The Smartest Kids in the World (35 page)

Oklahoma State Department of Education.
Sallisaw Public School No Child Left Behind Act Annual Report Card 2009-2010.
Oklahoma City, 2010.

Oklahoma State Department of Education.
Sallisaw Public School No Child Left Behind Act Annual Report Card 2010-2011.
Oklahoma City, 2011.

Oklahoma State Department of Education.
Superintendent’s Salary Listing.
Oklahoma City, 2011.

Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation,
Teacher Preparation Inventory 2012.
Oklahoma City: OCTP, 2012.

Orfield, Gary, and Chungmei Lee.
Historic Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation, and the Need for New Integration Strategies.
Los Angeles: The Civil Rights Project/
Proyecto Derechos Civiles
, 2007.

Paige, Rod. “U.S. Students Average Among International Peers.” U.S. Department of Education press release. Washington, DC, December 4, 2001.

Parmar, Parminder, Sara Harkness, and Charles M. Super. “Teacher or Playmate? Asian Immigrant and Euro-American Parents’ Participation in Their Young Children’s Daily Activities.”
Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal
, 36 (2008): 163-174.

Pennsylvania Department of Education. “SAT and ACT Scores.”
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/data_and_statistics/7202/sat_and_act_scores/674663
. Accessed 2012.

Peterson, Paul E., and Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadón. “State Standards Rise in Reading, Fall in Math.”
Education Next
58, no. 4 (2010): 12-16.

Peterson, Paul E., Ludger Woessmann, Eric A. Hanushek, Carlos X. Lastra-Anadón.
Globally Challenged: Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete? The Latest on Each State’s International Standing in Math and Reading.
PEPG Report No: 11-03, August 2011.

Poehlman, Lindsay.
2011-2012 International Youth Exchange Statistics.
Alexandria, VA: The Council on Standards for International Educational Travel, 2012.

Price, Marie, and Barbara Hoberock. “Legislative Roundup: Education Committee Backs ‘High-Stakes’ Student Testing.’ ”
Tulsa World,
March 8, 2005.

Rahn, Kim. “Student Kills Mother, Keeps Body at Home for 8 Months.”
The Korea Times
, Nov. 24, 2011.

Ravitch, Diane. “What Can We Learn from Finland?”
Bridging Differences
(blog),
Education Week
. October 11, 2011.

Ravitch, Diane. Speech at “Save Our Schools” rally on the National Mall. Washington, DC, July 30, 2011.

Rich, Vera. “Minister Who Got His Sums Wrong Is Forced to Quit.”
THE
, August 4, 2000.

Richtel, Matt. “In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores.”
New York Times
, September 3, 2011.

Ripley, Amanda. “Brilliance in a Box: What Do the Best Classrooms in the World Look Like?”
Slate
, October 20, 2010.

——. “Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge.”
Time
, November 26, 2008.

——. “Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone.”
Time
, October 3, 2011.

——. “What Makes a Great Teacher?”
The Atlantic
, January/Febuary 2010.

——. “The World’s Schoolmaster.”
The Atlantic
, July/August 2011.

Robelen, Erik W. “Study Links Rise in Test Scores to Nations’ Output.”
Education Week
, January 25, 2010.

Rolland, Megan. “National Group’s Plan to be Used: Kern Decries School Standard.”
The Oklahoman
, October 7, 2011.

Rolland, Megan, and Tricia Pemberton. “Raising Bar for Final Tests Leaves Some Feeling Worry.”
The Oklahoman,
April 3, 2011.

Rotherham, Andrew J. “When It Comes to Class Size, Smaller Isn’t Always Better.”
Time,
March 3, 2011.

Rothwell, Jonathan.
Housing Costs, Zoning, and Access to High Scoring Schools.
Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 2012.

Sachs, Jeffrey. Interviewed on
Commanding Heights
. Public Broadcasting System, June 15, 2000.

