I've worked as a teacher in both the UK and in Papua New Guinea, and from my perspective, the largest performance indicator of a child's success is the value their parents place on education.
Maybe this is one of the reasons the Finnish education system works so well. If teaching is an occupation that is culturally considered in high esteem, then it probably follows that schools are considered an important aspect of a child's life. Children are therefore encouraged to do well in schools.
In PNG, students had to pay to go to school. Often a single child was supported through their education by their extended family. Some villages could only afford to send a few students to school. Those students worked exceptionally hard, knowing that it was incumbent upon them to achieve, and eventually payback their family from the proceeds of their future careers.
When working in rural schools in the UK I have encountered many students whose parents, and therefore their children, place little value on education. Often the attitude comes down to the single phrase "I've managed and I did badly at school". Regardless of whether the parent's are rich or poor, the children of these parents often struggle, and achieve below expected results in national examinations.
If we want to raise standards in our schools (both in the UK and in the USA) I think the key is in changing cultural attitudes towards education. This means that we need to stop heaping blame on teachers, administrators, schools and local authorities for perceived inadequacies. We need to make sure that our children value the free education they are receiving.
> the largest performance indicator of a child's success is the value their parents place on education.
+100
> This means that we need to stop heaping blame on teachers, administrators, schools and local authorities for perceived inadequacies.
Well sometimes authorities are to blame. Look, in my country,being a teacher used to be like being a lawyer or a doctor.
It used to be a prestigious profession.
Then some politicians,influencial thinkers came in and said,"we need to focus on children,they have special needs,they are always right and if they cant learn properly it's the adults fault". 30 years forward and the education here is totally broken,teachers are despised both by students and parents who want instant gratification no matter how dumb their offspring is.
But hey,they cant be wrong,they've been told all their life they are "special" and always right ...
> Regardless of whether the parent's are rich or poor, the children of these parents often struggle, and achieve below expected results in national examinations.
The big difference is rich people can literally buy a career for their offspring even if they perform poorly at school. At worse, they'll have a job at mom and pop's business.
That is not buying a career. That's making a deal. The guy said:
> rich people can literally buy a career
I'm not being sarcastic here. It used to be possible to purchase a commission in the military. That is speaking historically.
I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't careers today you can literally purchase. Franchising comes kind of close, and running a taxi in NYC comes close. In ancient times, you could purchase the position of tax collector.
Anyway, that person should not have said "literally" unless he meant it.
Pedanticism of this nature is literally the key to living a frustrated and lonely life. You asked for a good faith reply and I gave it to you. You then decided to play your "trick" and point out that you're actually making a totally unrelated grammatical dispute with the original poster.
I won't be falling for this again and replying to you further in the future.
I wasn't playing a trick. There are times when using "literally" in the figurative sense actually makes sense, even though I don't approve. But this is not one. So I thought maybe the person actually meant it in the non-figurative sense.
If you want evidence that I'm an honest person, look at my comment history. I don't go around tricking people and trying to win arguments by deception. In fact, I frequently call people out for being nasty in various ways, much like you are doing here.
I can understand why you think I'm trying to trick people and I was worried that would happen. That's why I talked about historical and quasi-examples of people buying careers. I didn't want you to think or feel that I was playing a trick.
Please realize language has ambiguities and is not a program that is compiled. Deliberately nitpicking the meaning of words from someone who is generously offering to clarify a statement for you looks like a sign of bad faith. Use a charitable interpretation and figure out the idea he/she was getting at.
Clearly, money/power/fame/beauty can "buy" things even if there is no currency changing hands. That is the point the previous poster was making. Wealth is influence, and influence gets you favors, like a foot into a career.
I disagree. aikah made a statement, which Javert wanted more detail on. jackvalentine claimed to explain what the other poster had said, but it didn't actually match up. He was probably right about what was meant, but maybe he wasn't and there's no real reason for the rest of us to assume it's an accurate clarification of what aikah meant.
If it had been the original poster making the clarification then moaning about 'literally' would have been pedantic, but it was not, and so therefore it was justified - it was making the point that the interpretation given by jackvalentine did not actually clarify the statement as made, and that Javert had assumed something else, more interesting was being said. At that point the conversation depressingly quickly devolves into name calling, threats and patronisation.
> Clearly, money/power/fame/beauty can "buy" things even if there is no currency changing hands. That is the point the previous poster was making.
According to you. Javert was actually using a charitable interpretation when he assumed that the original maker of the statement meant what they had said.
