White and Asian students, if stratified separately, rank in the top 10 academically world wide.

Everyone else brings down the average, and it has nothing to do with teachers or how good they are.

Teachers in my county are assigned to schools randomly, and yet some schools score 9/10 and others score literally 1/10 and 2/10 on great schools for academic performance. Funding between schools is the same. Teachers assigned are from the same pool.

It’s not the money. It’s not the teachers.

Anyone who talks about “education in the USA” without addressing the giant disparity in academic performance that begins in kindergarten for black and Hispanic students is ignoring the single largest factor on student outcomes.

Why do black and hispanic students score worse?

Even adjusted for family wealth, income, and adversity nonimmigrants* with these backgrounds score worse at all schooling levels; even when placed in schools with double the funding per student.

It would be nice if socioeconomic factors were the whole answer here. But that does not appear to be the case. Even Hispanic and Black students adopted by White families do not score much higher than peers of their ethnic group. This is a dark rabbit hole that you may not want to go down.

*Legal immigrants are self selected for higher ability.

> Even Hispanic and Black students adopted by White families do not score much higher than peers of their ethnic group.

Are you referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption... ? Are there other studies I'm not aware of? Because that study doesn't really conclusively demonstrate the point we're discussing in this thread re: race correlating with intelligence because of genetic factors of a race itself. In fact many interpretations of the study point to socio-economic factors as the root cause of different test results (e.g. it's hard being a different race than your parents, or suddenly finding yourself growing up in wildly different socioeconomic conditions than the ones you were born and raised into ). Also worth pointing out that black children adopted into white families had higher test scores than the mean for white children nationwide.

No that's not what I'm talking about.

Yes there are other studies. Critically analyzed they all point in the same direction, including this one.

I’m sure there are whole sociology degrees on the subject. But this is even true intra class, in kindergarten. Probably as early as preschool, from what I’ve seen here.

Yes, but if we look at teacher salaries, the average in the state of New York is 79 637.

In Sweden it's around 41550 SEK per month, which implies 498 000 SEK per year, which including the tax would be 647 400 SEK per year, i.e. 59 000 USD.

But Sweden has a per capita GDP of 56000 USD whereas the per capita GDP of New York State is 104343. It's not going to be incredibly competitive.

You need to subtract the tax rate, not add it.

No. In order to compare a wage to GDP one should calculate the amount of money that the employee actually costs the employer.

So tax is in. I need to compare the same kinds of things. The American numbers are also pre-tax.

Here in Sweden though, the fully pre-tax numbers are rarely reported. Rather, what is reported is the wage minus a 1-1/1.3 tax, so I have to reverse that tax by multiplying by 1.3.

I am going to go out on a wild limb here, and conjecture that one of the US's biggest weakness is how they handle teachers.

1. Above average talent in any subject field do not join the talent pool for teachers in the USA. Industry pays better and has better working conditions (both real and perceived). This is going to be a major cultural hurdle but the USA needs to break away from the idea that teaching is lesser work. This will create more political will to boost teacher funding.

2. Free Market Economics. You heard me. Teachers in the USA have the unique "opportunity" of having to find and interview for positions. Two problems: First, you end up with talent pooling unevenly. Next, you have teachers stagnating at one school for decades. Solution: central deployment. Teachers are hired by districts, and then the district rotates teachers through all schools in the district over the course of their career. Seniority grants some preference ranking, and longer rotation periods.

This also counters a third problem: Teachers finding themselves out of a job, or facing job prospects so dire that they just leave the field altogether. There is a level of security, and those who wish to proceed to administration are given opportunities towards the ends of their careers.

3. Administration as a separate career track. Administrative bloat is becoming a real problem, and both the higher pay associated + the opportunity to laterally move into the track via "further education" is a root cause. This makes them a separate class with competing interests, and incentives will only lead to more bloat as well as siphon away talented teachers who get burned out by teaching (mostly due to the abysmal pay). My time in Japan gave me perspective on a perhaps better way:

   a) School based administration (principals and vice principals) is a role only obtainable at the end of your career, on a fixed timeline. If you decided to put yourself on that track, you will most likely be in the last 6 years of your career, and your last 3 years as principal will end in retirement. This both prevents admin bloat and class distinction, while allowing skilled, senior teachers to provide guidance and pass along wisdom.\
 
   b) School District administration -- that is all the bureaucratic management of schools -- is a completely separate career track of professional, general bureaucrats who are assigned to school administration as part of a career rotation inside their career at government. 

Teachers teach, and become experts at teaching. In the end, they are rewarded by becoming Principal Teachers. Bureaucrats manage, and in the end are rewarded by becoming ... senior bureaucrats somewhere inside the halls of Government, by being a good administrator during your rotation.

And thus begins a virtuous, positive feedback loop of good teachers rotating around a school district reinforcing good teaching, and then ultimately being rewarded by becoming the ultimate teacher. At the same time, administrative entrenchment is avoided because administration is an assigned, rotating task.