Sahlberg, Pasi.
Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?
New York: Teachers College Press, 2011.

Schmidt, William, and Curtis McKnight.
Inequality for All: The Challenge of Unequal Opportunity in American Schools.
New York: Teachers College Press, 2012.

Schmidt, William, Maria Teresa Tatto, Kiril Bankov, Sigrid Blömeke, Tenoch Cedillo, Leland Cogan, Shin Il Han, Richard Houang, Feng Jui Hsieh, Lynn Paine, Marcella Santillan, and John Schwille.
The Preparation Gap: Teacher Education for Middle School Mathematics in Six Countries (MT21 Report).
East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2007.

Schneider, Mark. “The International PISA Test.”
Education Next
9, no. 4 (Fall 2009).

Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Primary Sources: 2012 – America’s Teachers on the Teaching Profession.
Scholastic U.S.A., 2012.

SciMathMN.
Minnesota TIMSS: The Rest of the Story: A Summary of Results as of October 2009.
SciMathMN, 2009.

Scott, Joan. “Testimony by Professor Joan Wallach Scott Before the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s House Select Committee on Student Academic Freedom.” November 9, 2005.

Seligman, Martin E.P., Karen Reivich, Lisa Jaycox, and Jane Gillham.
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New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

Seth, Michael J.
Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002.

Shin-who, Kang. “Private Education Spending to Be Halved.”
The Korea Times
, January 27, 2010.

Shockley, Martin Staples. “The Reception of
The Grapes of Wrath
in Oklahoma.”
American Literature
15, no. 4 (1944): 351-361.

Simola, Hannu, and Risto Rinne. “PISA Under Examination: Changing Knowledge, Changing Tests, and Changing Schools.”
Comparative and International Education,
11, Section V (2011): 225-244.

Song-ah, Kim. “Living in Harmony with Disabled.”
The Korea Times,
November 25, 2009.

Sorensen, Clark W. “Success and Education in South Korea.”
Comparative Education Review,
38, no. 1 (1994).

Suh-young, Yun, and Na Jeong-ju. “Nation Holds Breath for Most Crucial Test.”
The Korea Times,
November 10, 2011.

Suh-young, Y. “My Dream Is to Reshape Korea’s Education.”
The Korea Times
, September 21, 2011.

Statistics Korea.
The 2010 Survey of Private Education Expenditure.
2011.

Steinbeck, John.
The Grapes of Wrath.
New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1939.

Tauber, Robert T.
Classroom Management: Sound Theory and Effective Practice.
Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2007.

Taylor, Leonore. “Finns Win, but Australian Students Are a Class Act.”
Australian Financial Review
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Time.
“Northern Theatre: Sisu,” January 8, 1940.

——. “Time Poll Results: Americans’ Views on Teacher Tenure, Merit Pay, and Other Education Reforms,” September 9, 2010.

Toffler, Alvin.
Future Shock.
New York: Random House, 1970.

Tucker, Marc S., ed.
Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011.

UNICEF.
Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries
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U.S. Department of Education. Education Dashboard.
http://dashboard.ed.gov
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U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
Table B.1.70: Average combined mathematics literacy scores of 15-year-old students, by
national quartiles of the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) and jurisdiction: 2003.
International Data Table Library, 2012.
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/tables/B_1_70.asp
.Accessed 2012.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
Table B.1.71: Average combined mathematics literacy scores of 15-year-old students, by national quartiles of the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) and jurisdiction: 2009.
International Data Table Library, 2012.
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/tables/B_1_71.asp
. Accessed 2012.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
Digest of Education Statistics, 2010: Table 3: Enrollment in educational institutions, by level and control of institution: Selected years, 1869-70 through fall 2019.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
Digest of Education Statistics, 2010: Table 45: Children 3 to 21 years old served under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B, by type of disability: Selected years, 1976-77 through 2008-09.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Various years, 1990–2011, Mathematics Assessments.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
Table 8: Average number of public school teachers and average number of public school teachers who were dismissed in the previous year or did not have their contracts renewed based on poor performance, by tenure status of teachers and state: 2007–08
. Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), Public School District Data File, 2007–08.

