Stephen Downes
Stephen's Web
McKinsey Goes Skin Deep
A McKinsey Report says, basically, that the American failure to address the failing educational system in 1998 led to the economic collapse ten years later. Tom Hoffman (and not Thomas Friedman) has the appropriate reaction, saying simply that "I've seen no evidence (and McKinsey provides none) that any country has closed an achievement gap tied to income equality as large as the US's." The point is - and this is more my view than Hoffman's, though I suspect he may agree - the economic collapse, and the educational collapse, are tied to the same underlying problem: decades of increasing inequality in American society, and corruption in the ranks of the business and social elite.More on this from Clay Burrell Part One, Part Two. "Friedman's fixation on test score rankings divorced from poverty rankings needs fixing. But it's standard in education punditry today. We ignore poverty, and instead only focus on schools and teachers." See also This criticism from Tim Stahmer. Tomm Hoffman, Tuttle SVC, April 23, 2009 3:16 p.m.. [Link]
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Re: McKinsey Goes Skin Deep
Do you have any information that supports the idea that there has been an educational collapse in America? The evidence I have seen makes this statement seem like hyperbole not fact.
Michael [Comment]
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Re: McKinsey Goes Skin Deep
There's lots of information - the U.S.'s near last place finish in the PISA tests, for example. [Comment]
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