American High School Students Win World’s Hardest Math Competition–Again!

Time for some good news.  Despite what our mainstream media says, some Americans can still get a good education here.  Also note that many of these students are the children of immigrants.  

American High School Students Win World’s Hardest Math Competition–Again!

https://dianeravitch.net/2018/08/04/american-high-school-students-win-worlds-hardest-math-competition-again/

Our kids are the best in the world!

And most of the kids on the winning team are children of immigrants (attention, D.J. Trump and Stephen Miller, the Trump administration’s point person on keeping immigrants out).

Last month, the United States made an extraordinary achievement: For the third time in four years, it won the International Mathematical Olympiad.

This is staggeringly impressive. The Math Olympiad is the hardest and most prestigious math competition for high school students in the world. University professors often cannot solve more than one or two of the six problems on the exam. Since 1978, Math Olympiad gold medalists have made up more than a third of the winners of the Fields Medal, the Nobel Prize equivalent for mathematics.

The team, led by mathematics professor Po-Shen Loh of Carnegie Mellon University, is about as American as you can get. After all, its members celebrated their victory by going to McDonald’s. But in this time of charged debates about immigration, it is worth noting that many of the team members are second- or third-generation immigrants. Loh, in fact, is the son of immigrant parents from Singapore. The team’s deputy leader, Sasha Rudenko, is the son of Ukrainian immigrants.

nan said:
Time for some good news.  Despite what our mainstream media says, some Americans can still get a good education here.  Also note that many of these students are the children of immigrants.  


American High School Students Win World’s Hardest Math Competition–Again!
https://dianeravitch.net/2018/08/04/american-high-school-students-win-worlds-hardest-math-competition-again/

Our kids are the best in the world!

And most of the kids on the winning team are children of immigrants (attention, D.J. Trump and Stephen Miller, the Trump administration’s point person on keeping immigrants out).

Trump did say he loves the poorly educated.

Attention, D.J. Trump and Stephen Miller - here you find another reason to get rid of the intelligent. 

The history of bashing the American education system goes way beyond Trump and is not just limited to Republicans. 

wonderful win - congratulations!   

No girls  this year, though. That’s a little sad. 

And the headline higher up on the blog, about the multi-million dollar overpayment to charter schools?! Excuse me??? Perhaps the kids can help with checking the books...

joanne said:
wonderful win - congratulations!   


No girls  this year, though. That’s a little sad. 
And the headline higher up on the blog, about the multi-million dollar overpayment to charter schools?! Excuse me??? Perhaps the kids can help with checking the books...

 Not sure about why no girls. 

Yes, we have a problem with the corporatization of education. Lots of questionable practices in that area, including charter schools.

Sometimes it’s just harder for girls to shine in certain subjects/schools, even when they’re capable, because competition is ‘naturally’ designated more of a male activity. Even these days. If not by school faculty then by student peers. 

How many of these winners are products of public schools?

joanne said:
Sometimes it’s just harder for girls to shine in certain subjects/schools, even when they’re capable, because competition is ‘naturally’ designated more of a male activity. Even these days. If not by school faculty then by student peers. 

 There actually is a girl on the team.  She's on the extreme left in the photo holding the sign.

Red_Barchetta said:
How many of these winners are products of public schools?

 Not sure.  I looked at the information for the team, but did not see high schools listed.  I'm sure at least some, if not all are from public schools.  American schools, when controlled for things like poverty, are world class.  A lot of the bashing you hear in the media is BS.

nan said:

Red_Barchetta said:
How many of these winners are products of public schools?

 Not sure.  I looked at the information for the team, but did not see high schools listed.  I'm sure at least some, if not all are from public schools.  American schools, when controlled for things like poverty, are world class.  A lot of the bashing you hear in the media is BS.

 the schools:

The six members of the team — all males — are Ankan Bhattacharya (International Academy East, Troy, Mich.); Michael Kural (Greenwich High School, Riverside, Conn.); Allen Liu (Penfield Senior High School, Penfield, N.Y.); Junyao Peng (Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science, Princeton, N.J.); Ashwin Sah (Jesuit High School, Portland, Ore.); and Yuan Yao (Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H.).

nan, her name didn't seem to be listed...she seemed to be one of those host-greeters these events always have. 

If I misread, I do apologise. Still it's a shame if there's only one.

Edited to add: I see in drummerboy's post that it says the team is all-male.

In fact, the top 3 teams are all-male. 

https://www.imo-official.org/year_country_r.aspx?year=2018 

Here are the problems they had to solve! Hope you have more luck with them than I did...

https://www.imo-official.org/download_file.aspx?file=dummy.pdf 

OK, so they put a girl in the picture but she is not on the team.  I'm not even going to try those math problems. 

2 are Public, 1 Catholic school and the others Private. 

ElizMcCord said:
2 are Public, 1 Catholic school and the others Private. 

 Well they won for the third time in four years so there are more to be included in the list  However, I think it makes sense to figure that students who are extraordinarily gifted in math might want to go to private schools or get scholarships.