Obama Says Education System is Falling Behind

by Sebastian Hoffman and Ryan Napoli

In an article published on the 3rd of October 2008 the Washington Post quotes Obama saying that:

“The next president is going to have (…) an education system that has fallen behind.”

Is he right that the U.S. education system is not competitive any more?

(For more information about Obama’s stance on education, visit: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/
http://www.ontheissues.org/social/Barack_obama_Education.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-09-obama-education_N.htm )

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is a widely accepted survey that measures and compares the academic level of 15-year old students in reading, science, and mathematics in all 30 OECD member countries and several non-member countries. The latest assessment (conducted in 2006) ranks the United States 21st in science and 25th in mathematics among the 30 OECD countries. That means the U.S. finds itself in the last third in both categories. The U.S. clearly performed below OECD average, scoring 489 in science compared to the 500 average, and 474 in mathematics compared to the 499 average. Both in science and math the United States has 74 points less than Finland, the leading nation. The reading part of the PISA study could not be counted in the U.S. due to errors in the carrying out of the tests.

On the 2nd of August in 2006 USA TODAY reported that “U.S. 12th-graders recently tested below the international average for 21 countries in mathematics and science. About one-third of the fourth-graders and one-fifth of the eighth-graders cannot perform "basic mathematical computations," according to the National Center for Education Statistics.”

While the sources mentioned above undoubtedly support Obama’s claim, the 2006 Progress in Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) gives us a different impression. This evaluation conducted in 45 different education systems lists the average U.S. 4th-grader 40 points above international average (540pts. vs. 500pts.).

Moreover the 1999 Civic Education Study (CivEd) carried out in 28 countries by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) shows U.S. 9th-graders considerably performing above average on the total civic knowledge scale. This measures the “knowledge and understanding of key principles that are universal across democracies” and ranks the United States 6th, scoring 106 points, which is 6 points above international average and 5 points below the score of Poland, the leading nation.

If one takes a look at higher education, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s 2007 Academic Ranking of World Universities lists 17 U.S. universities among the world’s top 20. Yet this American domination diminishes as one increases the number of universities in the “top group” – while there are 54 U.S. universities among the top 100, one can “only” find 166 American universities among the top 500. This still significantly exceeds the amount of top 500 universities of the UK (42), the 2nd best country in the ranking.

Lesson: Barack Obama’s claim that the American “education system has fallen behind” is not specific enough and thus only partly correct. He needs to clarify which part of the U.S. education system he talks about, i.e. which grade and which subject. Concerning science and mathematics skills of 15-year old students and 12th-graders he definitely seems to get the facts straight. But, for instance, when it comes to civic knowledge of 9th-graders, or reading skills of 4th-graders, Obama’s statement does not hold true, at least not in the years the tests above were taken.