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What was the measure used to compare the countries in their math and science performance?

A blanket percentage of 33.7% of population is school age for any country? That’s a statistically ridiculous calculation. The birth rate in Japan is 7.41 births per thousand, while in the US it is 13.83 per thousand, nearly double. The average age of a resident of Japan is 44.6, while in the US it is 36.8. There is a higher percentage of school age children in the US than in Japan. Without the real numbers, the cost per student calculation is meaningless.

Nice work, this is a great way to explain the data.

Did you control for comparative buying power? This comparison seems specious. A dollar in the USA is not a dollar in Finland or Sweden.

Yes, that’s ridiculous.

American people enjoy a much better system, and have more talented teachers; teachers are devoted and accommodating. People vote for the American system and way of life by emigrating from other parts of the globe to the US.

actually they calculate the cost per student by asking the countries, its not by how many students live in the country, the cost per student can be found out by looking into the government funding and where they seperate it. They dont “calculate” how much they spenc, its just a known fact

Pretty sure it the SAT Reasoning Tests in those areas.

What is the comparison between the expenditure for education vs. the total expenditures of that country?  That would be more helpful.  Is the US spending more or less, compared to total expenditures, than the other countries listed?

What is the meaning of the overlap between the balloons?  This would imply to a statistician that there is some covariance between the overlapping countries’ performances. 

Also, the size of the balloons is misleading.  The first bar graph correctly shows the relative spending by the different countries because it shows per capita spending.  The U.S. per-capita spending is about 33% higher than that of the United Kingdom, but the relative size of the balloons would draw the reader’s attention to the raw figures, which don’t take into account the size of the population. 

I admit, I have not been on this webpage in a long time. however it was another joy to see It is such an important topic and ignored by so many, even professionals.

Golfkurse

Regardless of how confusing/misleading the presentation of this information is, the US is failing educationally.  Parents are largely involved in not setting standards and expectations for their kiddos.  Teachers alone can’t get a kid to want to learn unless it is supported by the family.  I suspect an ethnically heterogeneous population is also a problem in that there are so many different levels of expectation and experience within those ethnicities.  Compare this to Finland where parental expectations are very very similar from family to family.  Just a thought.

One: The graphic is crazy looking. I understand what it is trying to get across that as supposedly one of the world leaders, who spend much more than many countries on each student, the U.S. is behind other countries in their testing. But do we really need new teachers trained in those areas? Wouldn’t it make sense to train the teachers who are already in the classroom to up their standards. Just because something may be a little broken doesn’t mean we should replace all the parts. Perhaps just a tune up is in order.

Yes, the data is confusing and possibly misleading in many areas. However, I am sure that this information can be substantiated in many other studies.  The question then becomes how are the educational expenditures being allocated in the US vs Other Nations.  How are our dollars being spent within our infrastructure as compared to other countries.

so Finland rocks

Sad to say, but; it looks that way

Like others, I wonder where the money is being spent. It appears that the U.S. is spending so much money on education than other countries. Unfortunately, the chart demonstrates that other countries are doing better with less money. Another issue that I agree with is the fact that teaching should begin in the home. Teachers are asked to wear so many hat, and they are held accountable for so much. Parents need to be held accountable for their children, and they need to keep in mind that their children may behave in a different way at school than they do at home.

I just looked that up. As a percentage of GNP, the US is 37th in education figures, or was in 2002. Cuba was first.

Maybe we’re wasting money on teachers when we should be spending more on the home. I’ve more than a sneaking suspicion that kids growing up in an overstressed environment are going to reflect that stress in their academic performance.

Schools use supplies, have food expenditures, maintenance and upkeep.  Is all this taken into account?  Do the Finnish schools have the same amount of overhead costs?  Who pays for the books and education materials the students use?  What is the real cost analysis for comparing the schools across the board?

It is little confusing but it is shown that expenditure in US is highest in education and though in litaracy level on third position. This show that there is lake of some factor in education system of US.
automotive mechanic training

PISA

Nice infographics !! Best part to notice is that US spends highest and gets very less as per the industry standards. It simply highlights the importance of the immigrants to US and their contribution in their technological development.

I think India should also be included in this chart.

