How's the US education system performing relative to other countries? How can we improve our own performance?

There are many opinions and narratives about what to do, and in this episode, Xander and Erik dive into the data to understand which hold water, and which are swept away by facts.

Sources

Many of our sources are in our companion articles, which are linked below:

• What Iv'e Learned So Far trying to Figure Out the Quality of US Education (Erik)
• Measuring Poverty for Education (Xander)
• Defining Poverty... Poorly (Erik)

Other Sources

• Fast Facts: Expenditures (IES-NCES)
• Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 2011-2012 (US DoEd)
• Education Expenditures by Country (IES-NCES)
• Bruce D Baker, Mark Weber Deconstructing the Myth of American Public Schooling Inefficiency (Albert Shanker Institute)
• Andrew J Coulson The Impact of Federal Involvement in America's Classrooms (CATO Institute)
• Fast Facts: International comparisons of achievement (IES-NCES)
• Marian Wilde Global Grade: How do US Students Compare? (greatschools.org)
• Terrance F Ross Where School Dollars Go to Waste (The Atlantic)
• Lauren Camera Federal Education Funding: Where Does the Money Go? (US News)
• Skye Gould and Chris Weller "The 20 countries where teachers are paid the best and worst" (Tech Insider)
• Michael J. Petrilli and Brandon L Wright "Is America's Poverty Rate Exceptional? It Depends On How You Define Poverty." EducationNext
• Michael J. Petrilli and Brandon L Wright America's Mediocre Test Scores (EducationNext)
• Richard M. Ingersoll Is There Really a Teacher Shortage? (Consortium for Policy Research in Education and the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy)

View ReConsider on Patreon.

Here's a link to great graphs on the subject, on ReConsider Media.

"Politics, but we don't do the thinking for you."

ReConsider, by Xander Snyder and Erik Fogg, is a twice per month podcast in which we take on, in-depth, one pressing political issue facing western Democracies with a fresh, researched, and challenging perspective. We help listeners see the full context behind the issue and make up their own minds.

ReConsider Media is a syndicate of IVN.us. This podcast was originally published on ReConsider Media July 12, 2016.