Map Comparing U.S. States to Countries by Education Level

[Vagabond]

http://www.homesnacks.net/this-surp...untries-with-similar-education-levels-123796/

We used the U.S. Census to get the numbers on each state’s high school graduation rate, and then compared those numbers to the education index of each country in the world, provided by the United Nations Development Program

Large version of the map

The comparisons are not altogether surprising, but they are striking.

For example:

Mississippi ≈ Swaziland
Arkansas ≈ Angola
Louisiana ≈ Kenya
Oklahoma ≈ Syria
Georgia ≈ Libya
Virginia ≈ Switzerland
Colorado ≈ Netherlands
California ≈ North Dakota ≈ Chile

http://www.attn.com/stories/5631/us-map-compares-states-to-countries-by-education-level

Wallethub also found that no surprisingly, schools with the highest spending on education had better school systems, while those that didn't invest as much in education saw a dip in school quality. Arizona and Nevada are prime examples of this. Out of the 50 states, they ranked 48 and 49 respectively, and their matches were Tunisia and Ghana, which fall at 90 and 138 on the U.N.'s index.

Thoughts?

 

[Kasey]

Well, it's a bit depressing for anyone, such as myself, who is in a state which matches up to anywhere in Africa, perhaps other than South Africa. Although I must say, one of my favorite doctors ever is from Ghana, and so if we must be an African nation, I guess it could be worse. But it irritates me that someone could look at that map and generalize an entire state's IQ based on it.

 

[agalisgv]

The article had many factual inaccuracies, and seemed to rely on stereotypes more than anything. There isn't a good correlation between school spending and education outcomes. The correlation is between family wealth and student achievement. Areas of the country that have highest wealth will also have highest student achievement. This has long been known as has many of the most underperforming districts also happen to have some of the highest per student spending. Urban areas typically spend more per pupil than their suburban counterparts, yet student achievement lags way behind. Again, this isn't new info.

Also, liberals tend to be enamored by Scandinavia, so perhaps that explains why the article likened Massachusetts to Finland. But the countries with the highest graduation rates (which is what the bar was supposed to be per the article) are Portugal and Slovenia.
http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/10-countries-with-the-highest-high-school-graduation-rates-366734/

So anyhow, the article had a LOT of misinformation and inaccuracies, and seemed to be promoting a popular liberal view of education that isn't well founded on fact.

 

[purple skates]

Two questions came to my mind.

First, are there apple to apple comparisons? In the US kids are in school until they are 18. In some countries it might be age 16, in others government-provided schooling may end at 12 or so. Are they only counting countries whose kids remain in government-provided schools through age 18?

Second, how much spending per student actually goes into the student's education? How much is pay and benefits, how much is infrastructure improvements, student transportation, etc. Just saying the US "doesn't spend enough" as a way to compare states isn't the best measurement, IMO.

 

[agalisgv]

Second, how much spending per student actually goes into the student's education?

True--right now in Chicago, 80 cents of every education dollar is spent on pensions. Only 20 cents goes to actually educating students today. It's hard to get much done on only 20 cents on the dollar (and that figure is going down).

 

[PrincessLeppard]

I can't find that number anywhere. The only number similar to that I can find is payout percentages to teachers elsewhere in Illinois (87% of retirement spending) vs. Chicago teachers (13% of retirement spending).

Also, that the extra money added to the budget, 89% went to pensions. Not the entire budget.

 

[maatTheViking]

I have 2 major problems here:

1:
Does 'education index = graduation rate'? It seems like they are comparing apples to oranges. I am guessing 'education index' covers a lot of things?

ETA from wikipedia:

Education index EI is calculated from "Expected years of schooling" EYS (Number of years a child of school entrance age can expect to spend in a given level of education) and "Mean years of schooling" MYS (Average number of completed years of education of a population [25 years and older]). "Expected years of schooling" is indexed by dividing by 18 and "Mean years of schooling" is indexed by dividing by 15. Education index is obtained by averaging these two indices. The maximum for "Mean years of schooling", 15, is the projected maximum of this indicator for 2025. The maximum for "Expected years of schooling", 18, is equivalent to achieving a master's degree in most countries

this is not quite the same as high school graduation rate (and in fact the US rates 5th on this list).

2:
Secondly, the map doesn't list the education index - instead relying on prejudice. For instance is Kazakhstan and Cuba higher on the list than Portugal.


Why not just make a heatmap of graduation rates if you want to say something about graduation rates? This is gimmicky and useless.

 

[Jot the Dot Dot]

Something's gotta be wrong with US education when something like this is obviously The Onion in it's usual satire, but it runs so close to the truth! http://www.theonion.com/article/report-chinese-third-graders-falling-behind-us-hig-31464

 

[skatingfan5]

True--right now in Chicago, 80 cents of every education dollar is spent on pensions. Only 20 cents goes to actually educating students today. It's hard to get much done on only 20 cents on the dollar (and that figure is going down).

I'm not sure where you got those figures, but the 2015 CPS budget (presented by CPS) shows something very different (unless I'm reading things incorrectly), with 68% of the budget going to teacher salaries and benefits (which include employer pension contributions). Pensions themselves are paid from the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund.