Obama's Education Myth

I have been increasingly irritated with the rhetoric that the Obama team has been spreading about education. The propaganda they are saying over and over again is that China and India outperform the US in math and science. This is a myth that uses skued numbers to back up the argument that our children need to spend more hours in the classroom and more days a week.

The education numbers are skued because the majority of India and China’s population is not counted in the statistic. Huge portions of people in China and India live in 3rd world conditions, these people are impoverished, and they are not getting educated. The education numbers are only counting the upper elite of their societies, where as the US is counting our entire population. That is the reason they look so good on paper, it’s a myth that they are outperforming us and nothing more.

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Comment by Rugbymom on March 25, 2009 at 9:01am: I agree with your point. There are some countries that have amazing educational programs and the US could take a couple pointers from them, and India and China do not come to mind. Most of this needs to be done at the State level, IMHO. Education is very state-specific and some states have serious problems with public education. Some of the issues are even at the county level, i.e. Charlotte, NC. There are some good school systems in NC, but Mecklenburg County is a hot mess.

When I studied abroad, I was blown away by the education of my German classmates, who were bi & tri-lingual and more advanced in their studies. I was actually pretty embarrassed and I was in classes over my head with students who were younger.

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Comment by NYCity Mama on March 24, 2009 at 6:35am: I can't speak for the statistics from India and China...and I won't say that I want to see my children spend MORE time in the classroom, either in hours or days. But I will say this: when I was 9 I moved to the Dominican Rep., a Third World country, nothing comparable to the super force this Nation is. I was an A student, especially in math and science. I took a test upon arriving, in English, and was told my knowledge standards of the material for the grade I should've entered were not up to parr with theirs, thus I was held back a grade. That has always stayed with me because I think about how, up to that moment, I thought I was getting the best education in the World, that would make me desirable and competetive anywhere I went, and here I was, left back, not good enough. Amazing, huh? And after receiving an education there and then a year in Europe, and coming here again to finish, I can tell you, from my experience, in public schools in other countries..we are falling short. Very short. That is my reality, that non-myth of how poorly prepare I was coming from here.