Posted on 12/07/2004 6:33:12 AM PST by OESY
Fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. rank near the bottom of industrialized countries in math skills, ahead of only Portugal, Mexico and three other nations, according to a new international comparison that economists say is bad news for long-term economic growth.
Two of the study's most unsettling findings: The percentage of top-achieving math students in the nation is about half that of other industrialized countries, and the gap between scores of whites and minority groups -- who will make up an increasing share of the labor force in coming decades -- is enormous.
The U.S. ranked 24th among 29 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsored the study. Using the OECD's adjusted average score of 500 points, the U.S. scored 483 -- 61 points behind top-scoring Finland and 51 points behind Japan. In a wider group that also included 10 nonmembers, many of them developing nations, the U.S. tied Latvia for 27th place. The bad news is likely to be repeated next week with the expected release of another international math comparison. The U.S. scored near the bottom of that survey, the Trends in International Math and Science Survey, or Timss, when it was conducted four years ago....
In the test given last year, most of the teenagers were in ninth and 10th grade. Their poor showing is expected to provide fodder for President Bush, who wants to include high schoolers in his No Child Left Behind education program. That idea is likely to face stiff opposition from some members of Congress and many state legislators, who oppose any further expansion of the federal government's role in education....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
This is a perfect example of how to tell a half truth or how to lie with statistics. I would suggest that if you just looked at whites our scores would go up. If you just looked at American Asians they would rank at or above Asian countries. If you took the Hispanic scores they would be down around where Mexico is.
Most of the countries above us have few minority groups to contend with. If you add in the reading part of the test, some of those above us that do have large minorities, like Germany, fall below us. Further, by the time this age group is tested, many countries like Japan and Germany have moved lower performers out of the system and into trade schools.
If you want to talk about the problems we do have so be it, but this stuff is BS.
"U.S. math teachers among worst in industrialized world."
There are some good ones, but your statement is at least "directionally correct". I've encountered many math teachers whose lesson plans consist almost entirely of completing handouts and doing number puzzles. They don't lecture because they simply don't know the material.
As long as we have the H1B program, it doesn't matter. ;)
When I was working toward my CPA certification over half the class was American.
butt wear still pritty good at englush, ain't we?
"I would disagree. When I went to engineering school, over half the class were foreigners."
Total agreement with you. My husband studies with a class that is 2/3 foreign born. While completing his chosen degree, he could take 3 additional Math classes to Minor in Mathematics.
I agree. But one group was left out of this test, I'll bet: American kids who are homeschooled, and continue to perform circles around their public-school-educated peers.
More and more, there is a graphical user interface ("GUI") being applied to more and more tasks, and math computation skill is not required.
There are more jobs for GUI makers, but there, is where strong math computational skill is a plus that is matched by the supply of students who are so armed.
Technically, I'm in the GUI maintenance business. I keep the GUI's going for my bosses, clients, customers.
GUI is fast becoming the no. 1 industry, world-wide.
Except for France, nonoe of these countries have large relatively uneducated demographic groups that go to poor schools & have a culture of resisting education, and of condemning educational achievement.
The article also mentions that there are "half as many top tier math students in the US." Yes, proportional to our population, that's probably true - but then again, our population is ten times larger than that of Iceland (300,000) and over six times larger than Finland (6,000,000), and I seriously doubt if either Iceland or Finland have large demographic subgroups that are poorly educated or entirely uneducated (especially in the native language.) So *of course* proportionately we're going to have less "top tier" students.
Finally, most of these countries (as far as I know) begin tracking students into vocational vs. academic tracks from the sixth grade on. Do the vocational students participate in the same testing pool & database that's being compared to American students? I think not. After the TIMS test of four years ago (where Americans also scored in about the same place as in this recent survey), a school administrator told me that while her school was picked to participate in the TIMS study, they were to test *everyone* in the school, not just the college-bound; not just the AP students. If so, then this whole international comparison is entirely bogus, because the groups being compared are *not* the same.
Yes, until you get into college and find out that it's not all nature study, as you've been led to believe, but functions mostly on the molecular level, with plenty of high-end math involved. A cruel joke to play on high school kids.
Biology is my daughter's second favorite subject...math being her first.
"The gap between scores of whites and minority groups . . . . is enormous"
Well? How enormous?
The test is racist against Americans!!!
Even then, that's a very concentrated subset of biology that much of the profession avoids. Honestly, it's a rare Ph.D. biologist that knows any true mathematics.
bingo. :o)
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