Florida students vs. the world

In math performance, Florida students are a step behind their peers in often-lauded Massachusetts, but a couple steps behind the kids in Hong Kong and Singapore, according to a recent report from the American Institutes for Research.

Using an international grading index that he created, an AIR researcher gives Florida’s fourth graders an “international grade” of C+ and an estimated mean score that’s just slightly above the mean for developed countries. Florida’s eighth graders, meanwhile, earn a C and a mean score that’s slightly below the mean for developed countries. In both cases, Florida’s grade is the same as what the researcher gives the U.S. as a whole.

Who sets the bar? Stateside, it’s Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Kansas at grade four (they all earned B’s) and Massachusetts at grade eight (which earned a B-).

Internationally, it’s Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR and Japan. Those countries “consistently perform at the B+, B, and B- level and are learning mathematics not just at a higher level than the United States, but at a quantum leap higher level than the United States,” the report says.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Comments

[!?$$?!]

And they don't educate everyone as we do in the good ole USA! Only the cream of th crop get an education in those countries.

[terminator]

a big difference between these countries and the US is, they are homogenous peoples.
they have no blacks, no poor hispanics, no vietnamese and boat people (California) and they don't let immigrants overrun their country (Mexicans on the SW border) and (Cubans, Haitians, S. Americans in Florida), so no ESOL problem.
the achievement gap will never be closed so we need to stop trying and stop wasting taxpayer money.
the American economy needs plenty of low paying service sector jobs.
face the facts, Darwin knew what he was talking about!