Student Union
Asian Nations Score Top Grades Worldwide
Students in China, Singapore, Macao, Estonia, Japan, Finland, Korea, Canada and Hong Kong are among those who eclipse U.S. students in reading, math and science, according to an international study of education worldwide.
In a snapshot of the abilities of 15-year-old students in the subjects of reading, math and science, pupils in four provinces in China — Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang — outperformed their peers in mathematics and science “by a wide margin,” according to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).
Students in the four provinces also topped reading scores, with only those in Singapore coming close.
Asian nations took the top seven slots in math. Following the combined four provinces in China were Singapore, Macao, Hong Kong, Taipei, Japan and Korea. Estonia, the Netherlands and Poland rounded out the top 10. The U.S. ranked 37th, behind such countries as Canada, Sweden, the U.K., Germany, France, Australia, Russia, Italy and Hungary.
In science, the four provinces again excelled, followed by Singapore, Macao, Estonia, Japan, Finland, Korea, Canada, Hong Kong and Taipei to round out the top 10. The U.S. ranked 18th.
“What makes their achievement even more remarkable is that the level of income of these four Chinese regions is well below the average” of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, the report stated, meaning they were not among the wealthiest.
‘Socio-economically advantaged students’
OECD is a 36-member economic organization that works “to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all,” and is headquartered in Paris. Most of the members are developed nations in Europe and North America, and include Australia, Chile, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand and Turkey.
The report noted that “socio-economically advantaged students,” or those from wealthy countries, generally perform better than disadvantaged students. The 10% most wealthy students outperformed the 10% most disadvantaged students in reading by 141 score points, the report said.
However, in 2018, more than 10 million students in 79 high- and middle-income OECD countries, according to PISA statistics, were unable to complete even the most basic reading tasks.
The report also found that while spending increased by 15 percent in OECD countries in the past decade, “there has also been no real overall improvement in the learning outcomes of [their] students.”
The highest-scoring students in four Chinese provinces of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang — or about 180 million students — were also among the 10 percent most disadvantaged students. These students showed “better reading skills than those of the average student in OECD countries,” the report found.
Some countries, such as Albania, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Uruguay, increased enrollment rates in secondary education while maintaining or improving reading, mathematics and science performance, the report said, adding, “This shows that the quality of education does not have to be sacrificed when increasing access to schooling.”
PISA said Turkey, while not showing a huge change in student performance between 2003-2018, touted the country’s ability to double the number of 15-year-olds in school during that period, increasing rolls from 36% to 73%.
The PISA report confirmed a “positive relationship between investment in education and average performance,” but found a threshold of $50,000 in cumulative expenditure per student from age 6 to 15.
“After that threshold, there is almost no relationship between the amount invested in education and student performance,” the report said.
It pointed to the $65,000 per year similarly spent by Estonia and neighboring Latvia in primary and lower secondary education: Estonia scores more than 40 points above Latvia in reading. Likewise, Australia, the U.K. and U.S. spend more than $107,000 on average per student per year, but score “no better than” or below Canada, Ireland and New Zealand, which spend between 10% and 30% less.
Quality vs. quantity
Quality of learning proves better than quantity, the report stated.
“In Finland, the country where students spend the least (amount of) time learning, student performance is comparatively high, whereas in the United Arab Emirates, the country with the longest study hours, learning outcomes are comparatively poor,” the report found.
It also noted the importance of “academic resilience” of immigrant students. More than 30 percent of immigrant students in Brunei Darussalam, Jordan, Panama, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates scored in the top quarter of reading performance, it stated.
“These successes do not come about by chance. … Support from parents, a positive school climate and having a growth mindset” were contributing factors, it said.
Wealth, too, no longer guarantees successful scores and students.
“The world is no longer divided between rich and well-educated nations, and poor and badly educated ones,” the report found. “When comparing countries that score similarly in PISA, their income levels vary widely. History shows that countries with the determination to build a first-class education system can achieve this even in adverse economic circumstances, and their schools today will be their economy and society tomorrow.”
The PISA report issued a warning for the rapid expansion of digital information and students’ ability to discern between fact and fiction.
With fewer than 5% of students in the PISA study having access to the internet at home, the report found that “fewer than 1 in 10 students in OECD countries (were) able to distinguish between fact and opinion.”
“When reading online blogs, forums or news sites, readers must constantly assess the quality and reliability of the information, based on implicit or explicit cues related to the content, format or source of the text,” the report found. “Education has won the race with technology throughout history, but there is no guarantee that it will do so in the future.”
See all News Updates of the Day
International students may be able to get jobs at school
International students studying in the United States may be able to work on campus.
Jobs can include working in libraries, labs, food service and dormitories – but students will have to research the rules before applying for jobs, according to U.S. News & World Report. (September 2024)
Report says college rankings have the potential to mislead
Each year, prominent lists of college and university rankings are compiled and released to the public, but a report conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago says those rankings have the potential to mislead.
Writing in Forbes, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier says changing methodologies can distort results, and profit motives can create doubt. He argues that rankings should be replaced by an objective rating system. (September 2024)
College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
- By VOA News
Bloomberg Philanthropies says investment in low-income students fell short
More than $140 million from billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s charitable programs have been spent getting talented low-income students into top colleges, but an analysis of those programs found they fell short of goals.
The Wall Street Journal took a look at the programs, their objectives, and how they haven’t led to the results Bloomberg Philanthropies wanted to see. (September 2024)
- By VOA News
Music students find community through 'international chat' program
State University of New York at Fredonia is trying a new method to help international music students feel at home.
A professor at the school hosts informal chats -- known as "international chat" -- several times a semester. The goal, the school says in an article, is to function "as a study group session for international students facing challenges that are unique to international students."
Read the full story here. (October 2024)
