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SORRY. but if you compare Shanghai and Boston (or any other city in US) in the PISA test, Boston will look like some African country. I am sorry. but it is the truth. US really need to improve its education system. It has the best universities in the world but not the primary or secondary level education.
Absolutely untrue. You need to read up on how these figures are obtained- the truth is that we hear the tired line about the US's education falling behind due to test scores, but low scores from certain pockets are what drag these down since these scores do indeed come from a full, nationwide collection from all schools. Many individual areas do incredibly well-and is a valid topic to discuss since people want to bring up Shanghai- in fact just some elite schools in Shanghai- as some gleaming example of China doing much better. So you take the best of the best schools in China and try to compare them to entire nations elsewhere, of course they will look good. But if you do the same with certain schools or school districts here and they will match or beat the test scores shown even from those Shanghai schools.
The fact is we have many, many school districts here in the US that do very well, with great top notch test scores. Education in this country is far from poor- there is really not a whole lot someone could say needs to be changed in many of these districts. The problem lies in many of the inner city cities/districts and those in the poorer areas, those do not perform well, don't have much support and lack funding and so test scores really reflect these conditions.
And on another comment made- yes overall China is considered a poor country. All you have to do is look at the per capita GDP numbers- it puts China WAY down on the list of nations in the world- nowhere near any of the developed countries. Sure you have pockets of people with better incomes and living standards in parts of the bigger cities, but as a whole the country has a long way to go. Some people just don't realize this- they see pictures of some gleaming modern skyscrapers or shopping malls in Shanghai and say China is a great place now and that everyone over there is living a comfortable life- but that is of course completely untrue. Driving around I quickly realized those cities are still very much on the "developing" level, starkly different than what you'd expect to see in fully developed countries. And getting out across the countryside really is an eye opener- horrible looking conditions with people living in great poverty.
One thing my wife (who is Chinese) has commented is amazing to her is that here in the US when driving cross country, getting out into even the remote rural areas, when you see small towns, acreages, or farms- the people live in conditions much like they would in even the nice metro areas- comfortable modern houses, with all the same modern conveniences, cars in the driveway, etc- really no apparent drop-off in living standard like you see when getting out into the Chinese countryside. Getting the entire nation to that living standard is when you realize your nation has made it to the developed level- and China has a LONG ways to go before even getting close to this- especially when even large sections of the big richer cities are still not even at that level yet.
And again, when talking about the biggest economy, nobody refers to PPP- it is total dollars, which country has the biggest gross production each year. And on that scale, China is only about half way there, though surely will reach the U.S.'s level in the coming years due to the sheer size of that country, with 4 times the U.S.'s population. They would have to have an incredible crash in their economy with a lack of any recovery to not get to that level eventually.
And on the per capita GDP figure, which is the most important in figuring out how well the country is doing all the way down to the average individual- as I said there are many, many, many countries ahead of China at this point- and with this figure you begin to see just how big total overall numbers can be deceiving, due to the large population.
And on another comment made- yes overall China is considered a poor country. All you have to do is look at the per capita GDP numbers- it puts China WAY down on the list of nations in the world- nowhere near any of the developed countries. Sure you have pockets of people with better incomes and living standards in parts of the bigger cities, but as a whole the country has a long way to go. Some people just don't realize this- they see pictures of some gleaming modern skyscrapers or shopping malls in Shanghai and say China is a great place now and that everyone over there is living a comfortable life- but that is of course completely untrue. Driving around I quickly realized those cities are still very much on the "developing" level, starkly different than what you'd expect to see in fully developed countries. And getting out across the countryside really is an eye opener- horrible looking conditions with people living in great poverty.
It kind of makes you wonder what exactly is the point of building cities with huge 1000 foot skyscrapers if your country doesn't have the GDP per capita to match that appearance? Kind of like the old Texas saying "Big hat no cattle."
Nonetheless, I would still like to visit China some day - especially Hong Kong, Shanghai and the Great Wall. I find it to be a fascinating country.
SORRY. but if you compare Shanghai and Boston (or any other city in US) in the PISA test, Boston will look like some African country. I am sorry. but it is the truth. US really need to improve its education system. It has the best universities in the world but not the primary or secondary level education.
Idk about Boston but that could be true compared to other US cities.
most of the educated people in America live in suburban communities.
various "best cities in the world" rankings (quality of life, crime, education, etc..) make the US worse than it is because they only include our large cities Dallas, Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis but don't include cities like Plano, Novi, Schaumburg and St. Charles.
But HK also scores high in the test. I would not believe Sh students are any less hardworking than HK students. As a matter of fact, some second or third tier cities in CHina, students are more motivated than SH or BJ because the competition there is fiercer.
