re: #403 palomino

OT: Two amazing stats I came across today.

1) First the good news. Women under 30 now make more than their male counterparts in the largest 150 cities in the US. Seems shocking at first to those of us who remember all the “59 cents on the dollar” rhetoric from the 1970s. But, as an educator (I teach in a private school) I’ve seen firsthand girls outperform boys for the last decade. Higher graduation rate from both HS and college (60% of college grads now are female); and now women are the majority in most professional schools. “It’s a man’s world?” Getting less so by the day.

2) Now the bad news. The top 5% of US high school students rank 23rd out of 29 industrialized nations in math and science. I had always assumed that our dreadful overall rankings were due to the bottom half dragging our averages down—the dead weight in public schools who get social promotions. But if our top 5% don’t measure up, we’re really screwed.

Regarding the math and science scores by how many points are we 23rd? Of couse you know who’ll they’ll blame for those scores: teachers. American parents by and large see education as a passive activity. Just send the kid to school and he or she will soak up the knowledge required. Then when they get back home it’s back to the Super Bowl, Snooki, bling, wide screen TVs, pop-music and clothes. The reason those scores are lower is because we as a society do not value the math and sciences. Instead we value mass consumerism and image.