Originally posted by twhiteheadFirst of all, my guess now is that most of these polls that some up with these results like "71.4% of American children don't know the full name of the United States" and other absurd results like that are either fabricated, unscientific or otherwise invalid. I always thought that these polls showing the state of American education didn't make much sense.
But those results are not 'seemingly anomalous'. Almost all polls regarding US education seem to show that US children's geographic education is poor.
In any case, a stat showing that only 23% of the children knew that George Washington was the first President is not only seemingly anomalous, it's obviously anomalous. It doesn't make sense. In real life, everyone (or almost everyone) knows about George Washington. The 98% figure from the Congressman's study is the figure that makes sense, though even that seems low. I have trouble fathoming that any high school student wouldn't know that George Washington was the first President.
In any case, you can read Nate's series of articles about that poll to see why it obviously made no sense.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/are-oklahoma-students-really-this-dumb.html
Actually - the 98% figure on George Washington seemed high to me. If you do a poll of high school kids, I would expect at least 5-10% would be smart alecs and purposely give absurd answers.
The thing I'm trying to figure out is, given that it was allegedly a right-leaning group that created the faux poll, the results would seem to be the sort of thing that might lead people to demand a large amount of additional state or even federal spending to "fix" the "woeful education system" in places like Oklahoma. That right-wing group might want to be more careful about the potential consequences of their actions.
Originally posted by KazetNagorraThis question by sh76:
So because one poll was probably fabricated they all were?
- Do the pollsters have an agenda?
is redundant, there is always an agenda and the agenda shapes the poll. A lot of time and effort goes into running a poll so they better make sure it returns the 'right' answer.
"How to Lie with Statistics" Daryl Huff, an oldy but a goody, concise too.
Originally posted by sh76Can you point Bangalore out on a map?
Next time you see one of those polls showing how terrible the US education system is (you know, the ones about how 68% of US children think we live on Mars and how 54% think Adolf Hitler was the first US President), keep this in mind: The "poll" results might very well have been conjured up from thin air by a polling firm hired by think tank with an agenda.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/real-oklahoma-students-ace-citizenship.html
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It's very different to ask 9-12 high school students ten questions over the phone when they are at home and to organize a written test within the school to be given to only high-school seniors.
That said, I also think that too much is made out of this. International assessments tend to show the US doing decently, but still marginally below OECD averages. So although I think the US could be doing better, considering its economic ranking, I don't think the catastrophic image is deserved.
Here are some selected highlights from the PISA:
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2006highlights.asp
The highlights report with a nice summary in the beginning:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008016.pdf
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Originally posted by sh76And my point was that you cant judge a poll by its results alone. You should judge all polls based on merit whether you like the results or not. In general, if you don't know much about how the poll was conducted, take the results with extreme skepticism whatever they are. I think a poll on the quality of poll taking would find that the majority of polls have major flaws somewhere in the process - then again, it depends who does the poll and how.
First of all, my guess now is that most of these polls that some up with these results like "71.4% of American children don't know the full name of the United States" and other absurd results like that are either fabricated, unscientific or otherwise invalid. I always thought that these polls showing the state of American education didn't make much sense.
As for the US education system I honestly don't know a whole lot about it - what I know is based on Americans I have met, and TV - which has its own set of biases.
Here in South Africa, which school you go to makes a significant difference.
As for child education in general, home environment is often as important as school.
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Originally posted by Wajomaa serious polling organization knows how important it is to maintain credibility. If they put out too many polls that are later shown to be greatly inaccurate, those polls will no longer be taken seriously by anyone not wearing a tin hat.
This question by sh76:
- Do the pollsters have an agenda?
is redundant, there is always an agenda and the agenda shapes the poll. A lot of time and effort goes into running a poll so they better make sure it returns the 'right' answer.
"How to Lie with Statistics" Daryl Huff, an oldy but a goody, concise too.
Even if the polling firm has been hired by Republicans or Democrats or some other interest group, those groups are very much interested in the truth so they can then maintain or change their campaign strategies accordingly.
Take the Oklahoma poll as an example. You can bet that no one will be hiring that polling outfit to do anymore polls in the foreseeable future. Who's going to trust it's results?
the distortions usually involve how a given poll's results are subsequently INTERPRETED. But that's usually not the fault of the poll itself.
Originally posted by sh76The American education system is not too bad...but it's not too good either. No matter which poll you read, citizens in Europe and many Asian countries are better educated than American citizens, despite spending less money per student than in America. These countries start there children in school 2-3 years earlier than in America, have few outside activities, longer school days, and shorter vacations. Creative thinking is not normally encouraged in these school systems until the College level, using the idea that creative thought must be based on a foundation of hard knowledge. America has produced many brillant scholars, America has also produced many people who can't read, write, or do simple math. 😏
Next time you see one of those polls showing how terrible the US education system is (you know, the ones about how 68% of US children think we live on Mars and how 54% think Adolf Hitler was the first US President), keep this in mind: The "poll" results might very well have been conjured up from thin air by a polling firm hired by think tank with an agenda.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/real-oklahoma-students-ace-citizenship.html
Originally posted by sh76Did you attend a US public school? I did, It was not at all difficult and the expectations were so, so low. There is pressure to simply advance the students so that the funding can continue.
Next time you see one of those polls showing how terrible the US education system is (you know, the ones about how 68% of US children think we live on Mars and how 54% think Adolf Hitler was the first US President), keep this in mind: The "poll" results might very well have been conjured up from thin air by a polling firm hired by think tank with an agenda.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/real-oklahoma-students-ace-citizenship.html
Personal experience should really clue you in to the inadequacies.
Originally posted by badmoonI did not attend a public school. But anecdotal evidence and personal experience is essentially irrelevant in assessing a system that processes scores of millions of people.
Did you attend a US public school? I did, It was not at all difficult and the expectations were so, so low. There is pressure to simply advance the students so that the funding can continue.
Personal experience should really clue you in to the inadequacies.
In any case, the US public school system is not a homogeneous system. There are thousands of districts that vary greatly in quality and funding.
We're talking about the products of the system on the whole, not something any one person can experience.