With educational quality being less of a Political priority in this country, and the need to "teach to a standardized test" being more desired, surely these results should surprise no one, correct?
Sure. I imagine though the move to teaching to a standardized test was a result of a previous failure in education. I would guess because there was a lot of disparity between States.
I feel like education as a priority needs to be in the national zeitgeist — perhaps is not. The U.S. had it during the Cold War.
I grew up in the 70's and there were still echoes of the Space Race in the U.S. And education was fairly progressive. I even went to an "experimental school" for a year where they had open classrooms, emphasis on experimentation, new math, etc. (and this in Kansas of all places).
As an example, I remember too in the 70's when the Metric System was made a national priority. Until it suddenly was not. (And Federal Markers, like on an highway summit, that had had elevation in both feet and meters went back to just feet.)
During the Cold War, as now, engineering was where the high paying jobs were. And living the dream life in California....
I'm not sure why more kids don't aspire to that today (or why their parents don't foster it). Perhaps engineering is seen as a difficult and stressful career, and perhaps people think there are, dare I say, lazier ways to get rich?
On the contrary, I would expect teaching to a standardized test to yield better results in the evaluation of a standardized test like the one mentioned here...
Maybe this wasn't the standardized test we were teaching for though?
Part of the beauty of tests like PISA are that, at least in the US, nobody is teaching to the test because it doesn't have an effect on the students, the teacher, or the school. That makes it an ideal measure because it's less distorted, unlike other tests that may determine student grades & AP scores, college entrance, teacher evaluation, etc.
I believe this is generally the case worldwide, absent some gaming from places like China, who for several years submitted PISA tests only from a few of their best/richest schools (Beijing, Shanghai, HK) as a way to look better internationally, which of course makes it hard to compare to other countries that are testing a broader range of schools.