Sameer Khan’s BLOG

Im Pretty Sure that not many countries are building 60 million dollar high school football stadiums like they do in texas and that all goes into those education numbers.

http://www.digtriad.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=173657

How much of this is spent on actual instruction vs new textbooks, new testing programs, new assessment modules? As a parent I watch teachers and parents advocate for small classrooms, but what we get instead is a new assessment program or a new achievement test, which brings with it new textbooks and new experts to teach school districts how to perform better. But what we don’t get is more teachers, smaller class sizes, and more engagement in the classroom.  But then teachers and parents don’t have lobbyist and sales reps explaining all the joys and benefits of small classrooms. They aren’t wining and dining the school board or the state congress with slick pamphlets with cool graphs demonstrating  how effective these latest assessment programs, textbooks and modules work. And besides, this new program will create new jobs and a new industry, so it will work. Of course the hiring more teachers would create more jobs too. But they don’t work for as cheap as those printers in China and the big executives can’t increase their companies marketshare unless their is some new, great product to sell. And since the Civil War you can’t buy people and rent them out so there is not corporate profit in just hiring more teachers.  So instead of doing what teachers and parents know will work, we do what is best for our corporate system. We create jobs. We create a new market for new educational resources, but they really don’t solve the problem because if they did, the educational resources publishing and manufacturing industry wouldn’t have new products to sell, so school districts would not have to buy new, expensive programs and as a result, some guy in China wouldn’t have a job. So the system doesn’t really do much for education, but it sure does create a lot of economic activity.  And isnt’ that how we measure everything in the USA anymore, by the amount of private sector economic activity it creates?

See my above post and it explains the source of the lake that is drownig our public  education system

Ethnic diversity creates variety among a group and as such they become highly adaptive to new and changing environments, giving the group a distinct competitive advantage over the homogenous group. This quality has created vast opportunities in America and continues to be a competitive advantage in the world market. Sadly many Americans no longer have a commitment to leveraging America’s unique competitive advantage and seem more interested in making political hay out of humanity’s tendencies to be suspicious of groups that differ from their own.

The science score could be lowered by including Intelligent Design I guess.

What about China? Include 12 countries but can’t add China, a contending global super power?

source?

Sameer,
     Though I do appreciate the hard work and intelligence of our Indian Scince Imports, I do not agree with the impotence of immigrants to the US and their contributions. Most of the immigrants are illegal and drain our systems, not improve them.

That should have been Science and importence. I R edumakated!

Well I have been to US but I know what kind of people go from to US. And they are not unskilled and stupid people.

Add a citation so i can cite this source

Chinese guy ^

I actually don’t think education is failing according to this. You’re just bigger… as a % GDP/Capita, you’re spending about as much as Mexico. 

Using some crude assumptions here:
Mexico pay their average wage per 7 students.
You pay the US average wage per 6 students. 

As a result you’re doing substantially better. 

Now Finland is winning, so lets look at them. Finland have almost identical spending to you (US wage per 6.1, Fin wage per 6.2), so now yeah, you need to improve, but keep in mind US education spending has only recently jumped to those levels too. 

I mean this is showing things accurately. I just think it could be put a little more into context than what it is.

Historical funding > Current funding.
Vs average wage might be a better indicator than just outright spend.

This could be one particular of the most beneficial blogs We have ever arrive across on this subject.

The conclusion on the issue of education is clear and, surprise, surprise, it’s the same conclusion we must make with any government program — they don’t work well and, in practice, eventually bankrupt us.  We must move away from a Government monopoly on education and promote charter schools and competition to best educate our children.  Private enterprise is the “American Way” for a reason — because it works.  So long as we have a government monopoly of our education system, we will never accel, it’s as simple as that.  Good money spent on the wrong answer does not yield good results.  Tax all you want, but that isn’t the right answer.  Yours in Faith for a better America and a better world.  http://www.visionpresident.com

As with any blanket stat, you need to look deeper to understand what is happening.  US spending is high because it includes all the exclusive, expensive private schools.  Finland has no private schools to speak of.  So, it’s interesting to compare *public* education spending instead:  The US and Finland are about on par.  And yet Finland greatly “outperforms” — but careful, because that’s global performance, which would include the privately schooled US students in the comparison.  That says that the US public schools perform even worse compared to Finnish public schools. 

