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  3. Education Study Finds U. S. Falling Behind [A] Teachers in the United States earn less relative to national income than their co

Education Study Finds U. S. Falling Behind [A] Teachers in the United States earn less relative to national income than their co

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问题             Education Study Finds U. S. Falling Behind
[A] Teachers in the United States earn less relative to national income than their counterparts in many industrialized countries, yet they spend far more hours in front of the classroom, according to a major new international study.
[B] The salary differentials are part of a pattern of relatively low public investment in education in the United States compared with other member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group in Paris that compiled the report. Total government spending on educational institutions in the United States slipped to 4. 8 percent of gross domestic product in 1998, falling under the international average—5 percent—for the first time.
[C] "The whole economy has grown faster than the education system, " Andreas Schleicher, one of the report’s authors, explained. "The economy has done very well, but teachers have not fully benefit. " The report, due out today, is the sixth on education published since 1991 by the organization of 30 nations, founded in 1960, and now covering much of Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
[D] In addition to the teacher pay gap, the report shows the other countries have begun to catch up with the United States in higher education; college enrollment has grown by 20 percent since 1995 across the group, with one in four young people now earning degrees. For the first time, the United States’ college graduation rate, now at 33 percent, is not the world’s highest. Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Britain have surpassed it.
[E] The United States is also producing fewer mathematics and science graduates than most of the other member states. And, the report says, a college degree produces a greater boost in income here while the lack of a high school diploma imposes a bigger income penalty. "The number of graduates is increasing, but that stimulates even more of a demand—there is no end in sight," Mr. Schleicher said. "The demand for skill, clearly, is growing faster than the supply that is coming from schools and colleges."
[F] The report lists the salary for a high school teacher in the United States with 15 years experience as $36,219, above the international average of $31,887 but behind seven other countries and less than 60 percent of Switzerland’s $62,052. Because teachers in the Unites States have a heavier classroom load—teaching almost a third more hours than their counterparts abroad—their salary per hour of actual teaching is $ 35 , less than the international average of $41 (Denmark, Spain and Germany pay more than $50 per teaching hour, South Korea $77). In 1994, such a veteran teacher in the United States earned 1. 2 times the average per capita income whereas in 1999 the salary was just under the national average. Only the Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland and Norway pay their teachers less relative to national income; in South Korea, teachers actually earn 2. 5 times the national average. Teacher pay accounts for 56 percent of what the United States spends on education, well below the 67 percent average among the group of countries.
[G] The new data come as the United States faces a shortage of two million teachers over the next decade, with questions of training, professionalism and salaries being debated by politicians local and national. Joost Yff, an international expert at the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, said training for teachers is comparable among most of the nations in the study, and that they are all dealing with similar issues of raising standards and increasing professionalism.
[H] Though the United States lags behind in scores on standardized tests in science and mathematics, students here get more instruction in those subjects, the report shows. The average 14-year-old American spent 295 hours in math and science classes in 1999, far more than the 229 international average; only Austria (370 hours), Mexico (367) and New Zealand (320) have more instruction in those subjects. Middle-schoolers here spend less time than their international counterparts studying foreign languages and technology, but far more hours working on physical education and vocational skills. High school students in the United States are far more likely to have part-time jobs: 64 percent of Americans ages 15 to 19 worked while in school, compared with an international average of 31 percent (only Canada and the Netherlands, with 69 percent, and Denmark, with 75 percent, were higher).
[I] One place the United States spends more money is on special services for the disabled and the poor. More than one in four children here are in programs based on income—only five other countries serve even 1 in 10—and nearly 6 percent get additional resources based on physical or mental handicaps, twice or three times the rate in other countries.
[J] The report shows a continuing shift in which the United States is losing its status as the most highly educated among the nations. The United States has the highest level of high school graduates ages 55 to 64, but falls to fifth, behind Norway, Japan, South Korea, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, among ages 25 to 34. Among college graduates, it leads in the older generation but is third behind Canada and Japan in the younger cohort (一群). While the portion of Americans with high school diplomas remains at 88 percent across age groups, the average age among member countries is rising. It has gone from 58 percent of those ages 45 to 54, to 66 percent of those ages 35 to 44 and 72 percent of those ages 25 to 34. A higher percentage of young people in Norway, Japan, South Korea, the Czech Republic and Switzerland have degrees than in the United States.
[K] "The U. S. has led the development in college education and making education sort of accessible for everyone," Mr. Schleicher said. "It’s now becoming the norm.
From the passage we learn about Finland surpasses the U. S. in college graduation rate.
选项
答案D
解析 题干大意：从这篇文章我们可以了解到芬兰的大学生毕业率超过了美国。由题干中“college graduation rate”可以定位到D段第二句话。该句提到“美国大学的毕业率现在是33％，第一次不是世界最高，芬兰、荷兰、新西兰和英国已经超过美国了”，与题干相吻合。
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