Program for International Student Assessment, or
PISA, recently released its 2012 results for creative problem solving for real
life solutions. They looked at numerous countries to determine which 15-year-olds
are best equipped to handle various problems. The results compare the U.S. against other
nations in global trends. The results indicate the U.S. is not doing very well
and has lots of room for improvement.
Among the 34 OECD nations the U.S. is performing
below average with a ranking of 26 in math, 17 in reading and 21 in
science. The silver lining is that the
country has not slipped from previous positions and seems to match their
European counterparts. However, the results rank behind a number of Asian
countries.
More strikingly, 26% of American students don’t even
reach the minimum requirements to be tested leaving them off the test. This is higher
than the average of 23% in other countries. Top performers within the country are 2% compared
against 3% for the average and 31% for Shanghai-China. The U.S. is not
fostering their highest performers to excel within the classroom and this
impacts their capacity to compete in the future.
Students are still suffering from socio-economic
issues. Those from the most disadvantages schools are having a difficult time
competing against their counterparts and those of other nations. In the United
States 5% of students that come from the lowest 25% socioeconomic status
perform better than their circumstances compared with the 7% international average. It is difficult for them to improve their position in life.
Common Core appears to have some positive benefits
with test taking and the researchers indicate that by implementing such
standards improvement in achievement can be expected. Likewise, schools that
compete against other schools and have some autonomy in their decisions do
better than those who don’t. Assessment appears to be only part of the answer as 80% of
U.S. schools post data publicly while the average is 45% in other countries.
The educational environment needs the concerted
effort of multiple stakeholders. Even
though some of the factors in home life may be out of control of decision-makers
this shouldn’t slow the advancement of providing better opportunities. Getting
students in school at a younger age appears to make an important difference in
socializing them to the world of higher academic performance.
Creative problem solving isn’t something that is
born in a vacuum. There are many pieces that come together to solve complex
problems. Students that understand the concrete aspects of math (even though
math can be subjective at its core root based upon how units are measured) and
have the free-flowing thought processes to be creative can build better models
and test those models with scientific methods. It is this critical and creative
thinking that takes science and makes it practical for public use to solve
problems.
PISA (2012). Lessons
from PISA 2012 for the United States. Retrieved April 1st, 2014
from http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA2012_US%20report_ebook%28eng%29.pdf
