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Eric Siegel wrote:  "I heard recently that there is a reverse correlation
between rates of economic growth in the past 20 years and success on
international standardized testing.  I haven't been able to find the
article, but here is one that makes a similar point, that none of the
largest economies, other than Japan's is at the top of the PISA charts."

Eric, I don't now where you heard about that reverse (i.e., negative)
correlation, but I can cite a major PISA publication which says quite the
opposite, that economic growth per capita is strongly and positively
correlated with success on PISA standards-based tests.  Andreas
Schleicher, Head of indicators and Analysis (which includes PISA) for the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a talk in
Paris on April 5, 2010, that "Quality of education is good predictor of
GDP growth per capita."  He illustrated his talk with many charts
comparing PISA scores with GDP growth per capita across OECD countries.
Here is a link to the published charts, data, and citations:
www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/pisa2006/44417824.pdf.

Your citation doesn't disagree with this conclusion at all.  Rather,
Michael C. Russell is talking only about the SIZES of national economies,
and isn't looking at economic GROWTH RATES.  Is the interesting
correlation with education the size of an economy, or are we interested in
the correlation between education and the growth of an economy, be it
large or small?  I can think of a lot of reasons to go with growth, rather
than absolute size or size per capita, as the potential outcome of good
education.

Cheers,
Alan
________________________________________
Alan J. Friedman, Ph.D.
Consultant for Museum Development and Science Communication
29 West 10th Street
New York, New York 10011 USA
T  +1 917 882-6671
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a member of The Museum Group
www.museumgroup.com <http://www.museumgroup.com/>

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