HK scores high, undoubtedly. I also know that Shanghai has a remarkably great school system that's been trying to push out reforms--the issue being that there is actually a fairly large population of undocumented migrants who, if they to take their children with them, have their kids go to what are essentially shadow schools outside the system. Here's the big issue--the other countries have been trying to do a comprehensive review of their own system taking in the entire country and its entire socioeconomic system.
Shanghai's score alone can not be taken as representative as the whole of China. That would be ludicrously stupid. Why not just take the top scores of the wealthiest metro area of the US then? That'd look great, but it would not be representative of the US. It would be misleading. So this brings you to two possibilities--either you are a bad product of the Chinese school system and weren't able to reason this out or you are a bad product of Chinese society which finds nothing wrong with consciously making one misleading statement after another. That or you can use that as a bad accusation and a good example of why you can't take the particulars of a small sample size (you) and extrapolate it to a nation (China).
Quote:
Originally Posted by gen2010
it is just offensive that someone claims that China is dirt poor. New York city has half of its population near poverty line. how is that? NYC is poorer than China.
I'm not sure if you actually tried to read anything I wrote. Would you like to know how quotes work?
Anyhow. NYC is poorer than China in what sense? In that it's smaller? Sure, NYC is smaller.
You understand that poverty lines are determined differently per country, right? You should also understand that if you wanted to measure using something like GDP per capita that the poorest of NYC's five boroughs has a higher GDP per capita (nominal) than every single Chinese administrative unit aside from the SARs and a pretty similar GDP per capita (ppp) to the wealthiest. The Bronx is by far the poorest of the five boroughs and yet it ranks among the wealthiest per capita compared to Chinese administrative units? Is that really the point you want to be making?
It's PPP. In nominal GDP the US will still be ahead for some decades. PPP GDP doesn't mean much for a country, it should be compared per capita, it's the purchase power of a country's consumer for standard goods. PPP GDP doesn't reflect the financial power of a country.
Did you know India is ahead of Japan ? Or South Africa ahead of the Netherlands ?
This.
Also, China is well known to obtain a lot of its overall result with accounting tricks. The ghost cities are caused because they mandate massive amounts of building for which there is no market, and then add the spending to GDP, for example.
Also, China is well known to obtain a lot of its overall result with accounting tricks. The ghost cities are caused because they mandate massive amounts of building for which there is no market, and then add the spending to GDP, for example.
There is no denying in my comment that China is still in its developing phase and on a per capita basis it is poor. Of course, GDP is not a measure of wealth or welling being of its ordinary people. But rather GDP is important in the sense that China is a geopolitically important country. The importance of China politically, economically, militarily, is becoming apparent by each day. And it is challenging the US supremacy in all fronts
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
HK scores high, undoubtedly. I also know that Shanghai has a remarkably great school system that's been trying to push out reforms--the issue being that there is actually a fairly large population of undocumented migrants who, if they to take their children with them, have their kids go to what are essentially shadow schools outside the system. Here's the big issue--the other countries have been trying to do a comprehensive review of their own system taking in the entire country and its entire socioeconomic system.
Shanghai's score alone can not be taken as representative as the whole of China. That would be ludicrously stupid. Why not just take the top scores of the wealthiest metro area of the US then? That'd look great, but it would not be representative of the US. It would be misleading. So this brings you to two possibilities--either you are a bad product of the Chinese school system and weren't able to reason this out or you are a bad product of Chinese society which finds nothing wrong with consciously making one misleading statement after another. That or you can use that as a bad accusation and a good example of why you can't take the particulars of a small sample size (you) and extrapolate it to a nation (China).
I'm not sure if you actually tried to read anything I wrote. Would you like to know how quotes work?
Anyhow. NYC is poorer than China in what sense? In that it's smaller? Sure, NYC is smaller.
You understand that poverty lines are determined differently per country, right? You should also understand that if you wanted to measure using something like GDP per capita that the poorest of NYC's five boroughs has a higher GDP per capita (nominal) than every single Chinese administrative unit aside from the SARs and a pretty similar GDP per capita (ppp) to the wealthiest. The Bronx is by far the poorest of the five boroughs and yet it ranks among the wealthiest per capita compared to Chinese administrative units? Is that really the point you want to be making?
So what about US GDP? I read some medicare doctors are paid something like 20 million each person each year. So this 20 million (made solely from screwing the government) is also part of US GDP. I would rather put this 20 million to investment in infrastructure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cachibatches
This.
Also, China is well known to obtain a lot of its overall result with accounting tricks. The ghost cities are caused because they mandate massive amounts of building for which there is no market, and then add the spending to GDP, for example.
China is like a whole bunch of Dubais on steroids.
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