Students’ Lower Educational Performance in the USA: A Systemic Macrolevel Explanation

Abstract

In this paper a model is developed to explore some of the most important macro level factors that are responsible for lower student educational performance in the USA compared to most other developed nations. The underlying theme of the conceptual framework which guides the basic premise comes from Karl Marx’s notion of political economy and Talcott Parson’s theory of voluntaristic positivism. To test the conceptual model, data have been procured from various international sources in aggregate secondary form. The conclusions drawn in the final form relied on utilizing simple cross-comparability of aggregate data rather than complex statistical techniques due to earlier establishment of many of the assumptions of the model in various other literature as well as missing data and limited number of cases. The analysis based on comparative aggregate level data demonstrates that the lower educational performance in the USA is not an outcome by accident, but rather an output of a well-designed system inherent in the structure of the US political economy. The findings suggest a large scale macrolevel intervention involving structural changes in the US political economy to achieve any noticeable changes in the educational gain. The results further suggest that impact of microlevel intervention will be slow paced, sporadic, and tenuous.