American Education

Here are some interesting facts about American education.

America has 4, 000 colleges and universities while the rest of the world combined has 7,768. That is fairly remarkable considering the age of our country compared to the rest of the world.

In the state of California alone, there are 130 colleges and universities. In the rest of the world, there are only 14 countries that have more colleges than California.

Now, do not get too excited because the information coming is not nearly as complimentary.

Thomas Friedman writes in his book, The World is Flat, the following:

"The Associated Press reported (December 4, 2004) that American eighth graders had improved their scores in science and math, sine 1995, when the test first was given, but their math improvement came mainly between 1995 and 1999, and not in recent years. "

"The worrying news, though, was that scores of American fourth graders were stagnant, neither improving nor declining in science or math since 1995. As a result, the United States slipped in the international rankings as other countries made gains."

Any gains occurring in the first three - five years of testing can almost always be attributed to students learning how to take the test in a more efficient way. Having said that, what are our issues here? Having led the world for so long in math and science, we are now falling dangerously behind.

Friedman writes,

"According to the National Science Board, the percentage of scientific papers written by Americans has fallen 10% since 1992. The percentage of American papers published in the top physics journal, Physical Review, has fallen from 61% to 29% since 1983. And now we are starting to see a surge of patents awarded to Asian countries."

And it does not appear to be getting any better.

"On December 16, 2005, The New York Times carried a story reporting that the average American college graduate's literacy in English had declined significantly over the past decade according to a widely respected nationwide test. This is college grads - not dropouts."

Friedman goes on to inform us that the National Assessment of Adult Literacy is the nation's most important test on how well Americans can read, and when the test was last administered in 1992, 40% of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level. This means, according to Friedman, that they were able to read lengthy complex English test and draw complicated inferences from them. When the test was given again in 2003 only 31% of the graduates demonstrated those high level skills.

There are many thoughts on what is transpiring here, but one thing is certain, something is taking place. I have my own ideas, but will save them for another time. I would be interested in your ideas. Happy thinking! Blessings!