Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by angus77 5593 days ago
Exactly. Canada spends, on average, over $3000 less per student and yet consistently scores significantly higher on the UN's Education Index than the US. No need to look to Europe or the East to find out what can be done better.
2 comments
yummyfajitas 5593 days ago
The gap becomes insignificant (524 vs 530 on PISA) once you correct for demographics.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...

link
angus77 5592 days ago
The "insignificant" gap gets more significant when you remember that the US spends on average more than $3000 more per student per year. It says that the US could cut costs by a third without hurting education in the least. Just where is that $3000+ going?
link
tsotha 5593 days ago
Because Canada doesn't share a border with Mexico. The southern US border states absorb almost a million Central and South American peasants every year - people who don't speak English and may not have more than a few years of elementary school.
link
angus77 5592 days ago
Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world. Ever been to Toronto? Almost half of the population there is foreign born. Look up Demographics of Toronto on Wikipedia for some stats.
link
tsotha 5592 days ago
How many of them are there illegally, with a sixth-grade education, no skills, and no ability to speak English (or French)? It's not immigration, per se, that's the problem. The problem is the type of people we're getting.
link
angus77 5592 days ago
So is there a big gap in the scores of Northerners and those in Southern border states? If there isn't, then it's not the illegal immigrants that are the problem. And how do they get into school if they don't have citizenship or visas? You don't just walk into a class and start learning---you've got to fill out all the paperwork first. It's gotten to be a royal pain in the ass to cross the Canadian border into the US since 9/11---how is it so easy for millions of Mexicans?

And how is standardized testing supposed to solve that problem? How is throwing in an extra $3000/head supposed to solve it?

link
tsotha 5592 days ago
>So is there a big gap in the scores of Northerners and those in Southern border states?

There is. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously quipped the crucial determinant of the quality of American schools is proximity to the Canadian border. Things have gotten worse since his day.

>And how do they get into school if they don't have citizenship or visas?

That's the way it works in the US. Get your kids over the border and they can go to school. They don't need papers or English.

>It's gotten to be a royal pain in the ass to cross the Canadian border into the US since 9/11---how is it so easy for millions of Mexicans?

Things are a lot easier if you cross illegally. It's a long border, and there are various interests in the US who benefit from the influx of cheap labor. So the border isn't well policed and people who are caught crossing are simply released in Mexico. Then they hop back over the border again the next night.

>And how is standardized testing supposed to solve that problem? How is throwing in an extra $3000/head supposed to solve it?

Eh? Testing won't solve anything, and I didn't mean to imply it would. I was just trying to say the situation in Canada isn't directly comparable. US schools will never score as well as those of other first world countries no matter how much money we spend.

link