Economic Time Bomb: U.S. Teens Are Among the Worst at Math

Wall Street Journal ^ | December 7, 2004 | JUNE KRONHOLZ

[Antoninus]

Is this only public school students, I wonder?

[valkyrieanne]

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.

To my knowledge, no one has compared homeschooled students to those who truly *are* their peers - i.e. students in good suburban schools, or specialized high schools that require an entrance exam. It's not enough to compare Iowa Basic test scores and say, ha, ha, homeschoolers do better. So do the vast majority of kids of middle- or upper-middle class income, and parents who motivate them.

The problem with these normed tests with gigantic populations are that they mix and average in a *huge* variety of students, including all the inner city school kids who are barely literate (either in English *or* Spanish.)

Better yet, compare homeschoolers to the students *in the district in which they reside.* Many already live in school districts that are quite high -performing. Compare them to *those* students in the college-bound and honors program, and see what happens. (I personally think they would show up well, but at this point it's speculation.)

[snowsislander]

t would be interesting to see the real numbers here. Does anyone know where the data is? (already tried googling.) I would akso like to see the actual numbers broken out at the high end.

You can find it here.

The numbers are in the back, and are broken out by what I found to be surprising number of social factors.

There are two very interesting graphs on pages 41 and 45. While Korea, Hong Kong, Finland, and New Zealand all had a very solid performance, on the high end Japan really did well. Their 90% percentile students were well above every other country's, although Japan's bottom 10% were outpaced by both Korea and Finland.

[Condor51]

"i've found ... . i tutor people... it seems each has an ingrained block ... in all fairness, i don't know if i could ..."

And your 'block' is apparently capitalization.

(No offense, but you left yourself wide open for that)

[AmishDude]

Is she in high school? If so, she probably doesn't understand either subject. (Mathematics really begins for most people with either the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus or a thorough understanding of linear algebra.)

[Nov3]

it seems each has an ingrained block which isn't that hard to remove. in all fairness, i don't know if i could teach a full class.

I used to tutor too and found that if a student would listen to the basic laws of algebra (i.e A+B=B+A) and try to uderstand them, they did well. What was shocking was the number of students who really weren't taught the basic laws of algebra in all the years of grade school and high school.

[Brytani]

When I first went back to college a few years back, I started at a local community college. After years of not even looking at anything more than balancing my checkbook, I had to take a remedial math course to brush up.

The class began with fractions, ratio, percentages and ended with simple factoring of binomials and polynomials. We were not allowed to use a calculator until we reached the unit on factoring.

You are correct, we had many students that flunked out of the class simply because they could not perform basic mathmatics without a calculator. What really suprised me was the amount of people in the class who had just graduated from high school, or had only been out of school a year or two. Yes, a few of them flunked out.

[snowsislander]

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.

You are correct in your bet: homeschooled children were not included.

[harbinger of doom]

Gi-normous!

[valkyrieanne]

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.

I did graduate work in biology and taught freshman labs. My daughter's honors biology class in high school (freshman year) was the equivalent of the freshman college class I helped teach. About half the high school class (a good 15 weeks or more) was biochemistry, and they spent weeks on genetics (DNA as opposed to middle-school heredity stuff.)

[Tribune7]

school choice ping

[snowsislander]

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.

Germany does this (as does the U.K.), but Japan doesn't -- its system more like the U.S. in this respect.

[NRA1995]

"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"

But boy, do they feel GOOOOD about themselves!

[TChris]

Here's a theory: This decline is partly due to the current academic disdain for any form of rote learning. Many (most?) kids I know are discouraged from actually learning to do math themselves, instead being taught to use a calculator and a computer.

There are some subject which are learned best by rote/memorization and lots of repetition. Math is one of those. If teachers (and parents) continue to hold repetition and memorization in such contempt, math will continue to suffer, IMO.

[maestro]

Economic Time Bomb: U.S. Teens Are Among the Worst at Math ....

And,........New American-Islam needs slaves/subjects.....NOT citizens!

Thank you, NEA.

/sarcasm

[mrs tiggywinkle]

She's in 9th grade. We've used Saxon for math and learned there isn't enough geometry offered to do well on the SAT/ACT so she's finishing a geometry book by January then beginning Algebra 2. She uses Apologia Biology and is active in a lab group..and truly loves the subject. She was so excited to get her microscope and wants to learn more about DNA. She comes to me all excited to explain her latest discovery - while my eyes are glazing over - lol! She seems to fully understand what she has learned thus far, and has rec'd nothing short of a perfect 100% on each test.

Are you in a math/science profession?

[cynicom]

Not a big problem. Running students for 12 years that can barely read and write is a problem.

[Lancey Howard]

70% of kids need a calculator to perform basic arithmetic while the other 45% do not.

[bowzer313]

"Alternative headline:
U.S. math teachers among worst in industrialized world."

Very good! You've got it!

[mrs tiggywinkle]

Can you lead my daughter's biology lab next semester?! I'll feed you.