As far as I can tell this entire subthread consists of people uncharitably failing to spot that Javert was not in fact trying to score points, (or believes that language is a program to be compiled, or would benefit from a list of topics to meditate on about the evolution of language) and was merely asking for more detail, and getting upset that he is skeptical their trivial 'explanations' actually explain what was originally meant.
It's mainly a lot of people freaking out about their hot button topics without actually spending any brain power on understanding what the other person is saying and why.
That isn't correct usage. (A falliable human being putting it in one particular dictionary doesn't mean it's correct.)
Even someone who thinks that language should not be rule-based still should not use it, if their goal is to communicate clearly and concisely---since it does not achieve that.
So ultimately, it is incorrect regardless of your views on rules of language.
Outside of a jargon context, the meaning of an English word is what the majority of word users agree it means, because that's what other people understand when the word is used.
"Literally" has been debased by overuse for emphasis, and now it no longer means what it used to mean.
> it is incorrect regardless of your views on rules of
> language
If you've managed to stumble upon an English-language equivalent of Académie française or the Icelandic Language Institute, with the power to define right and wrong in English, I'm sure we'd all love a link... Generally the closest thing we have is "one particular dictionary" (OED) but it aims to be descriptive, rather the prescriptive.
When people change the language in ways that make it inferior for any reason (including due to being confusing), that is incorrect.
It's also incorrect to use wood to build a house that is twice the thickness needed.
It's also incorrect to build a rocket that uses an inferior type of fuel.
These are not matters of social dictat.
We don't need an Academie francaise for English because we should be taught the above principle in school and we should correct others when they make mistakes, in appropriate circumstances.
Another principle: We should change the language to improve it when it is trivial to do so; so even if "literal" were well-established in the opposite meaning, we now know better and should stop doing it. But I do not believe it is well-established, despite the article you linked.
Here is something for you to go away and think about...
You talk about language as being "confusing" or "inferior". You clearly have strongly held criteria for those. Where have they come from?
Has the English language changed in the last 1,000 years? How have you decided which of those changes to adopt? Were all those changes improvements, given your strongly held criteria? What about in the last 500 years? Which year did the version of English that you believe is most "correct" or "superior" occur? Are we currently at "peak" English?
What improvement would modifying the meaning of "literal" bring? Do you know what the word etymology means? Does the etymology of "literal" support your desire to change its meaning? If the root of a word has subtly changed between its Classical roots and emergence in Anglo-Norman French, Middle English, or whatever, which of these is superior? If the root is unclear, and could be Latin or Greek, and has subtly different meanings, which is the right one to use? What about modern English words that have been adopted from - say - Hindi?
...
Having pondered those, perhaps you could examine the rest of your comment. In the phrase "the thickness needed", what criteria define 'needed'? Cost? Durability? Ability to restrict noise? Foundation strength? Could these criteria change from house to house? Could people hold different opinions on those subjects, and both be right? In the phrase "inferior type of fuel", what constitutes 'inferior'? Could safety margins vs cost lead two experts to come up with different opinions on which fuel was superior?
> I've worked as a teacher in both the UK and in Papua New Guinea, and from my perspective, the largest performance indicator of a child's success is the value their parents place on education.
So much this... my parents were both teachers. They both agree the single biggest factor in a child's success is their parents involvement.
Too often "parent involvement" is measured by how often you can drag them to school for useless activities. Really it comes down to parent pressure to make the kid do things that they don't really want to by convincing them it's important.
> Really it comes down to parent pressure to make the kid do things that they don't really want to by convincing them it's important.
The problem is that a large percentage of the stuff that's taught in schools in fact IS more or less useless in later life, except for very specific career paths. Parents know this and pass on this to their kids.
I'm not sure I agree with this. What percentage do you reckon, and what stuff?
You say useless later in "life", but then mention specific career paths. Is education useless if it isn't directly applicable to a currently occupied career? What if they change careers?
It takes a lot more than career specific education to mould a good member of society.
(Disclaimer: I'm German (from Bavaria, other German countries have different education profiles!) and have passed the Abitur exam, which allows me to enter any university course)
Classic example of what most students think as "unneeded" is chemistry, physics and mathematics - while a solid knowledge foundation is certainly required in later life, more detailed knowledge (i'm looking at you, mathematical analysis) may be entirely unneeded if one decides to pursue a career in e.g. history, social studies or other non-math/tech-oriented courses.
On one side we Germans split up our students way too soon (after 4th grade in Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium), but on the other side we split them up too late... it's a highly complex issue.
