Friday, August 23, 2019

Education and PISA

If this is accurate it is quite an indictment. 
But, the kind of classes they set up, they were like 30 people signing up for a job retreat[?] to teach you have to be a lineman for one of the utilities. Well, okay, so they go through the training and they get certified; and it turns out maybe there's maybe 2 jobs available for the 30 linemen, that all these people have put in the time, the money, the effort--

I'm a believer in Arnold Kling's null hypotheses on schooling, we have been trying to teach students more and largely failing. I think we should rather try to teach students more valuable stuff. In the above example had they taught the students plumbing, electrical, auto-mechanics. carpentry, cooking, home design, etc. at least the students would have been better able to maintain there own stuff and live on less money.

If what is taught  is more important than how much is taught, how do we measure success?
If the USA performs best in schooling which it might, maybe we have room to maneuver?

What does this say about charter schools and private schools, home schools and school vouchers? They seem to not produce better scores on the PISA and other standardized tests.

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