Wow. Could we all just

Wow. Could we all just have been under an evil statistical spell?

The Daily Howler takes the above report and runs against A Nation at Risk. Could it be that we were really doing pretty well all along, and it was only our stupid, pointless, ridiculous and dare I say short sighted policy on not helping those in need which dragged down the average to make us look like idiots? And so all these poor teachers and students have been been taking it on the chin over a misreading of statistics?

When newspapers report international studies of this type, scores-by-race are rarely provided. Newspapers don’t like to go there. But for those who would judge American teachers and schools, it’s significant to see how white American kids perform on tests of this type. After all, the U.S. has an unusual history, which affects its overall scores in such measures. For a period of roughly 400 years, the United States tried, as official state policy, to eliminate literacy in the black community. Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was against the law to teach black kids to read; for roughly a century after that, only the most modest efforts were made in this area. Under the circumstances, it’s a miracle that black literacy rates aren’t much lower. But American blacks are still affected by the assault on literacy that was conducted over time, and average scores on international tests are affected by residual problems that have yet to be solved in our nation’s urban schools. But as Bracey points out, white Americans sometimes score at the very top among international groups. Since other countries didn’t spend centuries stamping out literacy in one part of their populations, these scores provide an intriguing rebuttal to sweeping attacks on American schools. Obviously, our suburban schools are far from perfect. But our suburban schools do tend to house kids who score near the top of the world.

DON’T EVEN START: Don’t even start with your complaints that it’s “racist” to leave out our black kids. The point here is simple—American history has created a situation that exists in no other developed nation. Japan and Sweden didn’t spend hundreds of years destroying literacy among ten percent of their populations. The astounding tragedy of American history created the tragedy of today’s urban schools. At present, American ed is indeed overwhelmed by the problems that exist in our urban schools. But other countries don’t face the unique problem that our history has asked us to handle.