Better Training Needed for Academic Olympics

The big news over the past couple of days has been the controversies surrounding the Olympics. Leaders from around the world are debating whether or not to travel to China for the opening games.

Well, I won’t weigh in on that issue, but I would like to share some thoughts about the academic Olympics that American students compete in daily. I frequently discuss America’s dismal standing in math and science compared to 30 industrialized nations and how policy makers have become complacent with their response to these statistics.

However, I want you to think for a moment: If the United States came in 21st or 25th in any international athletic competition – millions of people, from politicians to editorialist, would be greatly outraged.
Contrary to popular belief, the academic Olympics do count and we aren’t receiving any medals. To fix this it might require us to either practice longer, harder, or even get better trainers, but we’re Americans and we shouldn’t settle for anything other than gold.

Comments

[Albanaich]

How about doing the obvious - emulate the national curriculum and assessment schemes of the other English speaking nations - all of which, from Ireland to Australia (and even Hong Kong and Singapore) modeled on that of Scotland and England.

The Chinese have no problem picking which winners they need to copy - why not the USA.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3490077.stm

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/8136.740.html