Apples and Oranges

"In the 21st century, one of the best anti-poverty programs is a world-class education." 

With all of my optimistic ideals, this above quote from Obama's State of the Union Address really has been the driving force behind my educational philosophy.  I have always bought into the notion that education is life-changing.  Just knowing inklings of the how and why about life deepens your appreciation for people.  Realizing that you don't know everything and getting a glimpse at the vast oceans of things that you don't know both excite and enrich your life in innumerable and inexplicable ways.  Knowing what questions to ask, associations to make, and how to investigate on your own- these things stir a love of learning and education.  Seeing how much you can learn is life-enriching, mind blowing and awe- inspiring.  Not to mention the statistics that point to financial gain the more your education level rises. 

  So combined with this educational philosophy, and my philosophy that dumb is a myth (more on that later), I am passionate about the need and ability of every human to learn and be educated.  That being said, I have been struck this week with a few basic truths that many educators, but few politicians seem to realize and acknowledge.  That is that the public education system is inherently different from other countries with whom we are often compared.  Our philosophy in public education is that EVERY student should be prepared to attend college.  We assume that each student should know the same thing at the same age and same time in their lives.  They should be able to demonstrate this knowledge in exactly the same way.  This philosophy is idiotic at best and detrimental to national image and student confidence at worst.  When we hear statistics that China scored higher than the US on standardized test, or Finland, or any other developed country for that matter, the fact remains that we are comparing apples to oranges.  Many other countries do not have compulsory education until 17 or 18 as we do in this country.  Many countries begin to weed out students that are not academically inclined more honestly at a much earlier age than we do in this country.  Thus, the testing pool for other countries, consists of students with an interest in academics, parents with an interest in academics, and/ or an innate ability to be good at school.  The other kids, the ones in deep poverty, the one's whose parents make them work or don't care if they go to school, the one's who don't speak the language of the school, or who have special education needs, the students who are driven to become an artist or a singer, poet, mechanic, lion tamer, acrobat artist, etc, well these kids are already weeded out before testing.  They go to a different program and aren't tested and then compared to the US who tests EVERYONE.  In the US, if you've been in this country for 3 days, if you can hold a pencil, if you have absolutely no will in the world to write a five paragraph essay so one day you can go to college-- your numbers, your test results count against our nation and our hardworking, devoted, passionate educators.