So what’s going on?  It’s all about income inequality.  The US measure of inequality (the GINI coeff) is about twice that of Finland.  So, we have many more poor people, and poverty suppresses scholastic performance.  Moreover, the effect is amplified when poverty persists over generations, and when it is geographically segregated — poor neighborhoods vs. rich.  The result is schools that systematically underperform.  The best students and teachers flee.  And no amount of spending on the schools themselves can correct the problem, because they are embedded in a larger context that will always suppress performance.  Add lots of these to your (US) average, and the numbers go down. 

The birds-eye view, then, is a comparison between an egalitarian society (Finland) and the everyman-for-himself US culture.  Fins value an egalitarian society so much that they are willing to pay for it with higher taxes.  Americans universally want taxes lowered, no matter what the current level may be, so that they can individually pocket more.  (Voting records substantiate this.)  Fins think “We”, and Americans think “Me”.  The resulting societal costs in the States are high, with this issue of educational performance among them.  (Violent crime is another.)  So, yes, Finland rocks, as someone said here, no so much because of their particular school policies but because of the generally greater equality among Fins, which breeds all kinds of advantages — better schooling, safer society, and more. 

The problem is not that fins think “we” and Americans think “me” … The problem is in this country destroying the work ethic, the dream to succeed, because due to our cultural mix, everyone is afraid of offending the other, so the good beliefs, ones that are positive, that work….. Are destroyed in this country. So what does this prove? I think we can deduce
It for ourselves.

The problem is not that fins think “we” and Americans think “me” … The problem is in this country destroying the work ethic, the dream to succeed, because due to our cultural mix, everyone is afraid of offending the other, so the good beliefs, ones that are positive, that work….. Are destroyed in this country. So what does this prove? I think we can deduce
It for ourselves.

The problem is not that fins think “we” and Americans think “me” … The problem is in this country destroying the work ethic, the dream to succeed, because due to our cultural mix, everyone is afraid of offending the other, so the good beliefs, ones that are positive, that work….. Are destroyed in this country. So what does this prove? I think we can deduce

States could still allocate spending better than our federal government could. There would be a greater sense of unity amongst citizens to pay for education within their respective state borders because the system would be more transparent. We could more easily see the disconnect between spending and performance if the greater responsibilities were localized. Decentralizing power largely decentralizes money, which would coincide with the egalitarian views you bring up, as well.

Tune up the teacher? – Excuse me, but how about lets tune up the system so that there is accountability on all ends and not just on ours (the teacher’s)? Do you know how many hours are spent on remediation during and after the school day with students whose parents know what they are supposed to be doing to help but then nothing gets done at home? Many of us do have very high standards for our students but our work gets in the way of all the soccer practices, music and dance lessons or the fact that it might be the other parent’s night with the child – so, how could any work or studying get done? As a primary school teacher, we are not allowed to give these students a “0″ but provide more opportunity for them to get the work done.
So, until you have walked in our shoes, don’t make comments putting more blame on the classroom teacher. We are done with No Child Left Behind and having to allow all of the outrageous behaviours to exist in our classrooms because parents don’t know how to set boundaries and teach respect for the classroom.
Sore point, why yes, it is!

 Public schools in NY state spend an average of $15K per year per student.  I live in a small, not terribly well off rural school district in central NY.  Like all the other school districts around here our budget is about $15k per student.  The state with the lowest average spending per student is Utah, which spends about as much as Germany.  It’s not like private education is any cheaper in the US. Private schools cost even more, and when you factor out variables like demographics and family income of the students, they don’t perform any better. Whether it’s public or private schools, the US pays more and gets less.  This is a cultural problem that goes beyond income inequality or whether government can provide services more efficiently than private industry. 

 Jack, I’m not sure what you are referring to with regard to allocating spending and the federal government. While school districts receive money from both the federal and state governments, in most cases state funding dwarfs federal funding. Most decisions about how to spend that money is made locally. In NY state people vote on school budgets every year. If they approve spending increases they’re well aware that they’ll see a tax increase.  This is true in many other states as well.