LYNN: It Isn't the Culture, Stupid

In a timely commentary written by a long time education reformer at EducationNews.org,  the argument that the US lacks the proper "culture" to score well on international exams is given a thorough thrashing by Barry Garelick. Barry's article, "It Isn't the Culture, Stupid" is spot on and a good read.  Barry, like me, leans to the political left, which is why I feel this post goes into the lefty column of the blog. Take that, Rosemary!!

But seriously, Barry makes an excellent point (well, of course he does!! Barry has made many an excellent point in the past and I'd expect nothing less from him now. I'm going to have to dig through Barry's past articles and post them in the future.)  But I digress.

The point Barry is making now, if I may paraphrase, is that when you blame the "culture" of the US for poor international performance, you need to include more than just our societal woes of too many video games and athletics and parents that might complain about homework load, or students that are unmotivated.  I don't doubt that those things exist and make top notch performance difficult for teachers facing unmotivated students with parents that don't care and spend all of their time watching TV and playing on the XBox.

But the schools and school boards and the entire school institution is a very big part of the culture that they blame. Schools that refuse to adopt demanding curriculum materials that build skills and concepts in a logical manner (i.e., Singapore Math) and instead give water-downed programs that spiral around without expecting mastery (Everyday Math, Investigations, Trailblazers) are part of the culture of low expectations.

Homework at the middle and high school level that consists of time consuming artsy projects with little or no academic content are a part of the culture problem.

Teachers that expect the bulk of the academic work to occur at home at night, but waste the school day through poor classroom management skills are a part of the culture problem.