U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.
Table 194: Current expenditure per pupil in average daily attendance in public elementary and secondary schools, by state or jurisdiction.
Various years, 1959-60 through 2007-8.

U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.
Table 135: American College Testing (ACT) Score Averages, by Sex: 1970-1997.

U.S. News and World Report.
“College Ranking Lists: Top 100 Lowest Acceptance Rates, Fall 2011.” Accessed December 2012.

Walsh, Kate, and Christopher O. Tracy.
Increasing the Odds: How Good Policies Can Yield
Better Teachers.
Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality, 2004.

Walsh, Kate, Deborah Glaser, and Danielle Dunne Wilcox.
What Education Schools Aren’t Teaching about Reading and What Elementary Teachers Aren’t Learning
. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality, 2006.

Wang, Aubrey, Ashaki Coleman, Richard Coley, and Richard Phelps.
Preparing Teachers Around the World.
Princeton: Educational Testing Service, 2003.

Whelan, Fenton.
Lessons Learned: How Good Policies Produce Better Schools.
London: Fenton Whelan, 2009, p. 7.

Window & Door.
“Therma-Tru to Close Oklahoma Manufacturing Facility.” January 26, 2009.

Winerip, Michael. “Despite Focus on Data, Standards for Diploma May Still Lack Rigor.”
New York Times
, February 5, 2012.

Won, Seoung Joun, and Seunghee Han. “Out-of-School Activities and Achievement Among Middle School Students in the U.S. and South Korea.”
Journal of Advanced Academics
21 no. 4 (August 2010): 628-661.

World Economic Forum.
The Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013: Full Data Edition.
Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2012.

Yoon, Ja-young. “Foreign Investors Eye Education Market.”
The Korea Times,
September 12, 2008.

Yun, Suh-young. “ ‘My Dream Is to Reshape Korea’s Education.’ ”
The Korea Times,
September 21, 2011.

prologue: the mystery

Crap:
Ripley, “Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge.”

Kimball Elementary School:
Ripley, “What Makes a Great Teacher?” Unemployment rate for Ward 7 comes from the D.C. Strategic Workforce Investment Plan.

Dance of the Nations:
The graphic, updated in July 2012 for this book, was also scheduled to appear in Hanushek and Woessmann’s forthcoming book,
The Knowledge Capital of Nations
.

American kids were better off:
OECD,
PISA 2009 Results (Vol. II)
, Table II.1.1, 152.

Eighteenth in math:
The PISA test, the most sophisticated international test of teenagers’ critical thinking skills, is administered by the OECD. For this book, I relied primarily, though not exclusively, on PISA data. In an effort to be fair and consistent, I did not include non-countries (i.e. Hong Kong, Shanghai, or Macao-China) when I derived rankings from PISA data.

Also, I considered countries with exactly the same average PISA score to occupy the same ranking. (In other words, since the most affluent kids in Australia and Germany had the same mean math score, I considered both countries to rank about tenth in the world, not tenth and eleventh.)

The PISA test does not collect data on parental income per se, partly because students do not generally know how much money their parents earn. The test does however measure socioeconomic status by asking students about their parents’ education levels, occupations, and the number of books and computers in their home, and so on. Their answers make up something that the OECD calls the index of students’ economic, social,
and cultural status (ESCS). Students’ answers to these kinds of questions tend to be surprisingly accurate—and the results can better predict educational success than income alone.

This index reveals that American kids who rank in the top quartile on the ESCS index ranked eighteenth in math in 2009 compared to kids in the top quartile around the world (see U.S. Department of Education,
Table B.1.71
at
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/tables/B_1_71.asp
).