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Well put. It is important that we understand what the numbers represent (i.e., the presence in the US/US sample of more disadvantaged students, or students with unmet educational needs, than in those countries "below" which we fall on the scale). But that clarification doesn't change reality. 

The representative sample REPRESENTS the student population we want/need to educate. Sort some of them out and it no longer does so. 

Sarah 


On Mar 20, 2013, at 11:03 AM, Alan Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> Before we start rejoicing at the dramatic improvement in US student
> performance rankings as calculated by Stanford researchers, consider
> carefully what the researchers have done.  They revised the PISA data so
> that "differences in countries' social class compositions are adequately
> taken into account."  I think everyone agrees that socio-economic
> disadvantage is strongly correlated with lower performance on all the
> major assessments.  The US has a larger percentage of students with lower
> socio-economic status than many developed countries.  So the researchers
> have "taken into account" this sad situation by adjusting the scores as if
> this situation were not true.  And as a result of this adjustment, the US
> rank rises.
> 
> If only the disproportionately greater share of US students in
> disadvantaged social classes could be fixed so easily.  The hard way would
> be to reduce the percentage of the disadvantaged students, for example by
> effective, large-scale programs to reduce poverty and discrimination.
> 
> PISA, TIMSS, and NAEP are all designed to take representative samples of
> the population is it is, rather than how we would like it to be or as it
> would be if we leveled out the differences between populations.  The
> Stanford researchers have done a valuable service by pointing out when our
> disadvantaged populations outperform other disadvantaged populations, and
> that we have in fact lowered performance gaps in many (but not all)
> instances.  But whether their calculated re-scoring of the PISA test
> produces a more accurate and useful ranking is a matter of taste, rather
> than of repairing errors in the PISA results.
> 
> Alan
> ________________________________________
> Alan J. Friedman, Ph.D.
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> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
> 
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