized tests but have more to offer than academic
intelligence.
Nations heavily focus on educational competition like international
rankings. A Nation at Risk states, We have, in effect, been committing an
act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. Education is no
longer about the cooperative advancement of human civilization.
International educational systems now intensely compete in an almost warlike manner. Indeed, placing well on these tests is impressive and gains a
nation quite a bit of publicity and doing poorly causes unwarranted dramatic
reactions similar to the opening lines of A Nation At Risk. I, like most of the
world, was in awe of East Asian countries consistently outstanding scores; I

thought they had the best educational systems in the world simply because
they had the highest scores.
High international scores or rankings do not always indicate
preparedness for the future or lasting success. While Singapore, China and
Korea regularly score well, their educational systems are still flawed. Gerald
Bracey explores the use of international test comparisons in his article, Big
Tests: What Ends Do They Serve? and interviewed Singapores Minister of
Education, Tharman Shanmugaratnam. Shanmugaratnam, acknowledged
that Singapore students score well on tests but often dont fare as well as
U.S. students 10 or 20 years down the road. He cited creativity, curiosity,
and a sense of adventure as some of the qualities tests dont measure.
Bracey directly quoted Shanmagaratnam, These are the areas where
Singapore must learn from America (35). Singapore, an educational
powerhouse, strives to adopt American philosophies to better prepare
students for long-term success. Topping the international scoring charts does
not satisfy Shanmugaratnam, he senses Singapores system cannot cultivate
creative and curiosity quite like our system. If a supposed ideal education
country wants to be like the United States, who, according to the 2009 PISA
report, placed 25th out of 34 in math literacy, our system clearly has greater
value beyond mediocre math literacy.
Life does not occur in a textbook; there is more to it than grades and
testing. Obtaining the ability to function outside of academics is necessary
for a future beyond school. The life skills Shanmugaratnam wishes his

students to acquire cannot possibly be tested in a standardized manner yet

they prove crucial in a work environment. In David Labarees book, Someone
Has To Fail, he generally focuses on American students strengths outside of
academics, [American students] were picking up skills about how to
function in a work environment, network, compete, lead, improve the
environment, and juggle priorities. They were also learning how to work the
system to their advantage, how to do the minimum needed to satisfy school
so they could do what they really wanted to elsewhere (218). While
grasping school topics is definitely practical, other skills geared towards
fostering the development of a balanced person are just as or more
important. Labaree firmly believes manipulating the system to do minimal
work and still academically succeed is more worthwhile than mastering a
curriculum. Students can create time to participate in extracurricular
activities, thus creating well-rounded citizens.
The United States will most likely never outscore China and other East
Asian counties for a variety reasons but mainly due to the fact that Chinese
students spend at least twice the amount of time studying than American
students (Labaree 214). So unless we decide to double our time devoted to
school, we should stop worrying about beating these East Asian countries. It
simply will not happen. But more than just scores need to be examined to
determine an educational systems worth. The value of a nations school
system does not only lie in international test rankings. The United States
never does very well on these tests yet we still create well-rounded and

prepared students. We cannot accept test scores as the sole indicator of

educational quality just as I originally had. Both educational philosophies
have their pros and cons. Not one nations system can be deemed perfect,
even the consistently top scoring nation. The American educational system is
quite valuable despite mediocre test scores.