Thank You for Listening! This has been an episode from The FowardED Network—Where we are Advancing Voices and Shaping Education. We are dedicated to supporting everyone invested in K-12 success: teachers, leaders, parents, and community advocates.
Want to keep the conversation going?
- Subscribe: Never miss an insight. Hit the subscribe or follow button on your podcast app to automatically receive our next episode.
- Share the Knowledge: If this episode provided value, please take a moment to rate and review us! Your five-star reviews help new teachers, parents, and leaders find our network.
- Explore the Network: This show is just one part of the ForwardEd Network family. Head over to our network page to explore our full roster of interconnected podcasts, including CTRL Shift Lead, Vice Principal UnOfficed, From Carpool to College, and Your Morning Boost.
- Connect with Us: Have a question or an idea for a future episode? Reach out to us at pillars.forwarded@gmail.com or find us on social media using the tag #theForwardEDnetwork.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:05 Welcome to your Morning Boost, your daily leadership advice to help you lead your school community.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:09 Brought to you by AWB Education and sponsored by Grundmeyer Leader Services,
00:00:10 --> 00:00:14 where together we are transforming education, one leader at a time.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 Now here's your host, Adam Bush.
00:00:17 --> 00:00:21 Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to your Morning Boost. Happy Wednesday.
00:00:21 --> 00:00:25 Today, we're going to dive into a topic that's often filled with a lot of misinformation,
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 and that is just public education.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:33 We're going to examine some claims made in a recent Facebook post by Mariana Hernandez.
00:00:33 --> 00:00:37 If you want to check that one out for yourself, you can find that in the April
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 edition of the Grandmire Leader Service's Fitting 5 newsletter.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:44 The link to that newsletter is in our podcast description, just like it always is there.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:50 Mariana's post raised some important questions, and so today we're going to
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 explore the data behind her findings.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:59 Post, Mariana highlighted several widely circulated statements.
00:00:59 --> 00:01:03 One of those was the U.S. was number one before the Department of Education,
00:01:03 --> 00:01:11 we rank 31st, we spend more than anyone, and so on. There's quite a few that she has in her post here.
00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 So let's analyze these points, focusing
00:01:13 --> 00:01:17 on the data that she presented and providing a little bit of context.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:23 Now, Mariana referenced the claim that the U.S. was number one prior to the
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 1980 establishment of the Department of Education.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:33 As she noted, the PISA test, the PISA test, our current gold standard for international
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 comparisons, that didn't exist until 2000.
00:01:37 --> 00:01:44 Therefore, any pre-1980 rankings would kind of lack some standardized international metrics.
00:01:44 --> 00:01:48 Also in this article, our author points out the 31st ranking argument,
00:01:49 --> 00:01:53 which is often cited in discussions about U.S. education in general.
00:01:53 --> 00:01:57 Now, as she correctly identified, this ranking typically stems from education
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 system indexes like the World Population Review.
00:02:01 --> 00:02:06 Now, these indexes measure system-level factors like enrollment and spending,
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 not direct student performance.
00:02:08 --> 00:02:13 As her post implies, this is distinct from the PISA 2022 results,
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 which measure actual student achievement where the U.S.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 Ranks differently in reading science and math.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:25 Mariana brought up the claim that the U.S. spends more on education than any other nation.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:31 And as she emphasized, this comparison is complex due to our decentralized system.
00:02:31 --> 00:02:36 We have over 13 school districts in this country, 50 state systems,
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 local property tax funding.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:43 All of these contrast sharply with the centralized systems of smaller nations,
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 which are often used in these comparisons.
00:02:48 --> 00:02:53 Mariana also addresses the fact that 28% of grads can't read past a fifth grade
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 level, which is a common stat we've been hearing a lot lately here.
00:02:56 --> 00:03:00 As she clarifies, this statistic is often misapplied.
00:03:00 --> 00:03:05 It actually refers to adult literacy, not the reading level of recent graduates.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:09 Her post correctly points out that the literacy challenges exist,
00:03:10 --> 00:03:14 but they stem from complex factors, many things like early childhood education
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 access and socioeconomic disparities.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:21 Now, her post also touches on the role of the Department of Education.
00:03:22 --> 00:03:27 She highlights that it doesn't control our curriculum, which is a state and local responsibility.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:32 Instead, it focuses on civil rights enforcement, federal funding distributions,
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 and support for marginalized students.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:40 Now, finally, Mariana raises the issue of state control over education in general.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:44 As she correctly states, there is no national curriculum, which,
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 of course, then leads to significant variations across the states.
00:03:49 --> 00:03:53 She also notes that the differing test preparation strategies between the United
00:03:53 --> 00:03:57 States and many top-performing countries regarding the PISA test,
00:03:57 --> 00:04:01 all of this combines together to give us some of that data that tends to be
00:04:01 --> 00:04:02 a little bit misleading.
00:04:04 --> 00:04:10 Her post effectively highlights the complexities and nuances surrounding the discussion of,
00:04:11 --> 00:04:15 The key takeaway for all of us here is that a simplistic comparison,
00:04:15 --> 00:04:19 it's just going to lead to misleading statistics. And it often just obscures
00:04:19 --> 00:04:25 the real challenges that we face as educators in this great country that we call the USA.
00:04:28 --> 00:04:32 That's it for today's Morning Boost. We've explored the data behind the claims
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 that were made in Mariana Hernandez's Facebook post, which,
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 again, you can get more information on that and actually read that post for
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 yourself by getting a hold of
00:04:41 --> 00:04:45 that April edition of the Grunmeyer Leader Services Fitting 5 newsletter.
00:04:45 --> 00:04:49 Links are all in the podcast description here today, so get a hold of that if
00:04:49 --> 00:04:50 you don't have it already.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 Let's focus on understanding the data. That's our goal.
00:04:54 --> 00:04:58 We're going to work towards a more equitable education system. Have a great Wednesday.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 Thanks for being here with me today. We will talk with you again tomorrow.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:06 You have been listening to your Morning Boost by AWB Education in partnership
00:05:06 --> 00:05:08 with Grundmeyer Leader Services.
00:05:08 --> 00:05:12 You can find out more about our services by clicking on the links in the description.
00:05:13 --> 00:05:17 Remember, you are doing this vital job that only a few can do.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:22 So until next time, thank you for your service to your community.