(A finnish father here - my son started first grade).
I really need to stress one thing finnish system does differently when compared to UK or france for instance (based on a low anecdotal sample size from families moved from there to here):
The kids do considerably less work and the formal stuff kicks in far more later. The learning is structured so most kids enjoy it.
A quote from the article:
"We believe it is important that learning should be enjoyable. And all kids should be happy to go to school."
This!
For us valuing education does not mean watching over homework, pushing long hours or anything like that.
We expect homework gets done and trust teacher administers enough of them.
Valuing education means we value the work the school does and take all school-home interactions seriously but we do not push kids beyond what they can naturally absorb.
"When working in rural schools in the UK I have encountered many students whose parents, and therefore their children, place little value on education. "
Yeah, this would be very weird attitude in finland (where I'm at). Not unheard of but very rare.
Of authorities (and just anecdotal commentary):
Please correct me if I'm wrong but in the practical side one of the biggest differences in the finnish school system when compared to UK is that the formal education seems to kick in later (as I understand it) and with less work load. I.e. the kids are not expected to start doing any homework until they are 7 and the workloads are quite light.
This has been the case for over 30 years. Perhaps this also affects attitudes - the workload is not overbearing and no-one gets left behind.
There are a few things, many impacted by the current economic state in the US today: (doing any of these is a big help as a parent)
1. Being there. With both parents working --a lot, more often than not, kids are left to their own devices, and those devices are the new baby sitter. Games, media, Internet, etc...
While these are not bad things, they do not replace seat time and face time.
Technology can enable, but it takes people to understand people, and we are set with the task of making great people.
Hold that thought...
2. Access to resources.
Kids need a diverse set of experiences to self-identify well enough to understand how to learn how to learn and how they personally can thrive. This varies considerably among people. Parents who bring experiences, tools, mentors, their own time and expertise to the table very significantly augment the work of educators.
3. Learning with your kids.
Learning is infectious. When parents are able to be engaged, participate with their kids, everybody bonds well and everybody gets the benefit of a shared effort to improve. This sets good norms, in terms of growth, etc...
Compare and contrast Dad coming home to down a 40 after doing a 60 hour week, mom doing a 40 herself, and they are tired, checked out, managing the kids, but not investing in those kids. I'm not blaming parents here, just citing an example and it's impacts.
With:
Dad who worked an ordinary 40, mom working part time for "mad money", both of whom have energy sufficient to play with the kids, learn with them, explore hobbies, and pursue their own personal development, sharing that too.
(On a side note here, how we value labor very seriously impacts our education burden)
4. Participation in the school
Where parents can be a part of the program, there are many gains to be had. Volunteer work, kid sports, clubs, tutoring, working with educators for special needs kids, all augment the education investment.
I personally did a lot of this, due to being an adoptive foster parent. The kids needed work, and they had some special needs. Teachers were hungry for help, tips, advice. They wanted to be effective, but the personal research burden for them was high. Teaming up was magic.
One of many examples:
I attended "computer class" at a middle school, where introductory computer literacy was being taught by the "business teacher", and the school thought, business equals computers, so there you go. The introductory material was incomplete, riddled with errors, and I could go on and on.
Frankly, I rewrote a lot of that material and offered to clarify anything that educator needed. We had a few sessions and they helped a lot. Again, good educator, they just needed stuff. Stuff the school wasn't really sourcing for them as they could have. Parents can help identify these things just as much as a school can, and everybody should.
These kids will care for us in our old age. Think about that.
5. Community / peer review of student progress.
What is the goal of education?
When I ask this, I get all sorts of answers, ranging from making kids job ready, to "literacy", etc...
I submit these are the goals:
a. Building good people.
Each of these kids has some potential and it's up to us to tease it out of them. We can do that with diverse experiences, collaboration between educators and parents, and by offering a wide range of possible education options for them.
Some kids are going to be academic, headed for higher education. Some are going to be tactile, or mechanical, and we need those people too. Some will be empathetic, and could be care givers, or performers. Whatever it is, they need to self-identify, and we need to prod them in various ways to tease it out and help them maximize it.
b. Maximize who they are
People are who they are. We can influence this, but to expect everybody to fall into some cookie cutter box or other is nuts! We are much better off keeping their options open, and when they grab hold of something, help them to take for the best ride they can.
c. Good citizens
Our future leaders need to understand government, civics in general, and be critical thinkers. We don't do anywhere near enough here in the US, and there are lot of political reasons for that I'm not going to touch on, but being a good human, and a good citizen is part of education.
d. Learn how to learn and grow to thrive.
