Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Scivolone USA in materia di istruzione

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/09/13/education.compared.ap/index.html
 U.S. Edition
U.S. world position in education slipping
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is losing ground in education, as
peers across the globe zoom by with bigger gains in student
achievement and school graduations, a study shows.
Among adults age 25 to 34, the U.S. is ninth among industrialized
nations in the share of its population that has at least a high school
degree. In the same age group, the United States ranks seventh, with
Belgium, in the share of people who hold a college degree.
By both measures, the United States was first in the world as recently
as 20 years ago, said Barry McGaw, director of education for the
Paris-based Organization for Cooperation and Development. The
30-nation organization develops the yearly rankings as a way for
countries to evaluate their education systems and determine whether to
change their policies.
McGaw said that the United States remains atop the "knowledge
economy," one that uses information to produce economic benefits. But,
he said, "education's contribution to that economy is weakening, and
you ought to be worrying."
The report, released Tuesday, bases its conclusions about achievement
mainly on international test scores released last December. They show
that compared with their peers in Europe, Asia and elsewhere,
15-year-olds in the United States are below average in applying math
skills to real-life tasks.
Top performers included Finland, Korea, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada
and Belgium.
A separate international review last year showed U.S. eighth-graders
gaining on their peers across the globe in science and math. At the
same time, though, fourth-graders here are falling behind others as
their test scores remain stagnant, that study found.
"We're not just letting down too many of our students; we're (also)
not giving our taxpayers the best return on their investments," said
Ray Simon, the deputy education secretary, after the release of the
international report.
Younger students are making gains, Simon said, but that progress is
often lost by the later grades. He said a new push to improve the
accuracy of high school graduation data should help steer attention
toward students who are at risk of dropping out of education.
McGaw said other measures of achievement -- including how U.S.
students do on this country's federal math and reading test -- are
fair to consider in rating performance.
Given what the United States spends on education, its relatively low
student achievement through high school shows its school system is
"clearly inefficient," McGaw said.
In all levels of education, the United States spends $11,152 per
student. That's the second highest amount, behind the $11,334 spent by
Switzerland.
"The very best schools in the U.S. are extraordinary," McGaw said.
"But the big concern in the U.S. is the diversity of quality of
institutions -- and the fact that expectations haven't been set high
enough."
The Bush administration says the 2002 federal law known as the No
Child Left Behind Act is fueling higher achievement among all students
-- particularly poor and minority kids -- by holding schools
accountable for progress. But the international data, mostly gathered
in 2003, are not recent enough to confirm that the law is producing
results, McGaw said.
Higher education in the United States remains strong, and the nation
continues to hold an advantage in innovation based on research
conducted at universities, McGaw said.
The report also underscores that women continue to get paid less than men.
Women in the United States who are 30 to 44 and who hold a university
degree -- meaning a bachelor's degree, master's degree, doctorate or
medical degree -- make only 62 percent of what similarly qualified men do.
That's a lower rate than in all but three of the 19 countries for
which numbers are available. The nations with greater inequity in pay
are Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland.

 are Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland.
#_E`vero!...In Kiwiland, ammè me pagano bbbbene, solo perche`so' italiano...
ma, nel "campo" mio, una donna la pagano piu`di un uomo.
<G>

 wrote in message
news:4329c77f$1...@news01.wxnz.net...

#_Finiscila de fregamme il nick e lo spazio in banda; firmati Giannozzo la
prossima volta o ti denuncio all'Usenet.
Io, Giano il Magnifico , conosco *tutte* le professoresse e professori del
Dipartimento di Italiano dell'Universita`di Auckland e Uellintone; ognuno
riceve la stessa paga (di sottosviluppato italiano).
Giano

 conducted at universities, McGaw said.
Stendiamo un pietoso velo sull'Italia. Queste statistiche sullo stato 
dell'Educazione sono pubblicate ogni giugno in UK dai maggiori 
giornali. E qui?
Esiste solo in qualche schieramento politico cosciente che lo stato 
della ricerca scientifica e' vitale, e che i rankings universitari 
internazionali sono la misura del futuro progresso o regresso del paese?
O piuttosto si fa il  ranking tutto autarchico di quali strutture 
scientifiche sono in mano a quali partiti di anno in anno?
Am.