Friday, March 2, 2012

CBS has biased reports...

In my Ed Measures class, we watched a CBS video during class. In the video the reporter stated that the United States is ranked 25th in math worldwide, and that the United States is also ranked 21st in science. While these stats may seem unbelievable at face value, there are many factors that can cause such scores to be true. One discrepancy is why didn’t they give us our statistics for history or language arts? Also, you cannot help but wonder how these stats were gathered, given that there is no universal/international standardized test that every country takes. Not only, are these legitimate issues to call into question, but there are other factors to take into account that are more specific to the United States. For instance, in America it is mandatory for all children to attend school, but in some other places like Asia only some students go to school. Another more United States specific factor is that Americans as a whole do not place as high a priority on school. Instead, they place priorities on working, sports and a host of all kinds of other subjects. Either way, it seems that the creators of that specific report were slightly biased in their reporting. Standardized testing is already something that I consider to be an annoyance but reports such as this are not helping the matter.

1 comment:

  1. I also watched that video in that class last semester. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. It is a difficult thing to measure so let's hope we are close to #1 then that video would indicate

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