In het zogenaamd egalitaire Amerika, waar iedereen kan worden wat hij wil, is er een veel grotere correlatie tussen het inkomen van de ouders en de opleiding van de kinderen dan in Europa. Oftewel kinderen van rijke ouders worden in de VS goed opgeleid en komen later goed terecht, kinderen van arme ouders worden slecht opgeleid en komen slecht terecht. Sterker nog in deze grafiek is de VS (Reagan: ‘that shining city on the hill’) het land met de minste mobiliteit tussen sociaal-economische klassen. In onderstaand stuk in The Economist schrijft een correspondent over de keuze om zijn kinderen naar een Amerikaanse school (waar je goed onderwijs kunt kopen) of een Nederlandse school (cito-toets) te sturen.
“I’m pretty sure the system that does more to maximise the opportunities and capabilities of the most of its kids isn’t the American one.”

Comparing schools and class in Europe and America

In considering whether to raise my kids in America or the Netherlands, I’ve had to weigh the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two educational systems. Probably the hardest thing for me to get used to about the Dutch educational system is the much-feared Citotoets, a standardized test given at the end of eighth grade that plays a large role in determining what type of high school the student will attend. The test is scored between 500 and 550, a bizarre scheme supposedly chosen to lessen the anxiety-inducing impression that it constitutes an intelligence test. If the authorities wanted to lessen the anxiety, they might have done better not to give preteens (or barely-teens) a test that could determine the rest of their academic and professional careers.
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Score under 540, and you won’t be admitted to atheneum or gymnasium, the elite high schools that prepare the top 20% of students to get a university education. It’s possible to get into university via the less-prestigious “havo” (”higher general continued education”) schools, that take the next tranche of 20%. But land with the rest of the bunch in a “vmbo” (vocational education) school, and your chances of making it to university are slim.

Like many an apparently archaic and arbitrary institution, the Citotoets began its life as a rationalising reform. Dutch kids have been tracked into university-bound and vocation school-bound paths since the country first adopted universal education, but until the 1960s the choice was largely made by teachers. In the mid-1960s Adriaan de Groot, a Dutch psychologist and chess grandmaster, began pushing for a more objective way to recognise top students. In 1968 the Cito (Central Institute for Test Development) came out with its test.

Americans don’t like this kind of thing. We believe that every child is a snowflake: unique and multifaceted. We also believe in personal redemption and transformation. Just because you’re a goof-off at 14 doesn’t mean you can’t pull yourself together a couple of years later and get into college and do well. Why learn a trade at 16 when you might change careers four times before you’re 30? Suddenly realise you missed your calling as a physician? Go ahead, take the pre-med courses and apply to med school, my 35-year-old friend! It’s never too late. This is our creed: if you work hard and believe in yourself, you can do whatever you want. We don’t go for tracking people early, or so we say.

But, of course, that’s not entirely true. American society employs a form of tracking at least as insidious: if you come from a poor or live in a bad neighbourhood, the public school you can attend is most likely inadequate to prepare you for a decent university. In the Netherlands, children are tracked according to their test performance, but the quality of free universal schooling is both higher and far more equitable.

And that shows up in the data. In early March the OECD released a report on intergenerational social mobility across OECD countries. The report found social and income mobility was significantly lower in America than in many European countries, particularly Scandinavia. Education being a major driver of income, the report also looked at inheritance of educational achievement.

As you can see, over there on the left, we have the USA, the country where the socio-economic level of the parents is most likely to determine a child’s educational achievement. A further finding is that the main driver of this effect is not the characteristics of the parents, but the poor quality of schools attended by students from low socio-economic backgrounds in America.

If I were to raise my children in America, I could probably figure out how to live in an affluent neighbourhood with good schools, though given the state of journalism at the moment I might have to change careers. (But hey, it’s America! You can do that!) If I decide to live in the Netherlands, my children will have to face the dread Citotoets. The first system incentivises me to earn and spend money to safeguard my children’s educational future. The second system incentivises me to get my children to study hard to safeguard their own educational future. Which of these is more praiseworthy? Don’t get me wrong: I still think the Netherlands should stop, or at least limit, the practice of tracking kids into life-determining school choices at such a young age. (Fortunately a lot of Dutch people seem to agree with me; about a third of students now use more flexible additional forms of assessment.) And I completely embrace the American conviction that people should be allowed to change their minds and work out where they fit in the world, and the economy, on their own. But for most American kids, receiving the tools they need to thrive in our do-it-yourself society is largely dependent on the wealth of their parents. On the whole, I’m pretty sure the system that does more to maximise the opportunities and capabilities of the most of its kids isn’t the American one.

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This entry was posted on woensdag, maart 31st, 2010 at 3:17 am and is filed under Dutch on the World, JdeW, English, American In The News, Geld, Life, Going Dutch, World on the Dutch, Politiek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.