U.S. Drops in International Education Rankings

By: Dylan Sharek
Posted In: News

Christopher Kiernan, coordinator of the American Studies department and history professor at Salve, is extremely passionate about education. Not only has he worked in higher education for 40 years, but he was the first Northeast regional director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress – an ongoing project that monitors how students are performing at ages nine, 13, 17, and post-college groups.

In a study released Sept. 13 on the the Paris-based Organization for Cooperation and Development, it was revealed that among adults 25 to 34, the United States is No. 9 among industrialized nations in the share of its population that has at least a high school degree. In the share of its population within the same age group holding a college degree, the United States ranks seventh. As few as 20 years ago, it ranked first in both evaluations.

“I would say that I have mixed feelings about it,” Kiernan said. “Clearly, as a person that’s interested in the quality of education, I am concerned about it because it indicates that there is a great deal of room to improve our educational system at every level…but on the second hand, I have an understanding of the difficultly that a nation like the United States has in achieving … high quality in excellence.”

Kiernan attributes the decline to the increasing American population (now approaching 300 million) and to the U.S’s commitment to educating all students, including those with special needs.

“I think (that commitment) is one of the greatest things that has ever been done, but for a country to offer every single person education to the greatest extent that is possible…is going to have an effect on test scores,” Kiernan said. “It’s actually happening in other countries that are doing the same thing (as the U.S.), countries that used to be the bastions of quality education like Ireland, England and Scotland.” The other top performers in the 30-nation study include Finland, Japan, Canada, and Belgium.

Susan Reidy, a spokeswoman for the Parent-Teacher-Student Organization at Rogers High School in Newport, said she is “concerned, but not surprised” by the new study. Reidy, whose son graduated from Rogers, has a daughter currently attending the school. During the course of her children’s education at Rogers, Reidy has noticed a steady decrease in the school’s funding. At Rogers, there are too few textbooks, and what the school does have is old and worn. In addition, Reidy recalls that Rogers “ran out of lined paper and had to use plain white paper by the end of the school year.”

According to the study, the United States spends about $11,152 per student – the second highest among the 30 nations evaluated, with only Switzerland ahead of the United States. However, there is a definite disparity between the top schools in the country and the bottom schools.

The Bush administration has reported that the No Child Left Behind Act is generating higher achievement in poor and minority schools, but the Organization for Cooperation and Development’s evaluations are not recent enough to validate the claims.

Reidy truly believes that the only way America’s ranking will return to the top is if more tax money is given to schools. “I’m hopeful. In order to grow, we have to support our schools,” Reidy said.

Still, others are not putting much confidence into the numbers. Maureen Cicchitelli, the current interim principal at the Aquidneck School for elementary aged children, was also a former principal at two Cranston public schools for 15 years. Cicchitelli feels as though there are many underlying factors to be considered when examining this study.

For example, the United States allows all students, regardless of academic achievement, into standardized testing for colleges, while other countries, according to Cicchitelli, “track their students more and only what they consider their top students academically have the opportunity to enter a four-year university.”

Cicchitelli also believes that standardized testing is just one “snapshot” of a student’s learning. “I think there are so many other ways we can assess what students know and what they are able to do,” Cicchitelli said. “I think that when we look at only one snapshot, we’re not seeing the whole picture. That’s the most difficulty that I have with this type of study.”

Cicchitelli admitted that there is room for improvement. “I think that we do need to continue to work toward doing a better job. You can always do a little bit better.”