Education Law

U.S. schools going for the gold

Now that the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing are underway, the Fordham Institute as well as the Alliance for Excellent Education have seized on this moment to focus on how U.S. students compete with their peers from around the world. The Fordham Institute has launched their Education Olympics where countries compete for the Gold, Silver, and Bronze based on results from various international assessments as well as high school graduation rates. Over at the Alliance for Education Excellence they have put a series of videos together that compare the performance of U.S. athletes at the Olympics against American academic performance in education -- an interesting comparison.

BoardBuzz thinks its clever that both organizations have tied in the Olympics to the importance of a quality 21st Century education. Raising the importance of education, especially in an election year, is never a bad thing. But keep in mind, when hearing how U.S. schools compare to other countries based on international assessments, that it is not always about winning the Gold, Silver, or Bronze, although our schools should be going for the gold. To find out how the U.S. really does compare to other countries check out The Center for Public Education's More Than a Horse Race: A Guide to International Assessments of Student Achievement.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on August 11, 2008 (boomark / email).