These are in no particular order. But the ability to self-learn is so damn empowering we can't afford to miss out on the benefits of it. Not every student will be able to maximize themselves in this way, but a lot of them can, and should.
6. Parents need to get real about the politics of education.
Education in the US is hosed. We've got way too many people flirting with, or in poverty, forcing more labor than is appropriate for parenting, conflicting requirements, standardized tests that hobble good educators while pushing along marginal to poor ones, and we don't even talk much about the educators who just need help!
Funding is at issue, public vs private, "maybe I can get MY kid into a good school, screw everybody else..." Yes, that goes on, and should it really?
We all have to live under the product of our politics here. So why don't we get along and recognize the education debt we are accumulating and it's impact on our future?
None of those goals are partisan things. They are all focused right on the kids and their potential. And they are appropriate for everybody, business, our future leaders, parents, home makers, etc...
And it's more than attitude. Parents can't just trust the system, and the system can't just do the right thing either.
If we want to maximize our young people, and we should, then it's in all our interests to get the raising of them done proper. Blaming won't cut it.
The cost of failures here will accrue. We will pay them, and it won't be pretty, and we could very well have made the right investments early on to avoid the big balloon payments coming due very soon.
Downvoters: Care to comment? It's more productive that way you know. You might have it right? Door is open. Sell me.
While I wait:
I got most of the things I put above, and as a parent, was able to supply most of the above, both to pretty great effect.
For what it's worth, taking blame off the table is rarely popular. Why?
Because then we realize we aren't so exceptional, and that we really should be doing something together on this, and that it's going to involve some real work in the form of face time and seat time.
You will find in your life that is true whether or not it appeals.
Carry on though, but don't think that goes without notice.
Very large numbers of us are not equipped to perform the task well. Of those who are, some challenges, such as socialization, special needs, learning issues, subject matter coverage, all could require considerable involvement with public schools.
Education isn't a trivial investment. I did write a lot about face time and seat time, and the parent working alone, or perhaps in a small group, will find their own time, personal growth, career opportunities, and more strained or blunted due to the real investment required.
Often, it's the kid who suffers where those gaps exist. Secondly, when the kids are suffering, or are abused, say in a religious extreme home school type setting, there is a very real potential for bad outcomes.
Lots more to say here, but I'll just say "do it yourself" isn't a slam dunk, and it's no meaningful option where the greater scope of getting our education back on track is concerned. Point, niche solution at best.
Homeschooling requires at least one dedicated, knowledgeable teacher.
These days, where more and more families have both parents working, sometimes even in multiple jobs, homeschooling is only viable for the upper middle class or above.
The large government run National Household Education Survery which is the best data available shows little difference in homeschool and public income demographics. Over the last 4 surveys('99,'03,'07,'11) homeschoolers have had ~20% in poverty and 50+% within 200% of poverty.
I can't add too much to what ddingus said, but will try to offer just a couple of subtle points.
Maybe this would be different in some other country. But I think parents in the US who expect the school to educate their kids with no oversight or intervention, are leaving too much to chance. Short of homeschooling, there are some specific issues that could fall directly on the shoulders of parents:
1. Preparation of kids starting at age zero.
2. Gauging if your kids are doing well enough by your standards.
3. What happens when things go wrong, e.g., when a kid falls behind or runs into disciplinary problems? So called "involved" parents will either draw on their own instincts, or learn from the network of involved parents, how to guide the school towards a resolution that doesn't involve a lowering of expectations.
Yes. Parents and really not much else but parents. They care the only thing that scale.
Great teachers will do a lot but great teachers don't scale.
It is the parents involvement in their kids education, their insisting on them to do well and to always be on the teachers side rather than on their kids.
"Yes. Parents and really not much else but parents. They care the only thing that scale."
I would claim government policies scale up to the limit within the borders of the said country. What effect they may have depends, but most good stuff in the daily lives of ordinary people in industrialized countries owes quite a lot to government policies (public schools, no child labour, etc).
Great teacher don't scale but improving teachers education thus moving the average more towards "great" does.
The sad fact is that the vast majority of individuals and families in the UK are entire reliant on the state. If you pay a marginal tax of about GBP 20,000 pa you still likely receive more than that in direct value of services. I think the value is much higher, both of services delivered to those in lower tax brackets or lower net tax payers, and the rate of earnings required to net contribute in taxes is much higher also. It's entirely possible that the only net contributors are the maligned "one percenters".
