Dan Willingham’s Washington Post blog today on the relationship between income inequality and test scores is worth a read. “Some countries have successfully minimized the disparity in educational outcomes between rich and poor,” Willingham points out. “According to the PISA, the countries doing the best job include Iceland, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Canada, and Finland.” What strikes us about this list is that five of these six nations have also repeatedly outranked the US on the PISA exam. So these nations are not just closing equity gaps they are getting all of their students across the finish line better than the rest of the world.
Willingham adds: “I don’t know how other countries have addressed this problem. It may be curricular.” We can confirm that his guess is on target. We studied the content of education in these nations in Why We’re Behind and found that each was delivering a comprehensive, content-rich education to their students. Some guarantee this education via a national curriculum or national tests, and some take a state-level approach, but each finds a way to make sure all of their students learn the arts, science, foreign languages, and much more (than just reading and math).
Lynne Munson