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The Canadian Version of the Lake Wobegone Effect
Continuing with our coverage of the PCAP report, I want to draw your attention to this CBC News article. It’s mostly the usual uninformed twaddle - for example the credit for girls’ improved math performance goes to “gender neutrality” and the elimination of “gender-tagging”. But I have already gone on far too much about the drawbacks of generalist education reporting.
What sets this article apart, though, is its stunning demonstration of the shortcomings of Canadian math education in practice. About two-thirds of the way down the article appears the following clanger: “The report also found that most students, 91 per cent, performed at the expected level of achievement in math, and almost half are doing better than the average.” I’m guessing that, coincidentally, almost half are doing worse than the average as well - what do you think?
In Lake Wobegon, “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average”. Not so in Canada apparently. H/T to LDA