The numbers are subject to wild variation, how you calculate them. But you can pick out anecdotal evidence that is significant. In much of central London, family homes are housing association (QUANGO) or local authority owned, and rents are typically below GBP 100 pwk, I hear 70 or 80 wish, commonly, and less. Whereas the market rental for equivalent homes, is approaching four times that. That's one massive distortion in housing supply. In the extreme, I know of one person who was "forcibly downsized" to a slightly smaller home, still with more bedrooms than they, a single man, needs, caused by need to structurally refurbish the building where he lived, where he was relocated around the corner into a newly refurbished and appointed home, paid GBP 5000 for inconvenience, cost and arrangement of moving all provided, an the market rental value of this man's 78 pound a week hone is over six hundred a week.
It's true, also, there are some really appalling failures in social systems for housing and support, but I live and grew up in a "deprived" area, where I enormous resources are almost thrown at those eligible for public support.
The problem is, that not nay in many cases, is there no viable exist from public support, because low wage earners are able to claim top ups for low or i'd argue illegally poor pay, and many can legally stay īn subsidized housing all their lives, whilst earning market salaries, but I believe the situation is so politicized as to permit no rational debate or discussion. I have been verbally threatened for the very fact I live in a private dwelling, by complete strangers, visitors to neighbors in the same building, such is the actually false politicization of "have and have not" "society".
When I was at prep school, about nine, we had a support math teacher, who regaled us mainly with stories of his time n the Military Police. That was actually good education, but we were flunking any math we didn't study n our own, that year. This teacher also told us of his time in teaching for the ILEA, he Inner London Education Authority, in the mid seventies, not long before he was teaching us. We laughed in disbelief how exams or exam results were banned, for "creating hostility towards the children of the better off families", who, one might surmise, did put a value on their children's education.
Like most so called socialist systems, there has been a enforcement of the lowest common denominator, not a enforcement of what the LCD should be. In result: no self respect, c.f. the quote which spurred my reply here today. That result, no self respect, is the death knell of civilization and yet the panacea to becalm nervous politicians queasy their unsupportable, inept, uneducated, policies risk challenge.
The Daily Mail is not anyone's prime choice for a source for anything, but this interview snippet, with Ray Winston, a actor who grew up around my neighborhood, is very telling:
'I was skint, I couldn't get a job and I hadn't paid my tax,' adds Winstone, who declared himself bankrupt in 1988 and 1993.
'I had two choices. I could either go and sign on and get my flat paid for or go to work.
'I chose to go to work and I paid all my debts off.'
....
[sic] "I could sign on and get my flat paid for"
The DM is known for right wing bias, but Winstone is known for left wing support, and you can make of the whole thing wherever you like, but the truth remains much the same today: you can go and sign on for benefits, and get your rent paid for. That's a amazing thing, if your life falls through the cracks. But it is a way of life. I have had friends explain to me how they chose to "go on the sick", one after a epileptic fit. That person does suffer epilepsy, or something similar, but the fits I witnessed coincided with being involved in a frightening relationship based as far as I could tell, on access to a boyfriend's money to indulge a long term heroin habit. I'd in ten years not seen or known of a fit, before that abusive blow out, and meanwhile her habit had been paid for by renting out her provided home, at a discount to, but still substantial profit on, market rates, whilst she lived with her partner in squats. This is not a exceptional example.
We now have even fourth generation children of families who have never worked a regular job.
And a vast health service burdened in so many ways my head spins.
They took away the notion of self responsibility.
That, as far as I can see it, is my prognosis for the terminal decline that is wreaking havoc in every walk of life.
We call for education "reform".
Reform usually means slow action, changing structures piecemeal or adjusting parameters in a technocratic ideal.
But, blinkers off, what took generations to rot, to completely decompose, may not be resuscitated if the conditions of good growth are poisoned soil.
Please forgive me my outpourings.
I lucked out in early life in so many ways.
And I screwed up big time, about a decade or so ago.
It's taken ten years work, not nine to five or even hours I could count, but a wholesale reeducation of this once super privileged, highly educated, young man, to just begin to reclaim the advantages I had.
