The historically strong performance of the U.S. in the Olympic games stands in stark contrast to the performance of U.S. students compared to their peers overseas. This irony is not lost upon The Fordham Foundation, which goes to town on the poor performance on U.S. students in their entertaining yet pointed Education Olympics this week. Meanwhile Two Million Minutes filmmaker Bob Compton is in Beijing. He sent this essay to Whitney Tilson, who included it in his most recent ed reform email blast. It’s reprinted here with permission from Compton.
What if the U.S. won no Olympic medals?
By Bob Compton
As I prepare to go to the Beijing Olympics, I wonder what would happen if the U.S. came home with no medals. From the first Olympic Games in 1896 through 2006, the U.S. has always fared very well, leading the world with 973 gold medals and 2,405 total medals won. No other country on Earth, big or small, comes even close to America’s athletic prowess.
But as I pack my bags, I wonder – what would happen? What if the U.S. won no gold, no silver and no bronze medals? Even worse, what if the U.S. team finished 25th in the medal competition way behind both smaller and larger countries? Would we handle it with the same nonchalance we have about our children ranking 25th in the world in mathematics? Would it merit a Blue Ribbon panel whose recommendations are never implemented? Would it generate a brief mention in the news and then pass from our minds?
No way! Dropping to 25th in the world at the Olympics would be a national embarrassment. There would be an outcry of humiliation from Americans. The President, Congress, Governors, in fact every elected official worth their salt would demand “athletic reform.” Experts would be appointed to analyze our programmatic weaknesses compared to other countries, and every American would expect serious, measurable changes to take place within four years before the next Olympics. We would muster the will and exert every effort never to lose again in the global athletic contest of the Olympics.
So why are we so apathetic about the decline of our children’s intellectual achievement – where 24 countries outperform U.S. students in math, arguably a more important contest than any sport. Each year our children’s ability to compete academically in the world gets worse, and each year Americans seem to care less. Elected officials give the illusion of caring, but no truly hard choices are made, and no meaningful improvements are seen.
Fortunately, America has been relatively unchallenged economically for the past 50 years. During that time our country won the race to the moon, won the Cold War and became enormously wealthy – on the strength of science, engineering and industry that produced the biggest, the fastest, the best of everything. But times have changed.
Our accumulated wealth and a historically liberal immigration policy have allowed us to ignore how rapidly other nations are enhancing their intellectual capital. China, for example, has gone from the extreme poverty and illiteracy produced by the Cultural Revolution to become the fourth largest economy in the world – in a mere 30 years. That’s right – only 30 years! Today, the U.S has a trade deficit of $1.5 trillion with China, and China holds $150 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, second only to Japan. China has become both our supplier of goods and our banker. Does that worry anyone else out there but me?
China and India, the two most populous nations on E arth – each four times our size – are producing more and more well-educated young people, particularly in math and science. Their cultures revere, recognize and reward academic excellence, and so they are perfectly tuned to the global technology competition of the 21st century.
As Americans we believe in being number one – in sports, technology, innovation, creativity, the military and in the global economy. But all of that success is based on being number one in educating our children – something we are no longer achieving.
Isn’t it time we admit to ourselves this is more serious than the Olympic Games. Americans traditionally rise to the challenge and prevail. It’s time to rise to the challenge of educating our children to the highest level in the world and ensure they bring home economic gold medals.
Go U.S.A.!
We do not have a compulsory public athlete training system. By the same token, not one of our Olympic athletes comes out of the compulsory public schools. Our Olympic athletes are trained privately and supported by their parents with a huge financial/personal commitment. Not every one of our compulsory public education students is as proportionately talented as our Olympic athletes. Half of them are below average, and that average is pretty low. A seriously solid chunk of our compulsory public school students damn well resent the fact that you even expect them to perform! Fine. In this country if you don’t want to learn, you aren’t compelled to. Olympic athletes are where they are because they have both talent and desire. An Olympic athlete who fails to perform goes home a loser. A compulsory public school student who fails to perform falls into one of this country’s wonderful social safety nets, or perhaps ends up in prison; some don’t see a difference.
Bob, you really shouldn’t try to pack your bags and write at the same time as both efforts wind up a shambles.
One thing to be careful of in these comparisons is that the actual Olympics looks at standout individuals, and the “Education Olympics” page looks at percentages.
Olympic medal counts favor high population countries, and countries that are willing to put resources (either public or private)into the work of high achieving individuals. In contrast, the percentage ranking of the Education Olympics give no advantage to large countries and favor countries who put resources into high average achievement.
I suspect if you looked at the rankings of the highest achievement individuals in academic areas, U.S. performance would look much better. And likewise, I suspect that if you compared the athletic prowess of the average U.S. student to students in other countries, U.S. athletic performance wouldn’t look as good as its Olympic medal count.
Compton’s comments take us well beyond the realm of school reform and into the realm of cultural transformation. How do we inspire widespread esteem for intellectual achievement–for learning–both in and beyond schools?