What hope, then, those who fell through the same gaps in life, which I did, who did not benefit from a unrivalled academic education? People think I boast, rest on laurels, when I mention my young years. BS. I am highlighting just how harsh this system is. And the safety net that is provided, amazing though it be on paper, is totally alien to people of comparable upbringing to me (distorted also by genuinely Georgian era parents) and I could surmise my experience as being that alienation is in fact a class distinction, highly archive in this (to parrot John Major)" classless society". Rot. Class divisions have never been more acute. If Marx did not choke himself to death whilst reading our papers, he might laugh at the ridicule of social inversion, where now the lowest are elevated to national priorities, where the intelligence of the proletariat as worshipped by Tolstoy has become the fattened (on junk food), indigent (on "benefits" and "entitlements")and uneducated (c.f. all the above) idle class.
This was the reality, into which Tony Blair, and coterie, believes mass immigration would instill a work ethic and a hunger for self betterment. I and my friends often receive taunts, for being friends across race lines, in a majority immigrant, second to third gen, neighborhood. So I could care less for racialist nonsense. But consider the sheer scale of the solution that was promoted, to solve a problem that whilst occasionally identified, is still verboten speech in true debate.
As programmers, however many LOCs we debug a day, we should be gravely concerned as to the trivialization where supers, "3M" ideals, of twenty years ago are pocket sized stolen currency for hits of crack, and the technology is more seen as a vector against which state must protect children, or swoop in SWAT style upon admittedly amoral copyists of entertainment. The charade of the BBC, on the recent SONY hack, tells us all; a self proclaimed hacker was not interviewed but subjected to faux indignation, asked what right he had to spoil innocent childrens' appreciation of their new PS4s. We ought to be indignant instead at the presumption that technology exists for such trivial gratification. I guess anything which is potentially apolitical, is soon co-opted by political interests. But where is the promise of individual capability that once switched on and delivered a BASIC interpreter at a prompt? There's progress, measured by landfills, but where is that promise? There is the political disaster of technology, as affects us all. I want to scream at adverts for employees, asking for skills in using Microsoft word. Not because word might actually need ability in macro scripting, but because I thought the necessity to specify elementary ability with computers should have died out by the time I was in my thirties. I guess, too, that much of life is a disappointment. Software became a pseudo- religious ground, arguably, and all systems close to money will fight within themselves. But lately it seems to me every website was reinventing the wheel of a basic text editor, and I started to cry a little, inside. Not least because perfection never came for a word processor. But because I don't know in what direction this technology is going, not beyond the "d'oh-horizon" of jargon, the realization of the omits of monikers such as "cloud computing", but more generally, I could not see a direction. The proverbial revolution seems to have come and gone without revolving much at all. But look now, and everything I see does amaze me, it's wonderful. The riches make me cry. But they seem to make those who would rather attain riches without any work, cry the louder. I have never imagined there could be such a polarization of have and have not, for real, in my lifetime, growing Jo as I did, in the safe illusion of the late seventies, but I feral it now, and what we do, and no amount of web n.x hipsterism is changing this detrimental dynamic. One is only cool for so long, and the cooling cycle is on better than web time, beyond nay hope that politicians, or those involved, might ever catch up, let along "get with" any program.
If I go on, i'll be searching for New Year's Resolutions, so i'll just beg once again forgiveness for my personal outflowing of worry, and say a little prayer that there's the ingenuity to find solutions that are not mere rehashes or inversions of the same old problems.
I am from the UK and,based on my experience of attitudes to education, will say that a lot of white people are going to be in for a shock as they and their children will be working for immigrant bosses.
"In my experience, children of immigrants often have a better work-ethic than the children of non-immigrants"
Doubt that divides as nicely down race lines as you might think, though. I'm too lazy to run the numbers, but this[1] seems to suggest 50% of foreign-born population in the UK come from predominantly white countries...
Maybe this is one of the reasons the Finnish education system works so well. If teaching is an occupation that is culturally considered in high esteem, then it probably follows that schools are considered an important aspect of a child's life. Children are therefore encouraged to do well in schools.
In PNG, students had to pay to go to school. Often a single child was supported through their education by their extended family. Some villages could only afford to send a few students to school. Those students worked exceptionally hard, knowing that it was incumbent upon them to achieve, and eventually payback their family from the proceeds of their future careers.
When working in rural schools in the UK I have encountered many students whose parents, and therefore their children, place little value on education. Often the attitude comes down to the single phrase "I've managed and I did badly at school". Regardless of whether the parent's are rich or poor, the children of these parents often struggle, and achieve below expected results in national examinations.
If we want to raise standards in our schools (both in the UK and in the USA) I think the key is in changing cultural attitudes towards education. This means that we need to stop heaping blame on teachers, administrators, schools and local authorities for perceived inadequacies. We need to make sure that our children value the free education they are receiving.
edit - for clarity of country name